Mira que sé que no soy mucho de un hablante de español. En realidad, soy muy consciente de que esto ha sido escrito en Inglés, ya continuación, ejecute a través de un traductor web. Pero sabes qué, eso no es importante! Lo importante es que la noche anterior por la noche Konami Gamer’s fue que nos muestra lo último en juegos de lucha libre Lucha Libre AAA: Héroes del Ring.
¿Por qué es importante esto? Bueno, es una empresa japonesa de publicar un juego desarrollado por un estudio de juegos Mexicana para un mercado americano. Esto es una experiencia única, y es realmente único en que es una lucha muy centrado en el mercado español. Pulse el salto para mis impresiones y algunas de las cosas especiales que vi con la Lucha Libre AAA: Héroes del Ring.
Lucha Libre AAA: Heroes del Ring (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PSP, DSiWare)
Developer: Immersion Games/Sabarasa Studios
Publisher: Konami
To be released: August 9, 2010
Look, I know many of you didn’t understand what it is that I just wrote. Honestly, after the translation, I didn’t either (I speak French, oui oui!), but what I’m trying to get at is that there is a brand new game coming out developed by a Mexican, Spanish speaking studio, published by a Japanese company, and focused on the Spanish-speaking market in America. It really is a new precedence, one that is interesting to see how a new, bilingual gaming audience could be born.
Lucha Libre AAA: Héroes del Ring is, quite simply, a lucha libre wrestling game. Based upon the incredibly popular Mexican wrestling, this style of wrestling is as over the top as the American counterpart, but is studded with even more outlandish personalities, sometimes more violent wrestling skills, and the sacramental respect for the mask, the ever famous disguise almost all luchadors. Lucha libre has a minor following in the English speaking market as more of a novelty, but for Spanish speaking immigrants and people all across latin america, the luchadors can reach major heights of fame.
Now, my hands-on with Lucha Libre AAA: Héroes del Ring didn’t exactly show me something extremely new with the gameplay. Coming to every console available, with the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PSP and DSiWare all receiving versions. I checked out the PS3 and Xbox 360 version, and I can make this claim: it is a wrestling game, and to know if it is better than the rest would take more hands-on time. However, good old wrestling favorites, like a create-a-character mode, a 25 part story mode, online play, and up to four players all mean that the good old standbys of wrestling games will be here.
Thankfully, the development studio behind the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, Immersion Games, is a studio based in Mexico, and everyone involved, from the CEO to younger brothers of the PR (yep, they were there) had an obvious glee and love of lucha libre. It is clear these guys love the sport.
Core elements of lucha libre will make an appearance. First of all, the masks (and the famous men behind them) are making a strong appearance. There are dudes like La Parka and other legends of the ring will be making an appearance. Also, the elements of the mask will be coming, so Mask and Hair matches will be coming. Huh? Well these matches are matches where the mask and a wrestler’s hair is on the line. If a wrestler losses a match, he’ll have to show his mask or shave his head. In luchador culture, this could be an end of a career, and these sort of matches will be available for online matches. Unfortunately, the legendary wrestlers will not be allowed to do this on these online matches, as you don’t want to ruin those guy’s careers.
Other luchador elements to make an appearance in the game is the element of popularity. Each wrestler has a few special moves and one super move that they need to fill a meter before that they can use. Popularity means that if the crowd likes you, you can pull all these elements off, and so taunting your opponent, or, uh, sexily enticing all the women in the crowd, will fill up your meter and allow you to pull off these moves. There are some locks placed on these super moves for realism (pull off a special move, and your meter will literally frost over for a while), and this is designed to make entertaining matches.
Finally, even language has been designed to appeal to the Spanish speaking audience. With only a language switch of your game settings, the entire game can be done with either English or in Spanish. Yes, all the announcers are famous Spanish (or less famous English) luchador announcers. This is actually pretty cool, as hearing everything done in Spanish was a nice change of things. For a game appealing to a certain cultural group, it is nice to see the developers go all the way.
I for one have always been interested in seeing how games designed for the Spanish language market would do in the United States, and why such games have never really existed. That is why Lucha Libre AAA: Héroes del Ring is so interesting, as the focus on a cultural group in America that is normally ignored is really neat to see. The developers are confidant. One representative said “We already know we will have great success” and the team is really looking forward to strong word of mouth. For those who like wrestling, and those who just want to see something different, Lucha Libre AAA: Héroes del Ring looks like it might just offer that.
