WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2008

Rating Teen Genre sports Publisher THQ External Links Official THQ Website

In its ninth year, WWE’s Smackdown franchise has for the most part enjoyed a good deal of success. But, much like most other long running sports video game franchises, Smackdown was bound to hit a rough patch where it was in need of tweaking itself. Well, that year where the franchise is in need of tweaking has arrived, and it’s evident in Smackdown vs Raw 2008.

For starters, the roster has been greatly reduced to less than sixty wrestlers. While this isn’t a huge deal to me, many fans have complained that the roster lacks any depth and really doesn’t offer as full of a roster as it has in years past. But unlike in years past, this installment of Smackdown gives players their own unique fighting style. Each character has two fighting styles, ranging from “hardcore” to “submission.” These fighting styles give players a true-to-life feel. In the past, any player in the game could steal their opponent’s finisher or taunt. This wouldn’t normally make sense, seeing as you wouldn’t see the nice good guys stealing and poking fun of them. It’s generally a tactic reserved for the “bad guys.” So now, only certain characters who have a “showman” fighting style can steal their opponent’s finishers and taunts while making a big spectacle of their matchup. It really adds a little more realism and authenticity to the characters in the game.

Gameplay has slightly been adjusted, but not for the better. A new submission system has been implemented; giving players more control over the amount of pressure they apply during a certain hold. Applying too much pressure results in a sloppy hold, allowing opponents to break out in less time. On paper, this sounds like a great system, but in reality, it is very difficult to figure out just how much one needs to rotate their analog stick in order to apply pressure for the hold. After playing around with this new system, I was frustrated. Surprisingly, I found myself yearning for the days of button mashing to apply pressure for a hold.

One of the lasting appeals in previous Smackdown games has been the series’ in-depth story mode. Aside from being boring, the 2008 Story Mode, called 24/7 Mode, winds up actually being one of the funniest and saddest aspects of the game all at once. To start, players must select one of approximately thirty playable characters. I know earlier I said there were about sixty playable characters in the game. Apparently, only half of them were made available for the 24/7 Mode. THQ claims that it is because they couldn’t get quality voiceovers from all of the characters. Part of me believes that, but more of me really does believe they just didn’t want to invest any additional time in to creating some unique stories for some of the silent characters, like Umaga and the Undertaker. But I digress.

Once involved in the 24/7, players are put in to a rivalry and watch as events unfold on screen, much in the same way they do every Monday night on Raw. The cutscenes are fun to watch, and watching characters interact with one another to create a cohesive story is fun, yes. But, the rest of this mode really drags Smackdown pretty low. Say you are playing through Story Mode as Triple H. This means that initially, you will be on Monday Night Raw. When you look at the calendar, you will see Monday night you are booked for the show. More than likely, Trips will be booked in to a match that players must play through and then watch as storyline events unfold right in front of them.

Once these all end, players are then brought back to the calendar, where they see it is Tuesday. Rather than just being thrown right in to next week’s story, players are left with decisions to make for how they want Triple H to spend his Tuesday. You could either rest him up, you could put him through training exercises to boost stamina, practice fan favorite skills, et cetera, or you could have him participate in events, such as starring in a movie or attending a charity banquet. I have always been a fan of simulating things like this, but really, after the first month of scheduling Triple H every single day, the off days became more and more tedious and irritating rather than fun and inventive.

I give THQ for trying something new out in the 24/7 Mode. What I cannot forgive them for is the sheer sloppiness in gameplay execution. Storylines do not make any sense, and cut scenes make even less sense. Some of the more notable offenders I encountered during the mode included one where I was playing as Edge and I had received a phone call from Rey Mysterio, who was threatening me and telling me how he was going to beat me down next time he saw me. The next thing I witnessed was Mysterio ad Edge meeting up in a hallway and shaking hands, acting all buddy buddy with one another. While that made little to no sense, even less sense was made later on in the game. I was playing through, still as Edge, and I was attacked in a hallway by none other than, well, you guessed it….EDGE! Somehow my character had a doppleganger that I don’t remember ever hearing about in the story mode who decided to attack me from nowhere.

The new ECW Extreme Rules matchups provide hours of mindless fun. Watching you beat opponents over the head with chairs and flaming boards really does prove to be a lot of fun. Overall though, it feels as though THQ phoned in a good portion of this game. Once could make the argument that they may have phoned in the Playstation 2 version, seeing as it is a dying system, but after playing the Xbox 360 version as well, it seems the same glaring errors and sloppy game construction panned across every system.

While THQ did add some new features and concepts that could have a lot of potential, it seems as though they threw together a mediocre gaming experience. While I always have been a fan of the clichéd expression “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” I still recognize that there comes a time to change things up a bit. So hopefully THQ understands this as well, and come 2009, we may see a whole new Smackdown experience unlike any we’ve had before.