WWE All Stars: an early aughts arcade wrestling gem

When WWE All-Stars came out, I thought it was garbage. It forsook the seriousness of wrestling, the realism, and the skill attached. It was a simple button brawler that turned signature moves into glorified Dragon Ball Z attacks. The public has not had such silly wrestling games since WWF: In Your House in the 90s and it should have never made a comeback. THQ was trying something new.

Just recently, I bought the fifteen-year-old game for Wii, feeling starved for a quality wrestling game. I am so glad I did. Wrestling games (especially the ones made by 2K) had gotten so predictable, over-complicated, and blah. It seems like the only reason that people turn them on anymore is to stream their eFed. Even with AEW: Fight Forever lightening the gameplay in favor of simplicity, WWE All Stars feels like a breath of fresh air.

WWE All-Stars was an experiment. It combined the top legends and superstars at the time with some very easy controls. The A button does melee and the B button does grapples. Holding down the respective buttons does stronger versions of the moves. When your gauge is full, the wrestler can do a signature move, which throws the opponent into the rafters and slams them down on the ground at Mach speed. The fighting engine is much closer to Ultimate Muscle Versus New Generation.

The roster contains the usual draws: Cena, Miz, Sheamus, Undertaker, Jericho (ha), Punk, McIntyre, HHH, Austin, Rock, and Michaels. But you can also engage in fantasy matches with Hogan, Savage, Piper, Jake the Snake, Giant, Slaughter and Steamboat. Unfortunately, Divas were not considered for this game (but no one was getting excited about early 2010s Divas). With thirty wrestlers, there are a lot of favorites. You can even do a hardcore match between McIntyre and Punk.

The modes are light like AEW: Fight Forever. Only 4 wrestlers are allowed in the ring for tornado tag, singles, extreme, cage, triple, handicap, and fatal four matches. No Royal Rumble, sadly. Royal Rumble would have rocked on this. The fantasy match mode pits wrestlers into historical matches with a video package before each one. The Path of Champions mode is a wrestling gauntlet with cutscenes. The cut-scenes of Triple H and Shawn Michaels playing off each other is worth the $9.99 I paid.

The wrestlers look over-the-top, ’roided out in muscles upon muscles. Any wrestler can do a standing moonsault that lands them on a turnbuckle where they will launch off the ring forty feet and hit their opponent. I seem to spam that move by accident because I am not sure how the other grapples work. Luckily, finishers, and signatures are easy to pull off. The game doesn’t need a clean pin to award you a W; a finisher that depletes the opponent’s life bar is enough. While these matches are happening, Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler are doing commentary like it’s another day at the office.

In 2020 WWE 2K Battlegrounds came out as the spiritual successor to All Stars. It suffered a Metacritic score of 60% (WWE All Stars is 75%). While both games are very similar with Battlegrounds featuring a Royal Rumble, chibi-looking wrestlers, Divas, and outlandish stage finishers, WWE All-Stars is the preferred brand. Battlegrounds featured a stressful grinding component that made it feel like a grind-2-win phone game (or you could pay for everything up front). All Stars has a very straightforward unlockable system and a cheat code that unlocks everything if you don’t want to play the main campaign.

All Stars’ create mode is one of the most bare-bones suites in a WWE game. You can pick face features, clothing options, a move set, and a finisher. THQ figured no one who is serious about wrestling would go too deep into the CAW, though I would love to see someone stream their eFed with this game. I created a wrestler with 40-inch pythons containing the moves of Jack Swagger and the finisher of Bret Hart.

WWE All Stars is an unsung hero in disruptive wrestling games that try to be different. I wish there was an updated sequel for the next-gen systems, but it seems like 2K is going the sim route. A boy can dream.