Apologies if this game already has a topic on the board, but I did a quick search for "WWE" and couldn't find any other topics relating to the game. I was wondering what everybodys opinion is on this game were, because I seem to hear a lot of good and bad comments on the game. Well, here's my opinions on the game anyway:
"When I first bought WWE SmackDown vs RAW 2008 on the release date in November, I couldnt wait to get home, load the game up and start many great hours of the typical wrestling gameplay I have come to know,love and occasionally despise, over the past eight years. My excitement for the game had been slowly building for weeks, with promises of fighting styles, ECW's inclusion for the first time, and a combination of General Manager mode and Season mode forming the new "24/7 mode" - it sounded like the game that would keep me occupied into the holiday season.
My expectations of the game were pretty well met to begin with; I played out a few decent exhibition matches in multiplayer mode and found the gameplay to have dramatically increased in realism from the previous games. The fighting styles makes the matches more strategic and allows for greater options during the matches, which takes away the predictability of the past games. The Reversal function for Ultimate Control Moves this year is another welcome inclusion, the new struggle submission works well and adds a new life-like feel to the game. Overall,the multiplayer mode of the game is very solid, and can be enjoyed for many hours either offline or online. That said, the roster is the smallest it has ever been in a SmackDown series game, which doesn't leave a massive amount of options for potential matches; and there are a number of issues with the animations in-game (although not as many as last year). THQ also deserve credit for fixing the loading times in the new game, the soundtrack is very well compiled as always and the graphics have been slightly improved. On the flipside, however, for everything the multiplayer mode gets right, the single-player mode gets hideously wrong and then keeps going down on the quality scale.
The New 24/7 mode promised to be "a combination of General Manager Mode and Season Mode"; which sounded great in theory... so my dissapointment was quite overwhelming when I realised upon playing the game that the "combination" aspect really means that you get asked on the first screen of 24/7 whether you would like to be a General Manager or a Superstar, so really, the whole extent they went to in order to combine the two modes was to add an extra options screen in. The Season mode is tear-jerkingly vapid as always, featuring the ubiquitous angles where your character is constantly screwed over by the McMahons all year and then you triumph at WrestleMania, and considering THQ have been doing this same storyline now for eight years, you'd think they would be able to get it right by now. There are also major indiscrepancies in the season mode (e.g. title belts dissappearing, misplaced cut-scenes, illogical booking etc.) - and the season repeats itself verbatim each year, so there is absolutely no variation in the script at all. Oh, and only a handful of characters can be selected for season mode again due to THQ being picky over having real voiceover in the cutscenes. Speaking of real voice, the commentary engine is still absolutely abysmal, and the game can really only be played with the volume right down. Some of the camera angles in the game are still annoying, the ring announcements are a lot better though, and all of the arena animations do look much better than 2007. However, the Hall of Fame mode is irritatingly brief, meaning the entire game can be finished in about 2 days or so... and the General Manager mode makes such illogical decisions over fan reaction it really defies belief. Can anyone explain how Kelly Kelly vs Snitsky is deemed more exciting by a fanbase than John Cena vs Undertaker for the WWE Championship?
Still though, the major fault in the game that lets the whole thing down is the AI. On anything other than the hardest difficulty, the opponent acts as an inept punching bag, moving around the ring only occasionally before being beaten down and pinned clean inside 2 minutes. When the game is cranked up to hard mode, and it needs to be for anyone to get any use out of this game at all, the AI reverses almost every move you try to perform on them - but still put in no real attack, and it becomes a long drawn-out exercise in patience and passive resistance. Overall, the game doesnt particularly excel in any areas, but the multiplayer mode is enough fun to justify buying this game (as is often the case with sports titles). It might not even be worth bothering with the single-player sections unless theres anyone out there who really enjoys being bored to tears. Rating: 6/10
"When I first bought WWE SmackDown vs RAW 2008 on the release date in November, I couldnt wait to get home, load the game up and start many great hours of the typical wrestling gameplay I have come to know,love and occasionally despise, over the past eight years. My excitement for the game had been slowly building for weeks, with promises of fighting styles, ECW's inclusion for the first time, and a combination of General Manager mode and Season mode forming the new "24/7 mode" - it sounded like the game that would keep me occupied into the holiday season.
My expectations of the game were pretty well met to begin with; I played out a few decent exhibition matches in multiplayer mode and found the gameplay to have dramatically increased in realism from the previous games. The fighting styles makes the matches more strategic and allows for greater options during the matches, which takes away the predictability of the past games. The Reversal function for Ultimate Control Moves this year is another welcome inclusion, the new struggle submission works well and adds a new life-like feel to the game. Overall,the multiplayer mode of the game is very solid, and can be enjoyed for many hours either offline or online. That said, the roster is the smallest it has ever been in a SmackDown series game, which doesn't leave a massive amount of options for potential matches; and there are a number of issues with the animations in-game (although not as many as last year). THQ also deserve credit for fixing the loading times in the new game, the soundtrack is very well compiled as always and the graphics have been slightly improved. On the flipside, however, for everything the multiplayer mode gets right, the single-player mode gets hideously wrong and then keeps going down on the quality scale.
The New 24/7 mode promised to be "a combination of General Manager Mode and Season Mode"; which sounded great in theory... so my dissapointment was quite overwhelming when I realised upon playing the game that the "combination" aspect really means that you get asked on the first screen of 24/7 whether you would like to be a General Manager or a Superstar, so really, the whole extent they went to in order to combine the two modes was to add an extra options screen in. The Season mode is tear-jerkingly vapid as always, featuring the ubiquitous angles where your character is constantly screwed over by the McMahons all year and then you triumph at WrestleMania, and considering THQ have been doing this same storyline now for eight years, you'd think they would be able to get it right by now. There are also major indiscrepancies in the season mode (e.g. title belts dissappearing, misplaced cut-scenes, illogical booking etc.) - and the season repeats itself verbatim each year, so there is absolutely no variation in the script at all. Oh, and only a handful of characters can be selected for season mode again due to THQ being picky over having real voiceover in the cutscenes. Speaking of real voice, the commentary engine is still absolutely abysmal, and the game can really only be played with the volume right down. Some of the camera angles in the game are still annoying, the ring announcements are a lot better though, and all of the arena animations do look much better than 2007. However, the Hall of Fame mode is irritatingly brief, meaning the entire game can be finished in about 2 days or so... and the General Manager mode makes such illogical decisions over fan reaction it really defies belief. Can anyone explain how Kelly Kelly vs Snitsky is deemed more exciting by a fanbase than John Cena vs Undertaker for the WWE Championship?
Still though, the major fault in the game that lets the whole thing down is the AI. On anything other than the hardest difficulty, the opponent acts as an inept punching bag, moving around the ring only occasionally before being beaten down and pinned clean inside 2 minutes. When the game is cranked up to hard mode, and it needs to be for anyone to get any use out of this game at all, the AI reverses almost every move you try to perform on them - but still put in no real attack, and it becomes a long drawn-out exercise in patience and passive resistance. Overall, the game doesnt particularly excel in any areas, but the multiplayer mode is enough fun to justify buying this game (as is often the case with sports titles). It might not even be worth bothering with the single-player sections unless theres anyone out there who really enjoys being bored to tears. Rating: 6/10
