One of the coolest things about the Rumble was being able to exit the ring during the match and get a chair from the announcers table...

The last game to feature my boy Crash 😭 RIP

Btw, the ref selection option is cause each ref has different count speeds and count out speeds which I think is a cool option

Fun fact #3: I played this game regularly for over 10 years and contributed CAWs, movelists and entrances on a forum.

One of the coolest things about PS2 generation of WWF games was that each console had it’s own series of games that were completely different from each other. PS2 had the Smackdown games, GameCube had WMX8, WMXIX, Day of Reckoning, and Day of Reckoning 2, and Xbox had Raw and Raw 2.

Great review! But the referee thing was super good! All 4 referees were different: Nick Patrick - super slow count Tim White - faster than Nick Earl Hebner - faster than White Mike Chioda - Super fast count I think it added something. Like for cruiserweight matches I always picked Chioda to have a faster pace!

The gameplay soundtrack is the same one for Here Comes the Pain. I'd recognize that shit anywhere.

This is the best wrestling video game cover I have seen especially that old Raw logo 🔥

This is the only 2003 WWE game to have Hogan, Nash, Steiner and Goldberg all together. Hogan is missing from HCTP and Nash isn't in WM19

This game was awesome when it came to adding custom music with Xbox titles. I remember having the song “breaking the rules” by Ozzy Osborn as my theme song. My brother also had “hanger 18” by megadeth as his intro, it went really well with the intro because his character would run to the ring and slide through the bottom rope as pyros and strobe lights went off. Good times

this is still the best wrestling game on the Xbox

I like how the game didn't have any overall system. And it encourages you to use the whole roster unlike the 2k games.

The "eliminated" sounds like a voice from spongebob.

I actually liked the game for what it was. It was a fun game to play as a kid and I still find it rather enjoyable today.

Oh my god! The replay happens in real time like on TV! This game is really surprising the hell outta me! And 2 attires! I can’t believe how good this actually is! It makes Legends of Wrestling 2 look even worse! This is just as good if not better than here comes the pain in certain aspects. The controls take some time to get used to and figuring out when you can do your finisher on the meter is strange at first. But ive got it now.

DEFECTOR DEFECTOR DEFECTOR DEFECTOR!!! lol'd too hard at this.

I also missed this back in the day! Along with the GameCube wrestling games. I was hooked on the Smackdown Series in 2003.

I remember renting this from Hollywood Video, those were the days.

WWE RAW 2 is my favorite WWE Xbox game, and one of my favorite Xbox-exclusives and WWE games. The best part in the game is that I can use custom soundtracks during entrances in the game (which I did starting 2005 when I first bought WWE Anthology and later bought WWE Wreckless Intent, WWF Forceable Entry, and recently WWF Aggression, as well as burning my CD-RWs).

I bought this game because of this video! It came in the mail today!

Raw 2 is perfect in almost every way.

I like the Raw 2 cover. It's simple yet effective

I pumped so many damn hours into this. Game was stacked

I lost it with the dora music and the farts 😂😂

WWE Raw 2 reminds me of the last days of Stone Cold being around

Love that jazz piano in the intro haha I had the first RAW I don’t even remember my impressions of it but I basically lost my shot when the commercials would air. It’s crazy how RAW 2 looks closer to SVR than anything tho

I remember my cousins had this one and I loved playing it cause the graphics looked amazing to me coming from ps2

When you spoke on the royal rumble. ELIMINATED! 😂😂😂😂

This is a game I've constantly thought about getting since it's one of the few original Xbox titles the 360 will play

The best wwe Xbox game ever.

1 funny part about this game is that women can win other titles on season mode. Last time I play it, Lita beat The Rock for the World Heavyweight Championship. The game was awesome

I'm surprised ya didn't mention the different career mode. Loved how it let us try to join with anyone, or if they didn't like you, they'd beat you up! Being able to set traps for rivals, steal from their locker, go to the ring to call them out (someone else would show until you were good enough) we could also interfere in their matches! They'd even interfere in our matches as well. If you had a partner or stable, they'd run out to help too. I actually enjoyed how our actions were always reacted to by the crowd, and the meter showing progress was 2sweet

The graphics on this game were crazy good at the time

Can't wait for the Smackdown Here Comes The Pain review

I loved this game very underrated

Fun fact that "eliminated!" is a Easter egg of a sound clip of Artie Lange from the howard stern show

one of my all time favorite Wrestling Games... Hands down best on the Xbox Original...... the Season mode is awesome. loved the cut scenes of going thru someones bag

I thought this was a pretty damn good game. The gameplay could have been more refined but the level of content (roster size, customisation e.g) was insane. Looks great for it's time as well.

I love all of the details you put into these reviews

Yes you do care about who referees the match. Nick Patrick had the slowest cadence and could cost you a match by taking forever to count a 3. Mike Chioda had the fastest but that could also cost you by getting you counted

defector for 2017 WWE hall of fame😅

character select music is exactly like here comes the pain!

One of the features I always love to mention is how you can knock nearby wrestlers down with grapple moves. Get the giant swing on your moveset and use it on some unsuspecting CAS in a battle royale to hopefully knock a few people over.

The game had such an amazing roster, but the gameplay was disappointing.

Love how your show has evolved. Keep up the great work!

Just a note for you people: if you're planning to play this on Xbox 360 it will work, but the custom entrance music won't be available and you're stuck with default wrestlers themes. Great review and great game too (damn the original Xbox controller!)

omg Defector had me in stitches... So funny! I like these reviews you are doing on wrestling games

It's crazy because I watched them majority of your other videos and always thought of a nerdy guy with a good narration voice. Never expected you! Good job man

Speaking of changing Superstars, I put the WWE Divas and Stephanie McMahon in bikinis (and swimsuits) by changing their attires into swimsuits and bikinis.

Gameplay wise, it was unpolished and clunky but it still really fun!!! The caw was the best, the graphics were amazing, and the season mode was awesome!! One of the best wrestling games imo.

I miss console exclusive games growing up I bought an xbox, ps2, and gamecube just to try out each wwe game

8:49 I remember that if you put your opponent on the ropes and you hit him while your running you eliminate him instantly.

Defector! Defector! Defector! for WWE HoF 2021!

You’re right RAW was so difficult to play man reminded of when I first played wcw thunder for P1 that was also difficult

I remember thinknig this game was a huge let down, the cover looked badass, the graphics looked badass the controls and physics where god awful

The fact this game had 2 different sized ladders made this game awesome to me shame the ai wouldn't climb them 😆

I had a great time with Raw 2 back in the day. I loved having a custom soundtrack option. Something that's sorely missed in modern 2K games. I put a lot of effort into my caw and entrance. Of course I had tons of pyro. And, I used "Shake Your Blood" by Probot featuring Lemmy Kilmister as my music going for the Triple-H/Evolution sound that was popular at the time. One weird thing of note was that I had bought the translucent green Halo 2 special edition Xbox. And, Raw 2 would always crash during the caw mode. I bought an og Xbox and it worked fine.

I loved this game! Can't believe it's been over 12 years.

ELIMINATED! 🤣 Oh no. I had forgotten about that 😵

The transition from Stone Cold having pyro in his signature glass shatter and Mr. Nice Guy Scotty Steiner having his nWo Hollywood attire, theme and the Titantron to seeing Crocadile Cockroach and Defector is pretty damn hilarious and quite the tonal shift

12:10 - 8 years later this hits different haha

I like how, unlike in the SMackdown games.. at least Raw 2 had practially all of the Divas at the time.

One thing about picking the officials.... Some of the referees had faster and slower counts, at least i thought

I can't play/remember how WWF Raw compares to this game, but the gameplay on Raw 2 is better then Wrestlemania 21. Plus the roster was stacked.

Raw 2 was a game that I loved back in the time it was released, I played it for countless hours and back then I thought it was top of the line. I pulled it off the shelf a few months ago after not playing it for years, and for me, it has not aged well. It is so inferior in every way to SVR series. I just couldn't get much enjoyment out of it all these years later, so I went back to the old SVR games when I feel nostalgic.

5:49 Wrestling Revolution be like during Hardcore Matches...

This is by far my favourite wrestling game

I remember selling my ps2 for a Gamecube. I was a huge Resident Evil fan and I had to play RE1 Remake and I also heard Capcom kinda had an exclusive with Nintendo to bring more REs for the console. Anyways, I sold it the same day GTA Vice city was coming out...I went to the Mall and there is this long line for Vice city, since I was just doing a regular transaction they let me go in the store. People including the employees at the store was looking at me crazy lol. I was just a RE fan.

My cousin and I used to play the shit out of this when we're teens and it came out.

Just played it the other day. Severely underrated game that unfortunately alot of people don't talk about. 2003 was a very strong year for Pro Wrestling Games, we got the pretty good Wrestlemania XIX game for the GameCube, The Very Good-Great Raw 2 on the Xbox and Playstation got a game that's on most people's Mount Rushmore of Wrestling Games. Even extending to other good games like Def Jam Vendetta, Fire Pro Wrestling, even Backyard Wrestling can be pretty fun.

Forgot to mention the A.I biggest flaw: Any of your allies will kick your ass instead of helping you :'(

Fun fact: Some in game wrestlers (and any CAW, I put it on every CAW I made) can have the trait to pull out bigger ladders called "Big Ladder+".

Great job man! Was waiting on this review! I love the create a wrestler in this game..tho the only down side was there is like 4 or 5 default faces for caws :/ but I did pull off a great Jeff hardy caw on my channel. I wish you the best on KZfaq! You got skills my friend :)

I was ready to sell my Xbox to get a GamCube only to find the GameCube was the cheapest console launch it cost £79.99 or $99, when you think how powerful that little lunchbox looking thing was its mindblowing it was so cheap in fact I bought 3 that same year giving them to friends for Christmas. Looking back I wish I hadn't because being the idiot I was I gave away one of those early rare consoles that now sells for a few hundred at least.

The only thing I didn't like about this game was the fact that Jeff Hardy wasn't in it, but he left WWE back in April of 2003. So I created him. I was surprised to see that the people who wrestled in 2003 were included in the game like Jacqueline, William Regal and Hardcore Holly who aren't in the 2003 sister series game, Smackdown Here Comes the Pain.

Bugs and all I loved this game as a kid played it for hours

Defector! Defector! Detector!!

Several wrestlers are missing wrist tape or have it colored wrong. Benoit has white tape and Eddie has no tape. I guess it's easy to fix though.

This game was great also because the custom soundtrack for the entrance music

The only reason I still have this game is because of Billy Kidman my favorite wrestler of all time he was unfortunately in only 2 WWE game this one and SD SYM.

This is probably my favorte wrestling game. I haven't had an Xbox or 360 in years though so I hope emulation for Xbox becomes viable.

I seem to recall the ability to choose table, chair, and ladder size because I remember using a giant ass ladder as a weapon lol

Fun Fact #2: You can have a 128-Man Royal Rumble if you filled all 64 CAW slots. And yes, all of your women wrestlers will be in it too.

Great review, I hope you do more reviews in the future. Great job indeed.

I love this game and defended it with my life back then, as it made me feel like owning an xbox was NOT the incorrect choice. BUT yukes should have developed this game. I give anchor credit for the improvements they made, the leap between this game and the raw 1 was astronomical. And with that leap, thq should've let anchor try for a 3rd time. You can argue maybe this game is better than WrestleMania XIX, but it is not on par or even close to HCTP. I feel that the full potential of the xbox was not reached: this game has no commentary, the career mode was boring and very SmackDown 2-ish. The move animation did not have the same personality as the smackdown games. In HTCP playing with goldberg felt and looked like goldberg (for that era), while the jackhammer here was lifeless. I know this game came out before HTCP, but there's no reason why the elimination chamber was not included

I still remember Lillian Garcia or whoever the female announcer was in the game announced John Cena name as "John Senna" lol

That creation suite looks more vast that what they're doing now haha. We've really been limited overall since they put them on the current gen though so I guess that's the real problem.

Billy gun at 13:01 eats Rikishi's ass it's so damn funny. By far the funniest thing in the video!

Women contending for all titles sounds pretty neat. I really need to get this game but NEVER find it in used game places

I like the decision to choose your own ref because I'd always choose Tim White because of the stupid WWE com shit he did back in the day. It was actually pretty funny. EDIT: I'm pretty sure the ref that fucked up the count was Tim White

I remember in season mode and Stacy Keibler threw me off the cell to KO me for the wwe title lol

I really hope to play this game and the other WWE games on the Xbox one day. I never owned an Xbox growing up, my older twin cousins did, and they told me of the memories they had with them and my brother as he visited them a lot growing up. They said their favorite was WrestleMania 21, but Raw 2 comes at a very close second. Hopefully I get a 360 or an OG Xbox one day to play these games. By the way, your created wrestlers, especially Defector made me laugh so hard! You’re such a genius!😂

1:05 - *Reads sticky note*

I love how you can create your own titantron videos.

If Defector was real I’d still watch wrestling.

The Superstar Selection is Better in WWE SmackDown Here Comes The Pain and It looks and plays better

This game is fun. I swear the ref had the most hilarious voice though.

Nicely done review! Well edited video! I might consider hunting down "WWE Raw 2" on the original Xbox.

your channel deserves WAYYYYYYY more views dude

i don't know if it's been mentioned but the career mode technically ends when you come out of mania with both raw and sd world titles. you get a different cut scene etc. love your videos btw.