So many franchises have turned into annual releases. Remember when Call of Duty didn’t come out every year? Rock Band didn’t have a game every 4 months? Guitar Hero didn’t have a game every three weeks? Seems like everyone needs to do yearly installments, no matter what the genre is. THQ has been at it for quite a while, with their Smackdown vs Raw series of games. For a while, the series had regressed into a substandard, barely functional wrestling game. Thankfully, the last two years has seen some advancements to the total package, and this years entry, Smackdown vs Raw 2010, is perhaps the best wrestling game to be released since WWF No Mercy on the Nintendo 64, nearly ten years ago.
The game plays similar enough to last years, with analog controls for movement and different grapple attacks. For the most part, it all works without a hitch, but every year, I wonder if they’d ever add more grappling moves. Back in the N64 wrestling game days, there were tons of grappling moves, while these days, it feels quite restricted, even with the grapples that let you choose between several different outcomes. It ain’t necessarily broke, and it looks like they won’t be fixed.
Lesson #1 -This is The Miz. He's pretty freakin' awesome.
2010 marks the debut of the Story Designer, which lets you create your own storyline, complete with dialog (via text), camera angles, different locations and so on. You can choose different animations to convey emotion, attitude and even have them go at it. It’s a pretty deep mode for the most part, and one that creative nuts would eat up and spend a long time on. You can even share your creations online with others, as one of a few new online additions to bring together a community for the game.
Yukes introduced The Road to Wrestlemania last year, which followed a half dozen different wrestlers in their own dedicated storyline. While some of them were entertaining (the tag team storyline that featured Batista and Rey Mysterio), the Undertaker’s storyline, featuring possession and zombies, was just horrible. This year, the story-lines are a bit more fleshed out, and even more enjoyable. Edge cheating and sleeping his way to the title seemed like a storyline you would see during a taping of WWE Smackdown. 2010 also features a storyline for your own character, which follows the improbable journey of watching Santino defending his title, to Santino picking you out of the crowd and challenging you to a title match, and you winning. Hilarity ensues for the next ten weeks, as Vince McMahon tries anything and everything to get the title back and to banish you from the WWE. Very creative, and its a terrific storyline, helping to make at least one of the characters you created feel like they have a proper place in the WWE Universe.
The storyline editor is pretty in-depth, allowing quite a bit of flexibility in what you create.
Each of these story-lines are fully voiced by respective commentators during cut scenes, wrestlers that star in the storyline, as well as whichever wrestler makes a brief appearance in said story. For the most part, the voice acting is close to par of what you see on the televised product, though you can sense laziness here and there, mostly on the commentator side of the cut scenes. Regardless, being able to play out a select half dozen different WWE stars in their very own storyline, with full voice overs and great effort put forth into making it as authentic as possible, is a major plus for the product.
While there is an actual Career mode to this game, it’s about the same reprocessed nonsense you would find in the previous titles. You start by going after one title belt, get a set number of stars total to challenge the champion of the title you are in the hunt for, defend it, move on to the next title, etc. There’s no real feeling of connection to any wrestler you choose and the path they take, since it’s just wrestling, stat screens and nothing else. While I more than appreciate the dedication to having The Road to Wrestlemania, and how fleshed out, impressive and believable it has become, there needs to be a bit more attention focused on the Career Mode. Make a generic story that they all follow. Something other than nothing.
The creation modes are all back, with small tweaks here and there. Create a Move makes its second appearance, with the addition of aerial finishers to go with their standing finishers. I love the idea of creating my own finisher, and having these tools to let me, but once again, it’s extremely underwhelming. If I am creating a finisher, why am I barred from making submission finishers, or my own version of The People’s Elbow? Again, the idea of creating your own finisher leads to so many possibilities, but limiting what you can do, really kills the point.
You can designate rivals and allies via menus, allowing an ally to come assist you, or a rival to come distract you.
One thing the SDvsRaw franchise has done year after year to a near perfection, is its visual presentation. 2010 is no exception, as the wrestlers surpass the visual qualities of years past, and most of the wrestlers animate to a near spot on perfection. Last year, some entrance animations looked laughable, like Jeff Hardy’s laughable and goofy arm flailing when he comes out from behind the curtain, Miz and Morrison’s entrances looking nothing like their entrance on television, and Jericho doing his Y2J pose at the beginning. This year, most of that is ironed out, though CM Punk and Ziggler look a bit off. With as large as the roster is this year, including nearly everyone (more on the omissions later), these fewer quirks are not as much of a detractor as they could have been.
Detail wise, SDvsRaw 2010 is stunning. Take a look at Randy Orton at any given time on television, his awesome sleeve tattoos and his build. Select him in this game and you’ll see every last detail, and even some you can’t see on television. Every wrestler looks flat out impressive, with near perfect television like presentation. The crowd looks better than ever as well, with more models being use and spread around, with more clothing options to further diversify the crowd look. Probably the biggest boost to the visuals is the lack of a constant HUD. Your momentum is shown in a thin circular bar underneath your wrestlers, and an icon showing when you have a finisher ready. The lack of a constant HUD dramatically increases the quality of the visuals, making it near life like to watch now.
Every little detail in Randy Orton's sleeves, as well as other wrstlers tattoos and other details, are fully realized to a staggering degree.
My biggest issue with every wrestling game has been the commentary. We went from no commentary, to repetitive commentary, to drivel filled commentary, back to repetitive commentary. Jim Ross, as always, sounds enthusiastic enough, and comes off sounding extremely professional, with pure emotion behind most any line he is fed. Tazz, who’s been gone since before Wrestlemania 25, doesn’t sound too bad, and has a lively and upbeat tone. Everyone else, especially Michael Cole and Todd Grisham, sound uninterested, bored and wanting nothing more than their royalty check. Todd Grisham delivers a few lines with a low, monotone voice that should be shouted or said with passion, something that Jim Ross does well in this game.
Ring announcers have the same mix of passion and lethargic delivery between them. Why does the lovely Lillian Garcia announce CM Punk as if she’s asking a question? The crowd pop is much better than the last few years, but Yukes needs to develop a better system for crowd response, with more consistency in their cheers and jeers. Why doesn’t everyone have their proper entrance themes either? 95% of them do, but a few, like Evan Bourne, have their old theme, or Edge, who has the greatest entrance song in the history of man, is briefly looped near the end? Metalingus deserves the utmost care in its transition from television to video game!
Finally, the common knock when it comes to wrestling video games – even with the huge roster this year, why are some wrestlers noticeably missing? Drew McIntyre debuted a long while after final preparations were done with the game, so that’s understandable. What about Sheamus? He’s not some Johnny-come-lately. As of this moment in time, he is the WWE Champion, and isn’t in the game. What about Zack Ryder? He’s got the most non wrestling entrance theme you can ever hear, but it’s so awesome. On the flip side of the coin, you have guys like Mr. Kennedy, who was released way before the game was, as with The Brian Kendrick. Same thing with Tazz on commentary. Hopefully Yukes and THQ will be a lot more supportive of downloadable content than they were last year, and add these missing superstars into the roster. Especially since sharing your character creations via XBL, a new feature this year, is not being supported enough by the community.
Pourquoi es-tu si belle?
Yukes and THQ really pushed themselves hard the last two years and pumped out two exceptional titles. Smackdown vs Raw 2010 is by far the companies best wrestling title since the early PlayStation 2 titles. With stunning character models, more refined gameplay and tons of match styles to play, you will have more than enough reason to be playing this way past Wrestlemania 26.
Alter Bridge – Metalingus. Best entrance theme ever.
Rating: 8.8
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