The original WWF Raw was a disappointment. Sure, it was fun to gather up a room full of friends and beat the living daylights out of each other, but when it came to game mode variety, single player depth and even gameplay responsiveness, it was noticeably lacking. Spurred into action by the less than stellar reception Raw received from the gaming masses, THQ (the publisher) and Anchor Inc. (the development team) promptly began work on the sequel with the high hopes of addressing all the problems that plagued the first game. THQ promised their upcoming title would have more game modes, including ladder, table, cell and cage matches. They promised to do away with the unintuitive crowd meter and tweak the gameplay mechanics for improved responsiveness. They promised to include custom soundtrack support for created wrestlers’ entrances. They promised quite a bit actually and, to the surprise of many, this time around they actually delivered. That’s not to say WWE Raw 2 is the holy grail of wrestling videogames - it’s not. But it is a remarkable improvement over its predecessor in just about every way and a worthy purchase for anyone craving some good multiplayer, wrestling fun.

As mentioned earlier, Raw 2 features new game modes that help extend the game’s longevity. A wide variety of fan favorites like Table, TLC, Hardcore, Ladder, Battle Royal and Hell in a Cell will keep even the most jaded Pro Wrestling fanatic happy, as victories can now be achieved by more exciting means than the mundane K.O., pin or count out. It can get very intense when the only way to win a match is by scaling the cage wall before your opponent, grabbing the belt suspended high above the ring or slamming your adversary through a table. What makes these game modes even more enticing is the fact that you can now play with up to six wrestlers in the ring at one time. It is easy to imagine how hectic a six-player Cell, Table or Ladder match would be and, thanks to the new wealth of match types, it is all possible in Raw 2.

One very significant game mode addition is the new Season Mode, though its implementation is somewhat hit and miss. On the positive side of things, gamers are finally given the opportunity to play through a career with the wrestler of their choice (even created wrestlers can be used), with the goal of winning the crowd’s heart and the World Champion belt. As the virtual season progresses, you move from venue to venue, including weekly shows like Raw and Smackdown, with the occasional Pay Per View Event like Wrestlemania and Summerslam thrown in for good measure. In a nice move by Anchor to add some incentive to keep playing, fourteen different bona fide WWE venues can be unlocked as they are encountered throughout the course of a career.

While progressing through the Season Mode, the wrestler you are controlling has one match that he or she must partake in at some point in each individual venue. Of course, during actual WWE shows there are numerous fights that take place and - this is the nifty part - instead of just completing your match and moving on, you actually get to perform a number of different actions when you are not in the ring yourself. So let’s say you want to jump into the fray during someone else’s match to beat up a rival wrestler. No problem. Or how about unleashing a brutal sneak attack on your adversary backstage? You can do that too. In fact, the number of options you have is fairly diverse, with actions like stealing, calling out, setting traps, resting, encouraging others and choosing managers (among others) there to keep things plenty interesting.

So what are the bad points about the season mode? Well, only a few basic wrestler stats such as charisma, social, luck and a few others determine the success rate for actions like stealing, encouraging, trap setting, etc. At first this seems like some nice usage of role-playing elements by Anchor, but after a while it becomes apparent that this system is much too simple. Anybody with any type of experience playing role-playing games will almost certainly scoff at the crude use of statistics, percentages and other RPG elements. Also, most of the Season Mode is spent sifting through menus and watching cut scenes of your wrestler attempting to perform the action you have assigned. It can get rather tedious watching your character repeatedly enter into the same locker room over and over only to keep failing at his or her appointed task. It would have been much more intuitive and exciting to let you wander the premises as the show progresses, choosing your actions in real time. Oh well, I still applaud Anchor for putting out the effort to create a solid Season Mode that will undoubtedly keep WWE fans occupied for some time.

The plethora of new game modes is commendable, but did Anchor manage to fix the basic gameplay issues that plagued the original game? Thankfully, the answer is an emphatic yes. Major problems like the sluggish control responsiveness, frustratingly slow movement speed and nonsensical crowd meter have all been addressed. No longer will you stand in the corner pounding the ‘tag’ button, only to have your wrestler not make the tag and receive a severe beating. And this time around when you stand over an object and press the black button, you will actually pick up the item on the first try - in the original Raw it often took four or five button presses. A new Voltage meter, that does a much better job of keeping the matches both exciting and fair, has replaced the old crowd meter. Now if you hit someone over the head 100 times with a lead pipe you don’t have to worry about a lame crowd meter impeding you from making a pin. Finally, all you dirty, unscrupulous wrestlers out there can actually win a match by using shady methods that the crowd may not particularly like.

One of the best features of the original Raw was its absolutely stellar Create-A-Wrestler (CAW) and, remarkably, Anchor managed to make it even better in the sequel. The insane number of outfit, mask, accessory and move set editing options are still there, as is the ability to scale and shape each individual body part on a three dimensional axis. What’s new to Raw 2 is the handy ability to copy work you have done to one body part and paste onto its symmetrical counterpart. So if you spend a good deal of time molding and coloring say, a wrestler’s left foot, now all you have to do is turn the symmetry option on and the right foot will automatically look identical to the left. This is a great time saver and helps make using the CAW painless and hassle-free.

Of course, the vast amount of options for designing your wrestler’s introduction is still there, in fact, this time around you can actually create your own Jumbo-Tron video (complete with custom text) and - drum roll - use music ripped onto your Xbox’s hard drive for entrance music! I cannot stress enough how cool it is to be able to use your own music for the wrestler intros. It, combined with the incredible number of outfit, hairdo, coloring and shaping options, really makes it possible to create accurate renditions of thousands of movie, videogame and comic characters. I personally have spent countless hours tinkering away in the game’s CAW concocting life-like versions of quite a few different characters, including Dr. Evil, Mini Me, Indiana Jones, Venom (Spider-Man’s famous enemy), Conan the Barbarian, The Incredible Hulk and many others. There’s nothing quite like seeing both Dr. Evil and Mini Me come down the ramp (you can actually create team entrances in Raw 2) to their duet “Just the Two of Us” from Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me. It’s enough to strike fear into the heart of even the most stalwart of adversaries.

Just as with its predecessor, WWE Raw 2 is a visual feast. Wrestlers look extremely life-like, as do all of the game’s fourteen different ring environments. Look closely and you can see wonderful details like a sheen of sweat on tired wrestlers’ skin, faces that cringe realistically when damage is taken and a ring apron that flutters logically in conjunction with the action taking place on the mat. The crowd has been significantly improved from the mass of 2D cutouts that marred the original game, to fully polygonal fans for the first ten or fifteen rows within the arena. The only noticeable negative impact of this improved crowd is a framerate that can dip ever slightly during busy intros and six player skirmishes. Thankfully, the slow down is brief and never effects gameplay.

Another area where there is a marked improvement over the original game is with the character animations. The infamous corncob-up-the-butt waddle that all wrestlers had in Raw has been completely dealt with, and now everyone moves with the utmost fluidity. Two of the other weaknesses of the first game were the poorly modeled females and a horrendous looking Triple H. Thankfully, the WWE ladies look leaps and bounds better than they used to (though don’t expect any Soul Calibur II or Dead or Alive 3 style physics for long hair and, uh, other body parts) and Triple H is now one of the most realistically modeled wresters in the entire game. I sure do enjoy seeing a developer actually deal with problems when making a sequel - good work Anchor Inc.

The music in the game is a mishmash of heavy metal and hip-hop that fits the hard-hitting WWE theme perfectly. In the first Raw the music was borderline atrocious, so it’s nice to see the extra effort put into making the sequel’s soundtrack good quality. It’s just too bad the same effort wasn’t put into the rest of the game’s aural presentation. My major gripe is - where is the dang voice acting? Not one of the wrestlers in the game utters anything more the most rudimentary of grunts and this is a serious impediment for a game that is trying to recreate the unique ambiance of televised Professional Wrestling. It also brings down the Season Mode considerably, because during all of the cut scenes you have no idea what the wrestlers are saying. They just move their mouths with not even a subtitle there to clue you in on what is being discussed. If THQ has the WWE license, how long could it possibly take to have some of the wrestlers record a few lines of dialogue? This is definitely the game’s biggest weakness and hopefully it will get addressed if there is ever going to be a Raw 3.

So there you have it. WWE Raw 2, though not as good as those classic N64 wrestling titles WWF No Mercy and WCW/NWO Revenge, is still a great title that should please fans of the WWE and multiplayer fighting games. Don’t let the fact that the original Raw was such a disappointment dissuade you from at least giving this game a rental. It is such an improvement over its predecessor that you may be surprised at how much fun there is to be had, especially with the vastly improved multiplayer options and enhanced CAW. Basically, this is the game WWF Raw should have been, and late is better than never at all, right?