“Live the Revolution.” For months, THQ has hyped WWE ’13 as the next milestone in its long lineage of wrestling video games. Partly thematic, partly indicative of the publisher’s continued overhaul of its core wrestling sim franchise, the notion of a revolution is certainly a bold claim to make.

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In truth, the revolution happened last year, as WWE ’12 made significant and sweeping alterations to THQ’s formula. This year’s entry doesn’t take as many risks as its predecessor, which is in some ways disappointing, yet perhaps inevitable for an annualized series. While WWE ’13 does set a defining, high bar for the modern, single-player wrestling experience, it stumbles in some of its efforts to evolve its audio presentation, and doesn’t address other lingering issues for the series.THQ threw out its entire previous approach to single-player, opting for a linear, six-chapter retelling of the Attitude Era through the eyes of some of its biggest stars. A combination of excellent wrestling footage packages, in-game cutscenes and text-based descriptions help relive the spirit of the time, serving as a history lesson for new and old fans alike. Capturing this essence is critical, as wrestling is as much about theatrics as it is athletics. WWE ’13 succeeds wildly in this regard.Just as important to its packaging of the ‘Attitude Era mode’ is the design of the campaign. A combination of primary and secondary objectives allows players to determine how they want to play. Winning a match is almost always the basic requirement, but anyone wishing to adhere a bit more to history, and recreate those moments through specific tasks, will reap the rewards through a considerable amount of unlockable content. It’s a brilliant and flexible approach, and should serve as a blueprint for all future wrestling games. Attitude Era mode is consequently WWE ’13’s most successful element by far.Yet not everything in WWE ’13 is as polished as its Attitude Era mode. A variety of visual and audio elements stand out for the wrong reasons, including commentator and audience samples pulled from live events and classic WWE footage, and an element of the camera system that attempts to recreate WWE’s own multi-camera aesthetic. Neither of these truly succeeds, and are often so distracting that they ruin the feel of an entire match.The crowd noise, which for the first time incorporates samples from live audiences and WWE broadcasts, seems to have three settings - deathly quiet, noisy or extremely loud. As any true wrestling fan can tell you, the energy of a crowd can make the ordinary feel incredible, or something brilliant seem decidedly pedestrian. Eliciting that reaction, hearing that ebb and flow, is a critical part of the sport, and it’s that which WWE ’13 fails to capture. Despite the fact that the crowd in the game does more or less sound like a genuine gathering of people, strange variations fails to capture that spirit.Commentating has long been a weakness in wrestling video games, and no matter how advanced various other elements become, little progress has been made in this area. During Attitude Era mode, THQ pulls in some sound clips straight from archival broadcasts. In these moments, the commentary suddenly springs to life, having a flow and conversational tone that the games otherwise lack. These are fleeting moments, though, and when they’re gone, the chatter is back to its repetitive self. While there are a handful of exchanges and observations that are genuinely entertaining, for the most part the commentary in WWE ’13 feels like you’re listening to a couple guys reading generic statements off of cue cards.Televising a live drama, even an athletic one, is not the same as giving a player control of a video game, particularly when the camera system often can’t decide what perspective it wants to feature. Not only will the game jarringly shift angles, throwing your positional awareness completely off, it’ll just do this for a split second before bouncing back to its original location - and sometimes dash away less than a second later. Disorienting is the best way to describe it. It is a small blessing that THQ allows you to switch this entire function off, but it speaks volumes that it is highly recommended you do so.Audio and camera issues aside, the core of WWE ’13 remains intact. Gameplay is addictive, particularly against human opponents. It has the right mix of intuitive controls, depth, and a great sense of ‘escalation,’ as great matches naturally build towards epic conclusions. Subtle changes like options to automatically start with finishers, or adjust the pacing of a match are more than welcome.If there is one complaint about the core gameplay, it’s that there are still too many loose ends, too many glitches and odd occurrences that crop up, particularly during some of the specialty matches. While normal fights feature the odd collision detection issue or spotty animation, it’s a bit too common to see more problems arise in something like a table match, where objects move when they shouldn’t, or transitions seem to go haywire. It’s not enough to ruin the experience by any means, but will certainly prove a distraction in some instances.For many, the sturdy core gameplay and superb Attitude Era single player experience won’t be enough. A large contingent of wrestling game fans care about one thing - customization down to the smallest detail, from creating new superstars and moves to adjusting rosters, tag teams, and even the existing programming schedule in the never-ending, general manager-esque Universe Mode. Many of these creations can then be shared with peers, allowing the community’s capacity to generate content to exceed anything THQ could do.Online play isn’t just limited to competing in ranked and unranked matches, but extends to content sharing as well. WWE ’13 now allows players to play online with their custom creations without the need to tediously upload that content first. The actual process of sharing and accessing content could use some work, however. Though speed tests raised no issues, the actual user interface is a bit dull – it’s difficult to determine what type of content (arena, superstar, etc.) you’re looking at, and there’s no progress bar or time estimate once you’ve committed to transferring data.