Nintendo World Report

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It's not what you would expect.

Handheld wrestling games have never been quite as good as their console counterparts. That changed with the PSP versions of Smackdown vs. Raw, but then again, waiting through ridiculous load times was a pretty steep price to pay for a portable grappler. THQ is looking to fill in the gap with a DS version of its biggest franchise, but it's doing so in a much different way than any of the other versions. Instead of making a regular wrestling game where players can move around and attack each other freely, the DS version of SvR instead plays out more like a big, sweaty version of paper-rock-scissors that uses the touch screen to affect the outcome.

Players will not be able to directly control the wrestler they select. At the start of a match, three icons appear on the touch screen that indicate different actions your character can perform. Tapping one of them will bring up a meter based on the action you want to do. For instance, if you want to punch someone in the head, an arrow meter appears on the screen that must be filled up by a precise stylus slide. Grappling someone and picking them up for an aerial slam is made possible by filling a meter with short and quick rotations of a wheel that pops up. Depending on what you chose to do and how well you did the touch screen action, you may attack your opponent or he may attack you. After that happens, a new set of icons appear based on the position that both players have gotten themselves into.

It's hard to say how well this would work in practice because we weren't given hands-on time with the DS version at E3. We do know that the game will be in full 3D, with polygonal characters. Head-to-head multiplayer fights are also going to be in the final game, though it's not completely clear how the fighting system will work when two players are going at it simultaneously. We'll need to wait until the game ships along side the other five versions this November to see how it plays.