Not Yet Ready for the Main Event
The SmackDown! series has been around for over a decade now. Each year, THQ releases another installment which sees some improvements. But essentially, it suffers from the same fate of most yearly sports releases - it's essentially more of the same.
That's not to say that "more of the same" is necessarily a bad thing. Fans of the franchise have come to expect the same basic gameplay year after year that they've grown to love, but with new additions. And some of these additions are actually pretty great.
WWE Universe mode takes Exhibition and Career mode and integrate them into one experience. The game sets up the yearly calendar with weekly episodes of RAW, Superstars, and SmackDown! and a pay-per-view event at the end of the month. Based on how you play it generates a card for each show, but gives you the option to substitute your own matches. During matches, there can be run-ins, sneak attacks, and other events that occur to help push the storylines further. This is a nice touch, but it can seem repetitive. During one show, every match I participated in had the same exact sneak attack before the match, including the same animations and dialog by the announcers. Next year I'd like to see more variety with this, and also allow players to seperate Universe and Exhibition mode. This is to allow you to just have matches with friends without it effecting storylines you're trying to craft.
Another new mode is Road to WrestleMania. Players are given five storylines to chose from, including ones for John Cena, Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, Christian, and one where you face off against The Undertaker using a player of your choice. You can tell they put some effort into this mode, and the stories are quite interesting to watch unfold. However, sometimes it feels a bit too linear and I wish there were more ways to change up what's happening. Finding bonus matches is fine, but they don't really dynamically effect what's happening in the main story. Another issue is the Superstar Points (SP) system. There's up to five levels you can use these to build your stats up, but it appears that in the 3 months the stories take place you don't really accumulate enough points for these stats to even matter.
The creation modes are still as sharp as ever, with tons of customization options. I have not played a game in this series since the 2007 edition, but from what I've seen they've just taken what they've been doing over the past couple years and building upon it.
One major problem I have, which I highlighted in the beginning, it it's more of the same. And by that, I mean the core gameplay still has a lot of issues and the game is plagued by the same problems it did four years ago.
This year's game uses the Havok engine for the first time, which on paper sounds great. But the implementation by Yuke's results in all kinds of bizarre unnatural things to occur. Weird bouncing, odd reactions to strikes, and other interactions with them make hardcore matches a bit unpredictable, but not in a good way.
Lip sync, especially in Road to WrestleMania, is non-existent. All of the dialogue is pre-written, so it shouldn't be so hard to make the lips match the words, right? It seems really lazy to not have this in and can be distracting. And when you use a created superstar in this mode, it is given a voice without giving you the option to select one. This also can be a bit jarring when the voice doesn't match your superstar's appearance at all.
The issue of constantly being countered is still here as well. In previous games it gave you one button to counter a strike and another for grapple. This added some strategy and kept things interesting. But in this game, it's all regulated to a single button. This results in matches against the CPU on Legendary difficulty just being constant reversals and can be frustrating.
One major problem that I'm surprised hasn't been resolved yet is the interaction with championship belts in cutscenes. I do not expect them to be fluid in their movement yet due to the hardware limitations, but I don't expect belts to be floating of of the superstars. When a superstar places the belt over their shoulder, it seems to float off of them and look extremely bizarre. And on occasion I've seen belts that are supposed to around the waist going through their torso. The same issues are also present during some of the rope interactions. Hopefully they find a solution for this soon, because it pulls away from the experience.
In closing, this is essentially a SmackDown! vs. RAW game, for better or for worse. If you enjoy the series and played 2010, I'd recommend picking it up. But if you're looking for a fully polished game, you'll be disappointed. There's still a lot of room for improvement.
