Official WWE Website

Platform: PlayStation 2
Genre: Wrestling
Number of Players: 1 - 6 + online
Peripherals: Broadband Adaptor

As most of you probably have already figured out, I'm quite a fan when it comes to professional wrestling, having actually watched it since I was just a little lad growing up in the Pacific Northwest. I even have vague memories when names Rowdy Roddy Piper and Greg "the Hammer" Valentine were a part of our own Portland Wrestling, back in the days before WWE went national. Lately though, I don't get to watch RAW or Smackdown as much as I used to. Part of that is due to work schedules, part is keeping the site up to day, and part is simply because the storylines have grown a little stale, but that's not going to be the sort of thing to keep me from taking in another of THQ and Yukes WWE games, and now we get the best of both WWE worlds together as one.

Smackdown vs. RAW brings both of the popular television programs together under one gaming banner, with some improvements of course. The game first allows you to select which of the television programs you'd like to be a star on. This gives you one of two things. First off, this determines that stage that you will be performing on, though it really comes down to the backdrop, that's the real eye-catcher. You also will have the actually announce team to do the play by play's in the ring. For me, I have always liked to good old J.R. and The King do in terms of their work, and Lawler of course embodies the old school days when one commentator always sided with the heels. The Smackdown team though, I've never been completely sold on. Tazz isn't bad, but doesn't always take the heel favorite approach, but Michael Cole is just annoying. The only problem with the voice over work though is that it does get a little repetitive at times.

Most fans of the shows and the game already know exactly how this is going to work as far as the game itself goes though. You can select from exhibition mode, a single match, PPV mode, season mode (the one most gamers will go with their first time playing) and the usual create-a-wrestler mode. Story mode is more or less the same as before. You will select the superstar of your choice (or your created wrestler) and work your way up the ranks. The difference now though is that instead of wandering around, you will see cut-scenes featuring different superstars, complete with dialog (expect from you.) My problem here though comes in a couple of different ways. The story mode always starts out the same. In my case, even though I like the commentators on RAW, I'm a bit more pleased with the backdrop for Smackdown, so based on pure eye candy, that's ended up being my choice.

Most of the superstars that the fans love and hate are included here to select. You have everyone from Triple H to Booker T, John Cena and Tajiri, and even some of the recently eliminated wrestlers like A-Train. Undertake even is in the new "old-school" Undertaker, complete with robed monks for his entrance. Fans will find that most of the entrance music and body language is included. Eddie Gurrero comes down in his pimped out low-rider, John Cena trash takes on the mic (there's no actual dialog though) but you will note that JBL doesn't come down out in his limo. There are also a few stars missing from the list, like Eugene for example, but there are more than enough for most fans.

So, I'm playing as Undertaker, and here is where the story part starts to fail. My first encounter is with Rene Dupree and Torrie Wilson. You have your choice of two different options to respond to Rene, but ultimately confrontation leads to you getting a Diva as a manager. I don't know about you, but the Undertaker only ever needed one manager, and that was Paul Bearer, and I don't think that WWE writers would ever put Taker together with Torrie, Lita, or any of the other WWE Diva's. Something else that I don't care much for though is the dialog. It sounds too forced. I guess the superstars of the WWE aren't as used to having scripted lines as they are just making them up on the spot.

In the ring, there have been a few changes. The controls are essentially the same as far as which buttons are used for grappling and so on, and of course using the d-pad will give you different moves. But, you will also notice that you also have a meter for clean or dirty. This relates to how you fight in the ring. If you're a dirty fighter, using every dirty trick in the book will make the fans hate you even more, and this builds up your special meter quickly, and the same is true of fighting clean. With this style , you want to make sure that you break holds when the referee tells you to, don't bring in foreign objects, and so on. If you have a manager, you can also have them assist you by either distracting the ref or throwing in something to help you with the match, but you won't always be able to have them at ringside. During a match, you can still reverse moves and even reverse finishing moves. You still have the ability to bust your opponent wide open if you do enough damage, but the developers took it a little further.

During one of the cut-scenes, Charlie Hass decided to try and trash talk me. I don't care too much for him, and while I could have just let it ride, I decided a sneak attack was the best course of action. In our match later, Hass comes limping down to the ring, still suffering the effects of me beating the hell out of him, and thus giving me an easy win. The next week, Bubba Dudley decides to see how I like getting attacked from behind, and a hardcore match ensues. The rules of clean and dirty fighting go out the window at this point, and after mercilessly beating him, I again have the win. These little details though do add to the season mode, and again the developers have included those subtle things like seeing Hass for example try and pick The Undertaker and suplex him. It's simply not going to happen, so the general physics are once again taken into consideration.

Wining matches will earn you money that can be spent in the Shopzone, experience points to boost your abilities, and points with the fans (you will need certain levels to be eligible to compete for championship belts.) In the Shopzone, you can buy everything from PPV arenas to play in, moves sets for the CAW mode, Diva load screens, clothing sets, and even classic wrestlers such as Bret "the Hitman' Heart (and I'm sure this will further fuel those rumors of his return to the WWE), the Legion of Doom, Mankind, and even The Rock. And of course, in both season mode and exhibition you will find just about every type of match you could want from your standard one-on-one and tag matches to table matches, ladder matches, and the ruthless Hell in the Cell match, or perhaps you'd like to be a part of the newly added Parking Lot Brawl. Let's not forget the bra & panties match, but I could never get Undertaker to participate in those, but when you're playing as the Diva, you will get to see not only some underwear, but some spanking and maybe even a kiss or two.

The create-a-wrestler mode has been drastically improved. You can make changes to just above everything now and if you play around with the features enough, you can certainly get a decent look wrestler or even try and do a recreation of any superstar that you'd like. But, now that you've got your character created and you want to play around with it, why take it into season mode when you can go online? THQ and Yukes have had an aim to get the game online for a while, and that time is finally at hand. But, in some ways it's a bit of a disappointment and there are definitely things I would like to bring up that hopefully can be added into the game down the road.

There's no support for the HDD at all, which is a little surprising. It would be very easy to make downloadable content for the game like new outfits, moves, and so on. The music in the CAW mode is very limited, and again I'm thinking the HDD is perfect so that either downloadable songs can be made available for artists that want their songs to be included or even take a rip your favorite song to the drive and you have the music of your choice. The matches are very limited with only singles and bra and panty matches being represented. I'd love to see battle royals and even hell in the cell matches included, but one nice thing is that this version of the WWE franchise also includes a create-a-belt option, so you can put that on the line in online play if you'd like. Also, there isn't support for USB headsets of any sort, and while I'm not suggesting it be added for trash talking (though you know it would be) being able to talk with opponents wouldn't be a bad thing.

Above everything else though, Smackdown vs. RAW looks fantastic. Most of the superstars look just like they should, though there are a few that seem as though they could use a little improvement, and most of the crowd animation isn't done too badly, though there are times where it looks a little blocky. A lot of time has been spent though on making the game look great, and for any WWE fan, that really does make all the difference in the world.

There are a few things that I miss from the other games, but that's always going to be the case with any of these, and Smackdown vs. RAW is much better than some of those arcade style wrestling games that have been released in the past. Hopefully this won't be the last WWE game we see from THQ and Yukes as currently WWE has filed a lawsuit against them and I think that most fans would really hate to see the license fall into the wrong hands (I still have bad memories of the games that Acclaim did.) Supposing though that the license does stay put, I personally feel that Yukes is just a mere few steps away from creating the prefect wrestling game and it's obvious that they have been listening to the fans all this time. Season mode is nearly perfect while online does need some work, but once again Yukes creates a winning game that is ideal for fans, both on and offline.

-mike-