TheOneBigWill's Smackdown vs. Raw (feat. E.C.W.) 2009 Review:
WARNING: This review CONTAINS SPOILERS! If you don't wish to be spoiled on anything regarding the game, DO NOT read on.
Opening Thoughts: I honestly didn't think that they'd have to try hard to improve upon last year's seeming flop. Out of all the Franchise series games from the Smackdown collection, I barely touched 2008, and the funny thing is.. I had others to play GM Mode with, and it was still like "pulling teeth" to get me to even pick up a controller. So again, I didn't feel they had to try super hard to improve upon last year's version.
This year's big additions will be the "Road to Wrestlemania", "Create-a-Finisher", extra Tag Team moves, expanded rosters, downloadable content, and the "Inferno" Match. Seems like a nice list of things to add on, and improve upon.. at least on the outside looking in. However, when I first started the game, I realized one very big gaming option that'd been deleted and taken out; G.M. Mode!
Apparently the Legend's weren't the only thing that'd ran their course in the SD series. In my opinion this is the first major mistake that THQ and the W.W.E. did. The G.M. Mode was the source of replay value, without it it lacks major replay ability, short of having a big imagination.
Road To Wrestlemania: So, like all the SD games there are unlockables, and like most of the previous games, you unlock them via storyline mode. This would be that area. In this mode, you get to choose from 7 different Superstars. John Cena, Triple H., The Undertaker, Chris Jericho, C.M. Punk, Batista and Rey Mysterio. (Batista/Mysterio come packaged together, as a team.)
Each Superstar has their own unique storyline building from the beginning of the year, to Wrestlemania where everything ends. While I thought the Undertaker, Triple H., and Chris Jericho storylines were fun.. the Punk, Batista/Rey and Cena storylines were boring and dull as crap. Now it has no barring on my like or dislike for them, the shear fact is.. the Punk storyline was all about him chasing a title he never lost. The Batista/Rey storyline was all about them trying to remain good friends, yet constantly being put up in situations that one would win and the other would lose, and the Cena storyline was just all over the place in general..
I loved the Undertaker storyline, dispite being utterly corny and stupid, because it actually gave great character to the Boogeyman. They made him a heel, that had Undertaker-like abilities and powers, and challenged that of the Undertaker. Outside of having Finlay and Santino as scapegoats, I thought the storyline was amazing.
The Chris Jericho storyline played a lot on his return. In his story, they had mysterious "coded-messages" playing after his matches, stating that Jericho would be "terminated". Once the code counted down to it's due-date, Jericho was taken out by a masked individual and you had to play "who did it" building up to Mania.
Triple H's storyline played off his former faction days, having both Evolution (Orton, Flair & Batista) as well as D-X (Shawn Michaels) lobbing for his return to glory days. In this storyline, it's replay ability is at least twice, because you can choose both sides. The D-X storyline is funny and well worth the comic bits, while the Evolution storyline is rather stupid.. mainly because two weeks into "joining them" he turns on them. hahaha (So nothing really changed)
In the end, the Road to Wrestlemania storylines will become annoying and boring once you realize you have to replay certain stories to unlock everything. (I have everything unlocked and ways around playing the entire stories multiple times, if anyone wishes to get ahold of me for the answers.) I DO NOT see this as being the best part of the game, infact it's barely worth being IN the game.
Career Mode: This is a feature that wasn't even announced as being in the game, and I kinda found it odd because the Road to Wrestlemania feature was their "storyline" based portion of the game, so it was major overkill to find out Career mode is a secondary version.. only for "Created Superstars".
You can take anyone into Career mode, and it's the only way you'll unlock the Hardcore Championship (if you so desire) as well as building attributes up on your CAWs. (yes, you can no longer buy them, you have to actually EARN them.) So this is the portion of the game they figured you'd be spending hours upon hours playing.. if you create all 30 CAWs and want them to have decent strength's. BORING!
In career mode, there is ZERO story. It's just an achievement type issue. You start out picking a Championship path. Once selected, you are told how many stars you must gain, to get a #1 contender's match, then a Championship match. Each regular match you wrestle, you get a star rating for that match. (5 being the highest) Now the catch is.. spending about 4-5 minutes per match, hitting every type of move imaginable. Top rope moves, rope moves, ground moves, front and back moves, turnbuckle moves.. cheer to the fans, hit the official, grab a weapon (don't get DQ'd).. etc, etc, etc.. if you do this, you'll get a 5 star rating almost everytime.
The catch is, there is "no difficulty" setting. The more into it you get, the harder it becomes, that includes the amount of stars you can unlock and how much the cpu reverses EVERYTHING!
Now, the fun little in-mode add-on is you can unlock 6 different "abilities" for your CAW (or regular Superstar) to use. Stuff like "Ref Shield," "Move Theft," "Steal Taunt," "KO," "Hardcore Resurrection," "Dirty Pin," etc, etc, etc. It's stuff like that, that can make playing the game with your created Superstar more fun and interesting because it adds a uniqueness to the game.
That counts for everything, considering if you want a uniqueness to your Superstars you'll have to personally give them that. Each wrestler has seemingly the EXACT SAME MOVE-SET.. minus "signature moves" and "finishers". (which are now two special move selections to themselves. You get 2 sig. moves and 2 finishers.)
Career mode sucks due to lack of personality and all it is, is mindless matches with little meaning. But it's a MUST if you expect your CAWs to not move like snails or have the health of a life-support victim.
Create-a-Finisher: Quite possibly the biggest addition to any SD game, the one thing everyone has been craving and asking for since CAW was invented. I will give this feature over half create just because it's the first of it's kind. (in this game, anyways) However it's still very basic and bland. You can only create finisher's from a front standing position. NO Submissions, NO top rope or ground moves.
Basically I found that you could create the following TNA moves. Christopher Daniel's "Angel's Wings", A.J. Styles' "Styles' Clash", Chris Saban's "Cradle Shock", James Storm's Spinning Razor's Edge, (forgot the name) Kurt Angle's "Angle Slam", (yes, literally) Abyss' "Shock Treatment", Sting's "Scorpion Death Drop", (it flips them upside down) & Jerry Lynn's "Cradle Piledriver.
The one move seemingly EVERYONE wanted to create (Petey William's Canadian Destroyer) is already in the game as much as it's ever going to be. It's Trevor Murdoch's "hick version" called "Ace of Spades".
You can do the kick to the gut, set the person up and do a taunt all as if it's going to come out right, but the only move it gives you next in line, is the Ace of Spades, which is NOT the Destroyer.
As far as unique finisher's go, I haven't really invested much time into it. You get 10 slots, and very limited set-ups. I messed with it for a couple hours for the hell of it, but all I ended up with was a guy spinning his opponent from a Oklahoma position, into a tombstone piledriver position, into a powerbomb position, and back to the Oklahoma position. Unless my attempted finisher was designed to make the guy motion sick, I don't think it'll win any awards.
So in the end, CAF is fun, but will definately need a tune-up come next year. Hopefully the ability to do top rope moves, or expanded stuff other than just from a front grab position.
Downloadable Content/Unlockables: I haven't heard much from the Downloadable content side of things, outside of seeing there is ONE slot for a downloadable wrestler that will remain "locked" until that individual is released by THQ.. everyone is assuming and speculating that it'll be Ted DiBiase Jr.
Outside of that, I'm unsure what type of DLC (downloadable content) there could possibly be. I'm guessing perhaps more "RTW" (Road to Wrestlemania) stories, this time involving maybe Shawn Michaels, Edge, Randy Orton & possibly the Hardys.
As far as unlockable wrestlers that are already IN the game.. the list is enough to make you laugh in the face of THQ, because a lot of people won't even BOTHER unlocking them. This is that list. Ric Flair, Mr. McMahon, Tazz, Boogeyman, Snitsky, Layla, Jillian, Hawkins & Ryder, "Masked Man", "Tony", (no, not Atlas) "Zombie Santino/Finlay" (yes, Zombie version's of them) and Hornswoggle as a manager ONLY.
You will also have to unlock the "Tribute to the Troops" and "Saturday Night's Main Event" arenas. All the others are already unlocked. And finally, you have 3 movesets to unlock, that will hold roughly 1/4 the game's entire moves LOCKED until you do so.
On top of that, you can unlock a couple Alt. costumes for Chris Jericho, (2005 attire) C.M. Punk, H.B.K., H.H.H., (D-X) & Rey Mysterio. (blue)
And the stupid unlockables are a jeep entrance, D-X & Evolution theme songs & videos, the Brother's of Destruction entrance, (not as great as you'd think) the masked man's jericho-like code videos, the old-school WCW Heavyweight title, the ability to make someone a "WCW wrestler", (more on that in a moment) and finally the lockerroom area and a gauntlet match. (3 against 1, but 1 vs. 1 at a time)
All in all, I like the gauntlet match, and I'll unlock any arena to play in it.. but the character's you have to unlock almost don't seem worth the effort. Hawkins and Ryder, for the shear fact they're new. Tazz because he's Tazz, Flair because he's Flair, McMahon possibly, but beyond that.. Jillian and Layla? Really? Snitsky?! What the shit?! Boogeyman? I didn't play him when he was in, why would unlocking him make a difference. Zombie version's of Santino and Finlay that look utterly corny, stupid and worthless to even waste space on, and two character's that are just.. almost unusable to practically anyone without an imagination. (Tony - "Cena's Army friend" and Masked Man, who's in camo and a mask - it's Daivari's return!) I joke, of course.. Daivari has more sense than that. And finally, Hornswoggle.. but ONLY as a manager that hides under the ring and brings you a weapon from time to time.
Now, before I move on, it is important to know that with each game, you get 5 unlockable codes for Wrestler's. It could be any 5 of the 14 locked. I got Layla, Snitsky, Boogeyman, Tazz and Mr. McMahon.
Roster Editor/Highlight Reel: This is a two-part breakdown. First, the roster editor. Here you can change which show/company any of the unlocked wrestler's are connected with. Smackdown, Raw, E.C.W., W.C.W., (hints from earlier) Legend, or Free Agent.
You also have the ability to strip the Champions, and reassign the titles to whomever you wish, as you please. They DO keep records of all transactions. It's constantly on the loading screens and in Career mode. Finally, you can change whether each wrestler is a face, or a heel.
Now, with the "Highlight Reel" you have the option to make your own videos. I'm unsure (thus far, haven't checked) if you can use them as a titan tron or not. But I do know you can upload them on the cpu for everyone else to see. (lame) Basically, during a match you pause the game and click "Highlight Reel" from there, you can rewind (kinda like replay in football) a slight moment of what JUST happened and save it.
From there, you can cut it up, crop it down, add sound FXs, music, or even random sayings from the announcers. (it's hilarious when you have say.. Cena locking in the STFU on say.. Kelly Kelly.. and you add in the commentary of J.R., saying "He's really locked it in there.") I'm sure you can do much worse, but I haven't yet got bored enough to waste that amount of time on it.. yet.
Matches & Moves & More: The Inferno match is this year's newly added match. You can play it in any arena, and it's corny to beat hell. You don't have the metal rails that hold the flames, they're just randomly ON the apron of the ring. Lame. In order to burn your opponent, you first have to get the flames to 300 degrees (hit a finisher, they instantly go up) and then grapple and pull your opponent to them. Then you "struggle" with trying to push him into the fire, and when you finally do.. flames almost overtake their body.. yet no sign's of skin damage.. hmmm...
They took out Triple Threat Tag Team matches. (you could do them in hardcore and ladder matches, but not anymore.) The Elimination Chamber is still ONLY playable at one arena.. this time it's No Way Out.
The "Hot Tag" feature in Tag matches is a blast, but it's timing and correct button pressing, otherwise your "Hot Tag" turns into a mistake. The great thing is, once you hit a finisher, your partner understands it and rushes in to attack your opponent. However, if you go for a cover/submission, and the opponent makes it into the ring, they don't have to be anywhere NEAR you.. to stop the cover/submission.. it's a bit annoying, but fun.
They don't have many new Tag Team moves, outside of the Hardy Boys entire moveset, the Snap-shot, the high/low that Murdoch & Cade used to do, and Cryme Tyme's finisher. They gave Miz/Morrison a hurricanrana into a powerbomb.
They did away with being able to fight into the crowd, unless I'm just stupid and haven't figured out which match is specific in getting over the guardrails. You can still only do Extreme Rules matches on the ECW TV set. Ladder matches are a bit more fun, they added a flipping powerbomb to the things you can do.. that's it. Table matches allow you to hit almost any finisher on a table, and they break better. I think they took some of the special interactive grapples away, that allowed you to go around ringside and interact. I know you have none or almost none in the lockerroom/backstage arenas.
They took out the parking lot arena. The Tribute to the Troops arena would be more fun, if you could interact with the fans. The HD sets, even in HD on my 360 don't look like they do in real life. You don't get the video graphics that the normal HD set's run. They also still have the ability to create your own Tournaments, with the same options as last time.
Final Thoughts: All in all, thus far I do like this year's game better than last year's, but the mistake of leaving out G.M. mode was bad on their end. That was the whole purpose some people even bought the games. I love how many tag teams are in the game, it slightly makes you believe the W.W.E. has a division. Sadly it's broken down into 3 brands.
"RTW" gets more annoying then fun after the 2nd-3rd storyline. Not because they're all the same, but because you're following the same exact road. You know each guy will have 'x' amount of matches, and have two set-ups at the Rumble and No Way Out, before getting to Mania. It's boring because of how unoriginal that aspect is. But that's also digging to find something annoying about it, instead of just enjoying it for what it is.
The fact that I'll have to spend an unknown amount of endless hours building up attributes for 30 different CAWs through Career mode is pissing me off majorly just thinking about it. I haven't yet tried copying one Superstar who's got an 80 overall to see if they'd all have it.. but even if they did, then they'd all have the same "special abilities" which I wouldn't like either.
IF you can copy and have the same guy's have the same attributes, I guess I'll have to do Career mode with one Heavyweight, one Cruiserweight, and one midcard Tag Team guy. Just to cover all my bases. I won't be making any females, and if I do.. they can stay at 30/40 overall.
I'll give this game a 5 outta 10, and that's ONLY because I love the extra added regular wrestler's. (No, not the Masked guy or Tony) I was never a fan of the Legend's, because I don't use them much.. so having guy's like Snitsky, Jimmy Wang Yang, and Hardcore Holly will come in useful to me. Even if they'll job like crazy.
