The Buscher

Played a month or so in Universe, picking and choosing my matches. Problem with that is I saw basically the same 3 or so cutscenes on loop and damn near every match involved one guy coming in early to attack the other. Think I'll need to try and not fuck around too much with the matches the game creates, otherwise it might eliminate the storylines it had been building up. Simmed a year or so, Show won the MITB and Taker pushed his streak to 20-0 in one night by defending the title against Edge AND beating Swagger in separate matches. Beast. Did a quick draft, old school style with 6 going to Raw and 6 to SmackDown. Taker, Finlay, MVP, Shad, Masters, and McCool (Divas champ) to Raw...Sheamus, Henry, Santino, Kozlov, Maryse, and Melina (Womens chamo) to SD. Wanted to give SD more than 3 divas and change up the midcard schemes on both shows while not breaking up any random teams that had formed (Primo/Ted, Ziggler/Archer, etc.) Think I'll watch the matches now and see how well the game forms feuds from here on out.

Nah I have 360.

Oh, and even though I got the Best Buy edition with a code to unlock Bret, I downloaded Fan Axxess and went into WWE Shop. The option to unlock Ministry Taker was there. So I got both exclusives in one fell swoop.

lol so I'm doing Jericho's RTWM and right next to the gorilla position there is a white board with all of that night's matches on it. And one week, I see: Primo vs. Carlito Guess there's the proof that Carlito was in fact supposed to be in the game.

Ok, so I'm loving Universe Mode. Over on SmackDown I decided to book Gallows in a squash match against JTG and use Gallows to try and push him (since I moved Punk to Raw he'd be trying to make it on his own and such). Cutscene shows Gallows jump JTG before the bell. I start the match with a finisher and win with one move, WWE squash-style. Nice. So the next week I decide to put him against another patsy in Chris Masters. Masters waits in the ring as Gallows' music plays, but Gallows attacks him from behind. Once again, start with a finisher and win in one move. Luke Gallows: Master of the cheap wins

Played some weapons-based matches. Hella fun. Updated the rosters as best I could (took HBK, Jericho, Hardy, and Batista off of the active roster whilst switching up Punk and Edge) so now I'm ready to give Universe a whirl.

Had 880 MS Points, just enough to grab Fan Axxess. Will be playing this in a few hours. Can't wait.

Just got an e-mail from Best Buy telling me to pick up my copy tomorrow. Can't wait. Apparently there's a work-around to defending titles in Exhibition. Since you CAN defend unlockable belts (ECW, Hardcore, Cruiser, etc.) all you need to do is go into WWE Universe and assign one of those belts to someone who holds another title. So say you want Dolph Ziggler to defend the IC Title in exhibition. You just go into WWE Universe and plop the ECW title on him. Then in exhibiton you'll actually get to pick which belt he defends.

Hopefully you're right. Still looking forward to seeing how this shakes out.

Elaborate on what you read. Did they play matches or did they just simulate? Simulate.

If it really is a bitch and a half to get a CAW in a position where he can be in MITB, I'll just download a bunch of CAWs and then put all the real wrestlers on WCW where they won't get booked. MITB would then be all CAWs by default so I could just pick one and win it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still intrigued by the mode overall since it sounds unique. Just a shame I won't be able to use it for my sim fed.

That's exactly what it means. I'm not sure if Rumble participants or MITB spots are also determined by ranking in some way, but changing the participants of those matches loses the stipulation entirely.

No idea. I guess you'd have to actively play as Morrison to make sure he gets in the Number 1 Contender's Match. But it's lame that you are ultimately at the mercy of the game. I feel like I'll play around with it for the purposes of unlockables/achievements but once that's done with I might just go back to Exhibition and never look back. At least the gameplay still looks hella fun.

More and more I feel like they purposely restrict new modes like this simply so they have something they can change for SVR12.

So somebody on another board I post at got this and has been giving updates. I'm still excited for a variety of reasons, but I'm unfortunately not really looking forward to WWE Universe anymore. You can edit matches and whatnot, but the stipulations will not carry. Let's say you have John Cena vs. CM Punk as the #1 Contenders Match for the WWE Title. You don't want Cena in there, so you plug in John Morrison to hotshot him into a big push. The match then becomes just a standard match with no stipulation. Ditto for PPVs. Randy Orton vs. Sheamus is set for the WWE Title. Fuck that, I want Ezekiel Jackson to challenge instead. Nope. The Title stipulation disappears and you can't get it back. This is also true for the Royal Rumble and MITB. If you edit any of the 30 (or 6) participants the game generates, the match still happens but the stipulations don't carry over. So if you, for instance, want to get the MITB achievement for winning it with a CAW, simply inserting him in the match won't count. You have to hope the game books you there. The guy simmed all the way to WM in Year 11 before the game put a CAW in the match so he could try to get the achievement. Ridiculous restrictions. So...yeah. I'll still play around with the mode for fun and to get the achievements/treat it as a career mode. But these unneccesary restrictions have ensured that my sim fed will be played strictly through exhibition with WWE Universe turned off. And even then I'll have to go the old school route and pretend that titles are on the line since the stupid game doesn't give you title matches without WWE Universe anymore.

There are a LOT of unlockables this year. A staggering 18 male characters are locked at the start: -All 7 legends that come with the game -Druid -Vince -Team Future Endeavor (Shelton and Knox) -Finlay -Most of the WWECW alum (Ryder, Yoshi, Regal, Jackson, Kozlov, Goldust) Plus some divas are locked too although I'm not sure which. I think I will work to actually earn them until good CAWs start coming up on Community Creations so I can get the whole WWE roster in tow and begin my sim fed.

I don't take IGN's reviews seriously with regards to the SmackDown Series. Ever since they lost the right to be the first website to release new information, I've gotten the sense that they are bitter about it.

Interview with Stephenson: Question: Any hints on The Coolest WCW Star that left as one of the legends spots? Answer: He had one of the greatest matches in WrestleMania history. I think we pretty much determined that Steamboat would be in this year, but that just virtually sealed the deal. Awesome. Shame Flair had to go to TNA, would have loved to do a virtual Flair/Steamboat match

Maria gets named the new GM of SmackDown for some reason. You (Edge) start dating her and you be a sleazy douchebag to win her over. You get easy matches and other perks. Maria gets injured in an accident due to Mr. Kennedy (I think). So you take over. You start abusing your power to ridiculous proportions, and in one scene you even cheat on Maria with Maryse and Eve. Maria finally recovers and finds out about everything so you get put in hard matches. You have to face Kennedy at WM in a cage I believe. You can't actually WIN the match per se, but once you are about to climb out it switches to a cutscene of Maria coming out. Maria slams Kennedy's head into the door or something random like that, proving it all to be a big setup. You win the title and get the girl to end it. I only remember that one so well because it was SO refreshing getting to be a sleazy heel in a SD game as opposed to always being forced into being a face.

I thought that just as you were about to win, Maria came out presumably to screw you over...only she helped you win instead.

So with the release right around the corner, what order will you play the Road to WMs in? I'll probably go: -Jericho -Christian -Vs Undertaker (by this point my CAW will hopefully be done, or I'll find a good Daniel Bryan) -Cena -Mysterio Pretty sure all 5 Vs Undertaker stories are the same but with different VO. I may play a few others just to make different decisions. Can't see myself playing through all 5 unless there's an achievement for doing so (see: I don't want to see R-Truth end Taker's streak)

lol. Greg Miller and Bryan Williams were playing a 60 minute Iron Man, Falls Count Anywhere Match inside of the Hell in a Cell. Miller used Orton and got the first pin via RKO on Williams (Punk) in 7 minutes. He spams running grapples like there's no tomorrow.

lol. so according to Stephenson, the SmackDown spot moved off the website is.........a playable Druid. I knew they'd have at least one totally random character, they do every year. Worse, the Druid is playable yet The Hurricane (who is in Rey's RTWM) is not.

My curiousity over which random jobber is in one of the last 2 SmackDown spots was all for naught. They've deleted the spot and suddenly moved it over to Legends. Mickie James is obviously the last SmackDown person.