Most yearly sports franchises present gamers with the question of whether the incremental changes and roster updates are worth another $60, or if they should simply hold out for next year’s iteration. WWE SmackDown vs. Raw, published by THQ and developed by Yuke’s for years, has proved a wholly different beast. Somehow apparently capping out the disc space years ago, each year’s installment of the pro wrestling franchise is a give and take of features.
For every interesting new element introduced to the series, gamers are deprived of as many or more of the previous year’s features. Sometimes the new features are worth the loss of the old ones, and sometimes it’s just a damn shame. But rarely does the series take as much of a dip in quality as it does with WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011. Things that have worked for years have been broken, and the “improvements” don’t do enough to make up for it…and that’s when they’re working.
Gameplay changes include some alterations to the physics department. Weapons take different damage depending on how they are used, and grapplers can change direction mid-move. This would likely make the title feel more realistic if everything around these additions wasn’t so shoddily implemented. With stunted move sets, bad animations and terrible movement (the tired run is comically bad). Not to mention turning with moves isn’t really new, but brought back from very early iterations of the series.
The updates to Road to WrestleMania are negligible. Players get five of the stories, with no tag team option. The big change is that players get to roam backstage before and during each show, where spontaneous brawls can break out and story elements unfold. THQ calls it an “authentic” WWE experience.
Yeah, it’s authentic, if the WWE experience involves tediously running around halls slowly, making sure to enter each of six rooms, as well as staging areas, before every match so as not to miss any bonus items and have to replay it all over again. It’s authentic, if wrestlers earn points for matches to upgrade their abilities, but are never able to actually earn enough to upgrade one level over the course of the story. For all intents and purposes, Yuke’s just litters a good mode with needless additions that make it slower and more painful.
WWE Universe oversees everything this time around. When gamers pop open the menus, five matches are scheduled for Raw. Instead of a simple exhibition mode, gamers can play these matches, or simply create their own, and those creations take the place of what is on the card. The idea is that everything the gamer does is ultimately recorded and works toward progressing the Universe, but ultimately it’s just another extremely convoluted way to unlock additional things in the game, and entirely unnecessary.
And the big addition in the online realm is the Royal Rumble, which can be played by 12 people together via the internet. It’s a nice idea, but when the game’s servers can barely handle Triple Threat matches online (let alone the six-man options it offers), 12 suddenly seems like a bad idea. And it is. This reviewer has yet to complete a Rumble, with them ending with one man running around a ring after six eliminations because no one else comes out, or things just freezing with everyone in the ring. Everywhere in between it is lag, lag, lag.
And the real kicker to this broken online system is that THQ has taken notes from Madden and decided to offer online access as an incentive to purchasing it new (by code) or for a further charge beyond that. Essentially, THQ is trying to make sure it gets an extra buck out of a feature that warrants a refund. That’s before the company tries charging for extra characters and even the privilege to edit wrestler abilities. The nickel-and-diming approach is nonsense, especially when there is so much wrong with the core game.
Now, wrestling fans and long-time players of the franchise can still have fun with SmackDown vs. Raw 2011. One significant addition is the match creator, which allows people to create crazy combinations of matches – such as a Six-Man Hell in a Cell Iron Man Match, where only finishers and submissions count as falls. For the sillier wrestling fans out there, this is a much welcome addition.
But it is the only thing that gives gamers any reason to upgrade from the 2010 edition, and there are so many more arguments against that upgrade. Instead of focusing on truly bolstering the story creator mode that had such potential last year, Yuke’s focuses on detrimental changes, making the game worse than it was a year ago.
About the Writer
Bill Jones is the editor-in-chief of padsandpanels.com, a site dedicated to the coverage of games and comics.
