You can see the enthusiasm of Day of Reckoning 2's creators, even this early in the game's development. They're on a roll, and want to keep moving up. First on the docket is a new rendering engine that makes wrestlers look amazingly realistic. The poly count has been boosted 30% -- quite a feat -- and most of it went to improving character faces. Emotion is much more easily conveyed, as we saw in a side-by-side comparing last year's Booker T entrance to the new one. It went from stiff and lifeless to animated and intense -- and that's not even taking into effect the dynamic camera angles, enhanced pyro, and interactive 3D crowd.
Stamina Blows Up
In a novel attempt at bringing some psychology to the digital mat is the game's new stamina system. In past games, stamina was just another way to show how much energy a wrestler had. For Day of Reckoning 2, it affects everything. Each move can either boost or drain stamina. Thus, you can start out hard and fast, hoping to put away your opponent early; or you can pace yourself for a 30-minute mat classic.
When stamina is down, your character is slower, and moves cause less damage. It's even tougher to counter your opponent's actions. They'll also hunch over, much like the injured look of the AKI-developed N64 games of old. Right now, the consequences seem a bit too severe, but I have faith that it will be tweaked to satisfaction by release. Plus, I probably just suck at it so far, not having spent much time with it.
Tap Out!
Submissions have advanced in a big way, and even take the new stamina mechanic into consideration. Now, when you lock on a submission move, you have a few choices. Using the C-stick, you can choose to recover your own stamina -- in what is commonly referred to as a "rest hold" -- or cinch it in to try for the tap out then and there. Additionally, you can work to humiliate your opponent, or show off to get the crowd's approval -- bringing you closer to being ready to deliver a finisher.
THQ is currently tooling around with what the victim of the move will be able to do. This could very well change before the final product, but right now the idea is to let the recipient use his/her own C-stick to try to guess what the move-giver is going to pick -- kind of like choosing the offense's play in Tecmo Bowl. In the play time we had, I couldn't choose the right one to save my life when I was on the receiving end, and lost two matches by submission that way.