New Raw 2 Trailer
 

Well, IGN Xbox posted new footage of Raw 2: Ruthless Aggression, I guess in anticipation of it's full unveiling at e3 next week. the game looks really nice (albeit some of the scenes make the characters look a tad too shiny). The move animation looks really nice, and they seem to find a way to work with Top Rope finishers even though it seems to be a good and bad thing.

http://xbox.ign.com/articles/401/401660p1.html

Insider only...

:(

The animations and graphics in that game are SCARY real. My jaw literally dropped. Now lets hope they get the engine revamp right this time.

Yeah, those animations are awesome. Probably the best I have ever seen.

Looks amazing...

1) The Rock looks plastic. (nobody else does)

2) The crowd outside the front rows look weird... but the crowd in the front area looks excelent.

other than that I see no flaws, just from looking at this game I can tell they put a huge amount of work into it.

Bah, I'm not impressed at all.

What the ****? Benoit's head butt and RVD's frog splash are executed while you are on the mat? What's up with that? And Steiner's Screwdriver was way to exaggerated

Ranzid... how much wrestling do you actually watch?

Awe come on Strangler, give him a break, I got a rather good laugh out of that comment to be honest.

I wonder if he will complain about the Rock Bottom and Stone Cold Stunner being done from a standing position.

You guys missunderstood, yes the opponent has to be on the mat, but the moves shouldn't be done while YOU are on the mat. If you look at the movie Benoit is on the mat, tosses the guy, and then climb the turnbuckle. It shouldn't be that way, you should be able to put the guy on the mat where you want him to, and then climb the turnbuckle on your own. Get it?

Nice way to avoid Strangler's question there Ranzid. ;)

And lets be honest. It's quite obvious you hate the Xbox... so put one and two together... and yes...

It looks to me that the ***** Frog Splash and Diving headbutt are sequence moves. Meaning that you perform the move by hitting your special grapple, do a slam or move that puts your opponent on the ground and then the engine takes your opponent to the corner and executes the high flying move. This might actually be a good idea if they are going for the whole simulation feel (as they recently claimed) as it would place your opponent in a perfect position every time and make the match feel more "real".

But more to the point, your arguments are pretty weak considering how dead on the animations are and the look of the wrestlers (yes, the Rock looks like he oiled himself with a paint brush, but other than that they look great).

If you are not impressed with that video, especially considering the game is still 6 months from release, I have no idea what it would take to impress you.

Ok, about Stranglers question: Why did you ask that? Because I called the 5* frog splash by it's real name? ;) Yes I love pro wrestling a lot and I watch/watched a lot of it. I'm not watching the WWE a often as I used to, but I know enough to say that sequence moves are not what I'm looking for in a wrestling game.

Why are you saying that? I'm not a fan of the console but when I learned that Yukes was working for THQ for the gamecube's wreslters (last year) I almost bought the Xbox for Raw, but it turned out to be a crappy game. But I'm giving anchor a chance here.

Well maybe a "sequence move" like that is appealing to you, but not to me. You should be able to execute specials in different situation, like while to opponent is standing on the mat, in the corner (ex: Spike's special move) on the ground, while running (irish whipped) and on the floor while your on the turnbuckle.

Maybe I should have added this to my previous reply, but I find the graphics and the animation to be pretty good (except maybe for the screwdriver) but the thing is this video looks very alike the previous videos that are out there and that since a few months.

I agree... one think I love to do in wrestling games is set up my opponent on the outside and jump from the top rope. Or even better, do like Vince did at WM, set the opponent on the announce table and jump from the ladder. (even if I miss it's cool to do)

From the looks of the video that won't be possible, well, at least with specials.

Exactly, some of us like to "control" every aspect of a match by setting the opponent where we want to. By the look of the videos, you won't be able to use tables or do the frog splash from the turnbuckle all the way down to the floor. What's the deal? You can do that with old wrestling games from 5 years ago.

I think it may just be specials though... hopfully there are some non-special turnbuckle moves that you can do at any time.

I think it could be specials only because some people don't have ground specials, and maybe they didn't want to make moves to replace thier real specials. (like for example in WCW/nWo Revenge, they had Macho Man do some little punch thing for his ground special)

Good point, but still, it would suck to have a ground special sequenced like that. I want to climb the turnbuckle myself :D

The problem with having control of every move is that the engines are just too fast now. Wrestlers pop up from everything, leaving you little time to climb the turnbuckle and execute the maneuver. I find this more frustrating than challenging.

But I do agree that they should allow you to hit your special high flying maneuver without using a sequence. Bu then again, there might not even be a sequence and we could all be talking out our asses, which is most likely. ;)

Well I see that as flaws in the engine. AKI's engines don't have that flaw.

heheeh you are right, but then again, aren't we here for that? :)

Unfortuantely the AKI engine doesn't really exist anymore. Even the AKI developed Def Jam game sped up the engine to the point where it was very difficult to perform an aerial move.

I'm afriad we're all going to have to get used to the modern day engines that speed games up so that they resemble fighting games. Its not realistic or even that fun IMO, but it sells.

Now Anchor claimed they are revamping the engine to make it much more of a sim, but I'll have to play it before I'll believe it.

I agree with Ranzid, I want to climb the ropes myself and jump myself...

And I hate the way most wrestling games are now. Like The Strangler said, opponents getting up within no time, you can't even do top rope moves. Every new wrestling game is supposed to be better than the last and add sim elements and bla bla bla, but I always see the same old crap. I was so excited for Def Jam, the beloved AKI engine, but they ruined that for me too.

I would rather havea wrestling game with horrible graphics and awesome gameplay than one with amazing graphics and horrible gameplay, but I really, REALLY hope Raw 2 will be good.

Well, I think SD has shown a lot of improvement over it's series, even though it has never come close to an Aki game.

as far as the top rope thing, it only really works in games when you execute a special move first... well, that's the only way to keep them down in SD and DJV.

I think if Raw 2 has Auto top-rope specials, it would be better than what SD and DJV have, an almost non existant top rope game. If they want those as specials I'm fine, as long as there is a choice between the manual and automatic moves.

I have no problems doing top ropes jumps in DJV, yes it's more difficult than in previous AKI games but it's still possible. And I wouldn't give hope on a good sim engine from AKI, I mean they are the best, it's only a matter of time before they are picked up to do a real wrestling game. DJV was a bit disappointing, but I'm still very impressed by it also. A few things that sucks but you definetly still have that AKI feel into it. And don't you guys just love the rope grapple that they added? That would be perfect for moves like Rey' 619. Anyways, it's a good thing I kept my N64 with No Mercy for now.

http://xbox.ign.com/articles/402/402422p1.html

"May 13, 2003 - THQ's WWE Raw 2 has been as elusive as any title in the year or so since it was announced. It's been delayed and left out of multiple gamer's days and other events. At E3, there's no hiding and the limited demo of Raw 2 we played offered a few hints about what we can expect.
There are referees now in ring and you can beat them up. While there's an option for different types of referees, this feature wasn't functional in the demo we played. Referees that get caught in the middle of a big brawl and take punches will fight back. Earl Hebner has been known to mix it up with Triple H on the WWE TV shows and now you can get the same thrill in Raw 2. In the demo we played the referee was pretty tame and didn't get too upset after taking a few to the chin.

The matchup screens aren't flat poses anymore. Like the television show, you get little animated scenes of the wrestlers turning toward the camera or scowling. It's animation that's done in front of a blue screen so it looks as fake in the videogame as it does on television.

Even with the extremely limited demo (no weapons, no out of ring activity) we noticed a couple of new gameplay systems. There are now several mid-rope moves you can use against your opponent when they're arms are tied up in the ropes. None of them knocked the guy out of the ring but we saw Triple H stomp mudholes and throw other moves against Kurt Angle while he was wrapped up.

Quick moves off the ropes seem to be more common now. Even guys like the Undertaker can quickly go from a standstill to a quick bounce of the nearest ropes into a quick strike move. It's very intuitive and especially handy when you get a guy like Rey Mysterio and all of his acrobatic moves. Mysterio's high-rick maneuvers are all lightning quick and complicated to the point that they look like mistakes until he finally delivers a flying body press or what have you.

When wrestlers are down on the mat there's a whole new grapple system that opens up. When a wrestler is down you can approach his head or his feet, hit the button for a soft grapple to grab him and then you have the option to drag him around, turn him over, pick him up, execute a strike move or put a hold on him. You won't be able to switch from a head move to a legs move but you will have all kinds of moves available to you on whatever end of his body you grab first.

We'll have much more on WWE Raw 2 in the next 48 hours of E3 when we'll have more details and a better understanding of what's what in the game. "