Release: Nov 9 2008 (US), Nov 7 2008 (UK)
Developer: Yuke’s
Publisher: THQ
Genre: Alternative Sports
Professional wrestling – a world of bulging muscles, extreme pantomime and scantily clad, surgically ‘enhanced’ women. Based on these elements the whole thing sounds as though it’ll translate perfectly into a videogame, and if sales figures for the Smackdown vs. Raw series are anything to go by the devs at Yukes have performed such a translation. And so here we have WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009, ready to teach us ‘The Pedigree’ expected from sports entertainment videogames.
Mr Kennedy! …Kennedy.
I’m just gonna get this out of the way now, I like this game. I like it quite a lot. Admittedly my days of sitting glued to the screen as I watch Vince McMahon running away from Stone Cold Steve Austin have all but faded away, but there’s something about this game that makes me want to tune back in just to see what new, crazy stories I’m missing. It’s precisely the fact that the Smackdown series manages to capture the feel of the WWE shows themselves that makes this game so appealing to the fan base. Conversely, it’s the same reason that makes it so unattractive to those who aren’t WWE fans, so if that’s you this game is one to be avoided.
It all starts with the visuals of the wrestlers themselves which, for the most part, are brilliantly realistic incarnations. In particular guys like Edge, Mr Kennedy and Triple H are so well modeled and animated that they’re flirting with – apologies for using a much overused term – ‘photo realism’. Arenas, crowds and the commentary teams have been given the same attention and all look excellent as a result. All these elements combine nicely to create an immersing atmosphere that, as we said before, evokes the feel of the TV shows themselves. Sadly the female wrestlers haven’t been given quite the same love and don’t resemble their true selves all that much, with all the effort seemingly having gone into a section of their bodies other than their face (we’re sure you can work out which section).
Impressive graphics are one thing but it’s the gameplay that will determine whether we keep coming back for more. While the fundamentals haven’t change from past games, this year’s version plays with an impressive level of fluidity and has a slightly quicker pace than we remember from previous incarnations of the series. A simple control scheme allows you to string moves together easily, and to devastating effect, as well as enabling you to reverse your opponents attacks into one of your own (with the correct timing).
Sustained attacks build up your momentum bar which allows you to pull off your wrestler’s ‘signature moves’ which can provide a great deal of satisfaction when performed and then immediately follow up with a pin attempt and a victory. That being said it quickly became obvious to us that it’s a little too easy to obtain the signature moves, and on occasion we seemed to rack one up within the first couple of minutes of a match on hard difficulty setting. However, due to the ease of pulling off reversals, they didn’t always work in our favour.
Tag me in, brother!
Tag team matches have seen a number of upgrades. Your momentum bar increases as a team, which is very helpful if you’re playing with a little-and-large team (such as Rey Mysterio and Batista) as the smaller, quicker guy can build up the bar and then tag in the stronger guy to take your opponent down with the powerful finishing move. Double team attacks (both regular and signature) have been given a little more life and are relatively numerous.
A hot ‘new-tag’ feature has been built into tag matches that gifts you the ability to really lay down the hurt on the opposition. Performed by simply holding up or down on the D-pad, the inactive team member will begin pumping up the crowd and urging his partner to make the tag, which eventually causes your momentum bar to, literally, burst into flames. Tag in your team-mate and they’ll rush into the ring all guns blazing and launch an intense attack on the opposing team. The amount of damage you cause is determined by how many buttons you can push based on the on-screen prompts that accompany the ring invasion, which is an impressively intense and exciting affair. It’s an entertaining feature but sadly, due to its simplicity, quickly becomes dull and tedious to execute – the results are always welcomed though.
There are no shortage of match types and even the most of hardened of wrestling fanatics are sure to be impressed by the range on offer. From standard matches to cage and inferno matches there is something for everyone. Inferno matches, a new addition to the series, are disappointingly under whelming and consist of raising the in-ring temperature to three hundred degrees (by successfully attacking your opponent) and then dragging them over to the fire. Aside from visual differences there is really nothing that sets this apart from other match types.
WWE’s finest
As well as the standard career mode a ‘Road to Wrestlemania‘ option has been added, that allows you to take control of the WWE’s finest and work your way to Wrestlemania’s main event. While the mode may not be particularly lengthy (around 15 matches) it does a good job of creating a plausible storyline and giving a bit of say in where you want that story to take you. The mode is primarily single-player focused but does give you the option of teaming up with a friend in a co-op story as Rey Mysterio and Batista.
As always the create-a-wrestler, which has been a series staple since its beginnings, is impressively intuitive and contains a diverse selection of attire and creation tools, as well as giving you some degree of control over your character’s entrance and move set. As impressive is the new ‘create a finisher’ feature which consists of combining any of the game’s animations into a brand new move of your own design. Just as with the create-a-wrestler tools, creating a finisher is remarkably simple. Up to ten animations can be strung together but you’re also restricted by a time limit and by which animations the have already chosen. So for example if you have chosen you initial animation to be holding your opponent in the ‘DDT’ position, you can then only select from a list of moves that are performed from that position – so no choke slams, for example. It’s very polished considering this is its inaugural outing within the series.
Other than the problems already discussed above there are only a couple of others to speak of. Commentary is fairly good on the whole but we did encounter a few issues with the dialogue repeating itself too frequently, and occasionally we even caught the audio in a loop which gave us the exact same line three time in a row. Some work also needs to done to the targeting system for matches that involve two or more wrestlers, as all too often we would accidentally attack our partner (or the ref). This problem also extended to the A.I. which resulted in some rather humorous team-mate on team-mate pinning situations.
All in all WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 is an accomplished game that should greatly appeal to fans of the TV shows. There is enough content here to keep most people happy for a long time and the excellent creation tools add to its replay-ability. A few niggles prevent it from extending its reach beyond the current fan base but, although it’s by no means perfect, it’s certainly the best wrestling game available today and a big improvement over previous games in the series.
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