Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)THE SHORT: Vastly improved from last year's game, this one has an in-depth sim mode, title matches that you control, lots of customization thanks to difficulty sliders, Locker room and more, and the best executed season mode in years. The whole package looks prettier than ever and adds new match-enhancing strategies. It's a pretty big step up and there are very few complaints, but some do exist- the biggest of which is the fact that female characters can do very, very little in this edition.
THE LONG: There's a great amount of new material to discuss in this game. So what I'll do is list some of it and give my opinions on each aspect. Online mode is supposed to be much imrpoved, complete with belt-swapping, but I don't have online so I'm afraid I can't describe it. There's lots else to discuss though, so if you want a short review you better skip this one!
PRESENTATION: The graphics are very polished. Well-done, realistic animation (season cutscenes are great) plus lots of little details such as the ring announcer saying what kind of match it is, if it's for a belt, character's hometowns, etc. Plus, it's small but great at the same time: Now wrestlers stay in or around the ring even during their opponent's entrance. Just extra realism, and it's really cool. Commentary seems slightly better this time, with some banter about the actual wrestlers as well as some joking and bickering. The comments stay pretty up-to-the-second, even to a fault (pin attempts for example will cause a new comment to interrupt the dialogue). It doesn't get on my nerves and doesn't seem to repeat as noticeably as before, but I admit pretty much everyone else hated it so I guess I'm in the minority. Music is the same hip hop and scream-rock as before, so take it or leave it. There's no music during matches, which isn't too big a deal but bothers me during backstage brawls which wind up feeling eerily quiet. Speaking of brawls, this game has great blood. Instead of just a facial smear it now also leaves droplets on the mat, which follow in a trail of the crimson masked wrestler and even pools up if they stay in one place. Unfortunately it fades away (slowly at least) and they don't have blood everywhere when more than one person is cut. Still, it's very vibrant and realistic- I find myself actively cutting or getting cut, because just like on the show, it gives the impression of hardcore combat.
SEASON MODE: Ever since Smackdown 5, the season mode has relied mostly on animated cutscenes and recently the addition of spoken dialogue. Since only so much voice and specific animated scenes can be used, it limited how deep and different the season could be. But this time, it's the best yet. For one thing the acting is better all around the board and very well done- It's not Shakespeare but every single wrestler sounds just as convincing as they do on TV. This is even better thanks to lip synching and lots of subtle animations and gestures. It really feels like watching an actual WWE show this time around.
Best of all, the storyline has a lot of surprises. Right away most wrestlers you pick from can play through either a RAW or Smackdown storyline, each one pretty different. But better yet, lots of characters have their own scenarios that are unique and not shared between everyone else. I played through Smackdown with Hogan and later the Undertaker, then RAW with William Regal and Mankind. While some stuff was repeated, every one of the 4 characters had a unique plot twist that wasn't in any of the other 3. In addition, you'll still make a few decisions here and there, some of which lead to entirely different cutscenes. This time there really is motivation to play through the season mode repeatedly. And since anyone you choose has loads of spoken dialogue, playing through with different characters keeps the experience fairly fresh. This is the best way to present the season mode in an interactive way, and I was really impressed (especially since I hated the last 2 games' season modes). One bad thing though- not every character can play through season (no females, but more on that in the summary section). But you do get more than 30 choices and lots of favorites are represented (Kane, Mysterio, Cena, Batista, Triple H, and others) so you'll be busy. This time, the realistic vocal work, animation, and storyline variations made the season mode one of the best parts of the game, which I never thought I'd say.
GM MODE: What this is is a WWE booker simulation. You pick from either brand, choose your roster, and compete against the other brand for the best TV ratings, against the CPU OR a 2nd player. You're given total control of what wrestlers go in which match at any point in the card. You can manufacture whatever feuds you want, and make champs of anybody you choose. But you have a certain budget, and some wrestlers cost more than others. Running each show costs money too, as does spending money to throw in cages and ladders and so on. Be careful your wrestlers don't get unhappy by repeatedly losing or getting injured either.
The good thing is you can play or simulate any match on your card, so it's wise to help out sometimes when you want a title change or a certain wrestler to stay happy. It's pretty deep, and there's a good half hour of fiddling with options to get the hang of it. It's really addicting when you do, though. My only problem is that a wrestler's popularity has more to do with how well your show is than anything: 2 jobbers could have a main event ladder match, but Triple H in a basic singles match will do just as well. This can be tricky, since it's difficult to push your undercard guys to high popularity. And with no random settings, the same 10 guys will be at the top every time you start a new game of GM mode. So it's definitely challenging, but not impossible- Chris Benoit had about a 65 on my popularity scale, but by careful booking and giving him the much-deserved title belt, I shot him into an 80s rating and he brought in the fans. It's addicting, and though challenging, it's fun to work for it.
LOCKER ROOM: This is a basic 3d room where your profile records can be accessed. The game can store multiple profiles on a single card (easily changeable from the main menu), so 2 players can share a card and have different unlocked items and so on. The locker room is cool in that you can color the wall and floor any shade you want, decorate a few spots in the room with any of several dozen unlockable items (like Bobbleheads or tshirts and posters) and modify the furniture a little bit. The whole point is to make the game feel suited to you: Instead of having all your records like belt histories and win/loss records represented in a basic text menu, you now get a customizable room to sort of call your own. Sort of cosmetic and more detail/custom minded than extremely helpful, but I think it's a nice addition.
EXHIBITION TITLES: I've wanted this since Smackdown 2 five years ago. You can now, right from the main menu, play a title match of any kind (minus Royal Rumble, Buried Alive, and the women's match) using any wrestler at anytime, and you can even do title vs. title matches. If you like having your own "fantasy wrestling league" and don't want to play through GM mode to do it, this is for you. If you want to put a belt up against 5 others in Hell in a Cell and fight a bloody battle to see who'll win, you can. Only this time, it "matters" since there's a belt at stake. You can fight for any of the real-life belts (some have to be unlocked) but you can also create the belt of your choice and fight for it too. And if you want to just leave it to fate and let the CPU fight the matches against each other, you can do that- but you DO have to be involved in created-belt matches, which for some reason are only 1 on 1 (lots of match types though). Oh, and created belts are insanely cheaper this time. Play a few matches in season mode and you'll have enough for the best belt you want. One thing: The game does keep track of title histories (and even who was in and what the match was) but it only goes back about half a dozen fights. That's a shame.
CUSTOMIZATION: They really want you to make this game as specific as you want it. Besides the Locker room, GM mode, and Exhibition titles, you can now also create an entrance by setting what the wrestlers do at multiple different points during their trip to the ring, as well as fixing lights, camera angles, and pyro. Strangely though, the post-match celebrations are pretty generic, meaning they're always basically the same. Cheesy.
More importantly, you now have loads of options for gameplay. Aside from standard difficulty setting, you can go into advanced options and set, on a sliding scale, how much you want the computer to do reversals, how easy it is for you to reverse THEM, how much damage finishers do, and other stuff like that. This way, a player can make it as frustratingly impossible or lazily easy as they want. In addition, all the created belt options are there, and so is Create-A-Wrestler. The latter is slightly imrpoved, with an easier interface. MOST of the items that were there still are, with some extra here and there. In general though, they just look better. Some characters wind up looking about as good as the standard wrestlers, and you can now REALLY tweak the faces. You can still take photos of them for the wrestler select screen too. But it's not all perfect: Still to tassels or realistic neckties (even though Mankind's is 3d, that's unfair!). Altogether still very good though. Create a move-set and stable are the same (but you know what? Now you can build a team's level of compatability!) Create a Pay Per View is in and offers what you think it would, the ability to set up a whole card of matches whenever you wish.
NEW MATCH STUFF: For...Read more›
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