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IGN Review of WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2008
As a game reviewer, sometimes you get assigned titles you don't know much about. Maybe it's a horse racing game, something about living on Mars or so on, but when it happens, you give it the old college try and hope you connect on some level with the hardest of hardcore fans.
That isn't the case here.
I know wrestling games, and if you're reading this review, chances are you do, too. There's something about our brethren of junkies that leads us to obsess over every aspect of the upcoming brawler, analyze screenshot after screenshot and generally go off the deep end about these games.
Basically, we nitpick everything to death because we love it so much. Expect that here.
WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2008 is good. Very good. The latest outing in the franchise has arrived with 50 superstars from Raw, SmackDown, ECW and the WWE's past; the new ECW Extreme Rules Match; a new tournament mode; and an updated control scheme.
Oh. You can light barbed wire 2X4s and tables on fire. Sweet.
ECW was the promotion I called home in the late '90s, and that's probably why I love the ECW Extreme Rules Match so much. Following the tried-and-true Philly formula, you get to drag your opponent all around the ring, floor and crowd in a no-count out, no-DQ match where the pinfall or submission must happen in the ring.
What separate this match from the hardcore battles we've seen for the past few years are crowd interaction and the weapon wheel. As you take your Superstar and pound in faces around the barricade, fans will reach out to hand you crutches, championship belts, guitars and more. You can take the weapon and wail on the opponent or lockup with the opponent and drag him or her to the outstretched object for some nifty moves such as draping the bad guy over the barricade and going to town on his or her back with the crutch, having the fan hold the guitar steady while your opponent comes in headfirst and other craziness.
You can even perform specialized taunts with the crowd where you lean back on the barrier and bask in their adoration or take one of their signs and celebrate with it.
However, it's the weapon wheel that truly puts this match in its own league. In years past, we'd blindly reach under the ring for whatever foreign object we could get. Now, when you reach under the ECW ring -- this match type can only be played in the ECW arena -- you can use your left stick to select from a set of eight weapons such as chairs, mops, Singapore canes and more. You can even pick four weapons before the match that you want to see represented on the wheel more than once and don't have to worry about being attacked while picking your item -- the game focuses on you and your opponent is left in off-screen limbo.
It's not like that this year, and that's mainly thanks to the right stick … except for the running thing … that part is thanks to triangle.
Anyway, the right stick is pretty much used for everything in SVR '08. Just like last year, you'll use it to initiate grapples, but rather than last year's hold R1, press the stick up and then press R3 for an Ultimate Control move, you can now just hold R1and flick the right stick for an Ultimate Control move. It might not sound like much, but the ease of being able to get into a collar and elbow tie-up so that you can drag an opponent to the steel steps or lift a fool to toss through the announce table is a refined aspect of this title that makes it a better time than last year's outing.
The stick also makes up the brand new Struggle Submission System. Again, last year's shoulder-stick-R3-stick combo is gone. Now, you move the stick in whichever direction your submission move of choice is and then move the stick to apply the amount of pressure you want.
You're probably asking why you wouldn't apply as much pressure as possible each time, and the answer is that it's a risk-reward situation. See, if you're not applying pressure, the opponent can move his or her stick to try and escape the hold. If you apply pressure for too long, the two hands symbolizing your grip will begin to twitch and if they separate, your opponent will get up before you and have the advantage. Take the time to play a few matches as CM Punk, work the body and watch the red seep in from the corners of your TV. The satisfaction in overwhelming.
Another new idea that soars in SVR '08 is fighting styles. Each Superstar has two fighting styles that provide him or her with unique primary and secondary abilities they can use with a stored finisher. A Powerhouse such as Bobby Lashley can enact a "Rampage" that makes him impervious to strike attacks and makes his grapples inescapable, a High-Flyer like Rey Mysterio can feign an injury and then scoop his opponent up in a "Possum Pin," and a Showman like Shawn Michaels can steal an opponent's finisher.
Whoa. I know. We've been able to steal finishers for years. However, these fighting styles are taking the things we all know and love -- performing an opponent's taunt, removing a turnbuckle cover and diving over the top rope -- and assigning them to certain Superstars.
That's a good thing.
Think about it. How many times have you been playing and seen someone do something completely out of character? Jeff Hardy performing the last ride? Cena pulling off the turnbuckle cover? Now that these moves are locked into fighting styles, people act in-character and get boosts for doing what they should.
Look at Randy Orton, the personification of the dirty fighting style. When Orton gets a two count and argues with the ref, he gets a momentum boost. When Orton shoves the ref into his opponent -- which knocks the ref out and the opponent down -- he gets a momentum boost. Never mind the fact that the momentum meters look way better than last year's two-sided pile of ugly and the characters have more realistic and varied stamina, which is now recovered by holding down Select.
New this year is the Hall of Fame, a selection of 12 classic WWE moments you have to relive -- like beating Bret Hart as Shawn Michaels in an iron man match or winning a King of the Ring in Tournament Mode, which is basically all that mode is. These achievements unlock new superstars for purchase in the WWE Shop, which also includes moves, belts and ring attire.
Longtime fans will notice iron man matches have been overhauled this year as well. Now, you can only choose between 10-, 15- and 20-minute matches, and after each pinfall, the loser's limb damage resets while the winner's remains the same. Although I'll miss brawling for an hour, the reset is a great idea. Once you hit a finisher in previous versions of the match, your opponent was screwed. Now, there's a challenge to the mode.
So, SVR '08 is good and has all of the standard matches you'd expect -- Hell in a Cell, TLC, first blood, etc. -- but it falls short of being great and 24/7 Mode is one of the big reasons behind that. If you just woke up from the coma so many of us fell into after Mae Young gave birth to a hand, the GM Mode and Season Mode from last year have been brought together and tossed into 24/7.
Don't get me wrong, that's fine idea, but it's the implementation that gets me. Disappointingly, GM is almost the exact same thing from last year. You'll choose and brand -- yes, ECW is available -- draft your roster, hire storyline writers, manage your feuds and deal with injuries and salaries. It's all the stuff people dug from last year's mode and the addition of the GM of the Year Award, a list of goals -- have the number one Superstar, defeat a champion from one of the other brands, etc. -- that get you closer to being Vince's golden boy.
See, the goal in 24/7 is to become a Legend by accomplishing goals similar to the ones on the GM side -- be the most popular Superstar, defeat the number one Superstar, etc. -- and participating in RPG-like events on your non-wrestling days that hone your skills on the mic, with fans and more. The events help you earn more money for WWE Shop, stay healthy and become more popular, but the training costs money and wears you out.
And here's where things get sticky. You remember how you had to rest your guys in GM Mode so that they wouldn't get injured and end up riding the bench? That's in the career part of 24/7 mode, too.
So, I'm taking Matt Hardy up the ladder of the WWE, and I don't rest him enough. Instead of giving him training and massages, I'm sending him out on trophy dates and movie shoots on the days he isn't wrestling to earn me more cash to spend in the WWE Shop on movesets for my created character. He gets tired, and after a particularly trying match with Rey Mysterio, I get an e-mail letting me know he's herniated a disc in his back. In the same e-mail, the medical staff tells me I have to take seven weeks off or the injury's just going to get worse.
I go to the calendar, and there's no option to rest Matt. In fact, it turns out there's no option in the game. If you get hurt, you have to wrestle with the injury. This meant I had to keep sending Matt into match after match, and his hurtin' back meant that as soon as the bell rang, his torso was already damaged. The opponent would get a couple moves in, and Matt would be dead weight.
This is a rather large problem. It's as if 24/7 Mode can't decide if it's an angle or a shoot. On the one hand, you have GM Mode where you're hiring people to write storylines and thus admitting wrestling's staged. Then, there's the career portion of 24/7 where you're forced to fight with injuries that would have the real Superstars laid up for months. You can make the argument that not performing in your season isn't fun, but I can assure you getting your ass handed to you match after match because all it takes is a hip toss to cripple you isn't a good time either.
Sadly, this isn't the only hang-up of 24/7. Knocking off the list of Legend-making tasks will take you a few years, but you won't even get halfway through your rookie year before you start seeing the same cutscenes -- your guy lifting weights, walking in on the divas, etc. -- over and over again. Worse is the fact the scenes don't make any sense in terms of your storyline. One minute I'm getting hate mail from Rey and the next we're shaking hands in the hallway.
If I can dust off a Stone Cold gem -- what?
Doubling back, I asked THQ why not every Superstar was playable in 24/7 Mode and was told it came down to the quality of their voiceovers. This is unacceptable. The cutscenes and mode these voices are being used in do not work. I seem to remember a kick ass season mode in WWF No Mercy -- a storyline tree branched out and changed depending on me winning or losing -- and no voices were used. I want a compelling story, not generic cutscenes and half-assed dialogue.
The repetition in SVR '08 doesn't stop with cinemas either. No matter how many years you play -- you can keep performing even after you reach legendary status -- the schedule will constantly be the same. WrestleMania's in Detroit, Vengeance is in Charlotte and so on. Plus, the calendar in your locker room will always read "2008."
The repetition report still isn't over. Create-A-Superstar is back in this installment, but it's basically the exact same thing as it was in 2007 with a few drawbacks and plusses to go along with it. Sure, the number of hair styles has jumped from 50 to 73, but the number of face paints has gone from 154 to 118 and most of those are recycled from '07. When I tried to give a created superstar black rimmed glasses, I found there wasn't a normal-looking pair that I could make black without making the lenses black as well. Weak.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the look of SVR '08. Some in the office have complained that this installment looks just like previous years, and there's some truth to that. A number of animations have been recycled, but there are new moves. For me, wrestling's wrestling. I ran an Undertaker versus Triple H match on WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role and SVR '08, and although Triple H's knee to the face and Pedigree look similar, those are two moves the guy does every match. I'm not bothered by the SmackDown series looking similar each year -- it's an accurate representation of the WWE product -- but you might be.
Making matters worse? As a PS3 owner you're getting the short end of the stick. Yes, you get an online mode full of different match types, leaderboards, ranked matches and private matches, but you're going to have to play all that stuff with out talking to your opponent. There's no voice support. Also, 360 kids get to rip music from their hard drive and put it in as entrance music. You get to hold R2 on your way to the ring and have a first-person perspective that's controlled by Sixaxis.
All the other traditional SmackDown series glitches are here as well. The A.I. is dumb even on Legend (they don't know when to use their finisher), the collision detection is spotty (Will long hair ever stay out of people's backs?!), and the commentary is stilted and tripe (during a Rock/Stone Cold bout, JBL lamented about missing Mr. Johnson only to have Michael Cole follow up by saying we're looking at the future of the WWE).
Well, there's always next year.
©2007-11-01, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
That isn't the case here.
I know wrestling games, and if you're reading this review, chances are you do, too. There's something about our brethren of junkies that leads us to obsess over every aspect of the upcoming brawler, analyze screenshot after screenshot and generally go off the deep end about these games.
Basically, we nitpick everything to death because we love it so much. Expect that here.
WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2008 is good. Very good. The latest outing in the franchise has arrived with 50 superstars from Raw, SmackDown, ECW and the WWE's past; the new ECW Extreme Rules Match; a new tournament mode; and an updated control scheme.
Oh. You can light barbed wire 2X4s and tables on fire. Sweet.
ECW was the promotion I called home in the late '90s, and that's probably why I love the ECW Extreme Rules Match so much. Following the tried-and-true Philly formula, you get to drag your opponent all around the ring, floor and crowd in a no-count out, no-DQ match where the pinfall or submission must happen in the ring.
What separate this match from the hardcore battles we've seen for the past few years are crowd interaction and the weapon wheel. As you take your Superstar and pound in faces around the barricade, fans will reach out to hand you crutches, championship belts, guitars and more. You can take the weapon and wail on the opponent or lockup with the opponent and drag him or her to the outstretched object for some nifty moves such as draping the bad guy over the barricade and going to town on his or her back with the crutch, having the fan hold the guitar steady while your opponent comes in headfirst and other craziness.
You can even perform specialized taunts with the crowd where you lean back on the barrier and bask in their adoration or take one of their signs and celebrate with it.
However, it's the weapon wheel that truly puts this match in its own league. In years past, we'd blindly reach under the ring for whatever foreign object we could get. Now, when you reach under the ECW ring -- this match type can only be played in the ECW arena -- you can use your left stick to select from a set of eight weapons such as chairs, mops, Singapore canes and more. You can even pick four weapons before the match that you want to see represented on the wheel more than once and don't have to worry about being attacked while picking your item -- the game focuses on you and your opponent is left in off-screen limbo.
It's not like that this year, and that's mainly thanks to the right stick … except for the running thing … that part is thanks to triangle.
Anyway, the right stick is pretty much used for everything in SVR '08. Just like last year, you'll use it to initiate grapples, but rather than last year's hold R1, press the stick up and then press R3 for an Ultimate Control move, you can now just hold R1and flick the right stick for an Ultimate Control move. It might not sound like much, but the ease of being able to get into a collar and elbow tie-up so that you can drag an opponent to the steel steps or lift a fool to toss through the announce table is a refined aspect of this title that makes it a better time than last year's outing.
The stick also makes up the brand new Struggle Submission System. Again, last year's shoulder-stick-R3-stick combo is gone. Now, you move the stick in whichever direction your submission move of choice is and then move the stick to apply the amount of pressure you want.
You're probably asking why you wouldn't apply as much pressure as possible each time, and the answer is that it's a risk-reward situation. See, if you're not applying pressure, the opponent can move his or her stick to try and escape the hold. If you apply pressure for too long, the two hands symbolizing your grip will begin to twitch and if they separate, your opponent will get up before you and have the advantage. Take the time to play a few matches as CM Punk, work the body and watch the red seep in from the corners of your TV. The satisfaction in overwhelming.
Another new idea that soars in SVR '08 is fighting styles. Each Superstar has two fighting styles that provide him or her with unique primary and secondary abilities they can use with a stored finisher. A Powerhouse such as Bobby Lashley can enact a "Rampage" that makes him impervious to strike attacks and makes his grapples inescapable, a High-Flyer like Rey Mysterio can feign an injury and then scoop his opponent up in a "Possum Pin," and a Showman like Shawn Michaels can steal an opponent's finisher.
Whoa. I know. We've been able to steal finishers for years. However, these fighting styles are taking the things we all know and love -- performing an opponent's taunt, removing a turnbuckle cover and diving over the top rope -- and assigning them to certain Superstars.
That's a good thing.
Think about it. How many times have you been playing and seen someone do something completely out of character? Jeff Hardy performing the last ride? Cena pulling off the turnbuckle cover? Now that these moves are locked into fighting styles, people act in-character and get boosts for doing what they should.
Look at Randy Orton, the personification of the dirty fighting style. When Orton gets a two count and argues with the ref, he gets a momentum boost. When Orton shoves the ref into his opponent -- which knocks the ref out and the opponent down -- he gets a momentum boost. Never mind the fact that the momentum meters look way better than last year's two-sided pile of ugly and the characters have more realistic and varied stamina, which is now recovered by holding down Select.
New this year is the Hall of Fame, a selection of 12 classic WWE moments you have to relive -- like beating Bret Hart as Shawn Michaels in an iron man match or winning a King of the Ring in Tournament Mode, which is basically all that mode is. These achievements unlock new superstars for purchase in the WWE Shop, which also includes moves, belts and ring attire.
Longtime fans will notice iron man matches have been overhauled this year as well. Now, you can only choose between 10-, 15- and 20-minute matches, and after each pinfall, the loser's limb damage resets while the winner's remains the same. Although I'll miss brawling for an hour, the reset is a great idea. Once you hit a finisher in previous versions of the match, your opponent was screwed. Now, there's a challenge to the mode.
So, SVR '08 is good and has all of the standard matches you'd expect -- Hell in a Cell, TLC, first blood, etc. -- but it falls short of being great and 24/7 Mode is one of the big reasons behind that. If you just woke up from the coma so many of us fell into after Mae Young gave birth to a hand, the GM Mode and Season Mode from last year have been brought together and tossed into 24/7.
Don't get me wrong, that's fine idea, but it's the implementation that gets me. Disappointingly, GM is almost the exact same thing from last year. You'll choose and brand -- yes, ECW is available -- draft your roster, hire storyline writers, manage your feuds and deal with injuries and salaries. It's all the stuff people dug from last year's mode and the addition of the GM of the Year Award, a list of goals -- have the number one Superstar, defeat a champion from one of the other brands, etc. -- that get you closer to being Vince's golden boy.
See, the goal in 24/7 is to become a Legend by accomplishing goals similar to the ones on the GM side -- be the most popular Superstar, defeat the number one Superstar, etc. -- and participating in RPG-like events on your non-wrestling days that hone your skills on the mic, with fans and more. The events help you earn more money for WWE Shop, stay healthy and become more popular, but the training costs money and wears you out.
And here's where things get sticky. You remember how you had to rest your guys in GM Mode so that they wouldn't get injured and end up riding the bench? That's in the career part of 24/7 mode, too.
So, I'm taking Matt Hardy up the ladder of the WWE, and I don't rest him enough. Instead of giving him training and massages, I'm sending him out on trophy dates and movie shoots on the days he isn't wrestling to earn me more cash to spend in the WWE Shop on movesets for my created character. He gets tired, and after a particularly trying match with Rey Mysterio, I get an e-mail letting me know he's herniated a disc in his back. In the same e-mail, the medical staff tells me I have to take seven weeks off or the injury's just going to get worse.
I go to the calendar, and there's no option to rest Matt. In fact, it turns out there's no option in the game. If you get hurt, you have to wrestle with the injury. This meant I had to keep sending Matt into match after match, and his hurtin' back meant that as soon as the bell rang, his torso was already damaged. The opponent would get a couple moves in, and Matt would be dead weight.
This is a rather large problem. It's as if 24/7 Mode can't decide if it's an angle or a shoot. On the one hand, you have GM Mode where you're hiring people to write storylines and thus admitting wrestling's staged. Then, there's the career portion of 24/7 where you're forced to fight with injuries that would have the real Superstars laid up for months. You can make the argument that not performing in your season isn't fun, but I can assure you getting your ass handed to you match after match because all it takes is a hip toss to cripple you isn't a good time either.
Sadly, this isn't the only hang-up of 24/7. Knocking off the list of Legend-making tasks will take you a few years, but you won't even get halfway through your rookie year before you start seeing the same cutscenes -- your guy lifting weights, walking in on the divas, etc. -- over and over again. Worse is the fact the scenes don't make any sense in terms of your storyline. One minute I'm getting hate mail from Rey and the next we're shaking hands in the hallway.
If I can dust off a Stone Cold gem -- what?
Doubling back, I asked THQ why not every Superstar was playable in 24/7 Mode and was told it came down to the quality of their voiceovers. This is unacceptable. The cutscenes and mode these voices are being used in do not work. I seem to remember a kick ass season mode in WWF No Mercy -- a storyline tree branched out and changed depending on me winning or losing -- and no voices were used. I want a compelling story, not generic cutscenes and half-assed dialogue.
The repetition in SVR '08 doesn't stop with cinemas either. No matter how many years you play -- you can keep performing even after you reach legendary status -- the schedule will constantly be the same. WrestleMania's in Detroit, Vengeance is in Charlotte and so on. Plus, the calendar in your locker room will always read "2008."
The repetition report still isn't over. Create-A-Superstar is back in this installment, but it's basically the exact same thing as it was in 2007 with a few drawbacks and plusses to go along with it. Sure, the number of hair styles has jumped from 50 to 73, but the number of face paints has gone from 154 to 118 and most of those are recycled from '07. When I tried to give a created superstar black rimmed glasses, I found there wasn't a normal-looking pair that I could make black without making the lenses black as well. Weak.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the look of SVR '08. Some in the office have complained that this installment looks just like previous years, and there's some truth to that. A number of animations have been recycled, but there are new moves. For me, wrestling's wrestling. I ran an Undertaker versus Triple H match on WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role and SVR '08, and although Triple H's knee to the face and Pedigree look similar, those are two moves the guy does every match. I'm not bothered by the SmackDown series looking similar each year -- it's an accurate representation of the WWE product -- but you might be.
Making matters worse? As a PS3 owner you're getting the short end of the stick. Yes, you get an online mode full of different match types, leaderboards, ranked matches and private matches, but you're going to have to play all that stuff with out talking to your opponent. There's no voice support. Also, 360 kids get to rip music from their hard drive and put it in as entrance music. You get to hold R2 on your way to the ring and have a first-person perspective that's controlled by Sixaxis.
All the other traditional SmackDown series glitches are here as well. The A.I. is dumb even on Legend (they don't know when to use their finisher), the collision detection is spotty (Will long hair ever stay out of people's backs?!), and the commentary is stilted and tripe (during a Rock/Stone Cold bout, JBL lamented about missing Mr. Johnson only to have Michael Cole follow up by saying we're looking at the future of the WWE).
Well, there's always next year.
©2007-11-01, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved