Review – Smackdown vs. Raw 2010

Publisher: THQ
Developer: Yuke’s Media Creations
Platform(s): Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Playstation 2, Playstation Portable, Nintendo DS, iPhone, Wireless
Genre: Wrestling

Rating: Teen
ESRB Content Descriptors: Blood, Language, Sexual Themes, Violence

The Scoop: I’ve been playing the Smackdown vs. Raw series since it first debuted over 10 years ago. I’m a pretty big fan of the WWE and must say that when it comes down to entertainment and athletic superstars they definitely take the cake. This and the fact that they are the most popular and well organized business through sport entertainment puts them at the top. Is this so for their games though?

THQ has always managed to let fans down on this series. While it is fun to play and the story lines are somewhat entertaining for a playthrough, the games have always seriously lacked in some very important departments and this years edition to the series is no different. While it does compliment the series as being the best edition so far it still could have been a lot better.

It doesn’t get much better then two meat heads smacking each others chests

The Setup: This year, the Road to Wrestlemania mode is back bringing us six superstar story lines we can play through. The superstars include Edge, Randy Orton, Mickie James, Shawn Micheals, a brand warfare story featuring both Triple H and John Cena as well as a storyline for your created superstar. This gives us a decent amount of playing time and should burn quite a few hours. The story lines aren’t as well thought out as the ones we see on television though which I thought was a tad cheap. I mean, what the hell? Why can’t we get a storyline for Legacy or DX or something as well?

We also have the option to play through Career mode which allows us to play as any superstar on the roster and attempt to collect all the belts we can. There is no story in Career mode but it’s still beneficial in the fact that it boosts your stats giving you more strength, speed, better grappling abilities etc. etc.

The higher difficulties have also lost there challenge over the years. Legend difficulty is the highest difficulty and back on the old SvR titles for the Playstation 2 it provided us with quite the challenge but now it does nothing but give the A.I. more chances to do a reversal. This can be easily countered by doing matches that aren’t in singles competition as Handicapped Matches, Fatal 4-ways, Money in the Bank and the Championship Scramble offer quite the challenge due to the fact that we’re facing off against multiple opponents.

Taking a look at the new Story Editor

What’s Hot:

• With complete customization, the possibilities have become endless
• Featuring over 60 superstars, SvR2010 loads of talent
• The new Story Editor has heightened the playability of the game by 110%
• The bleeding in this game is completely awesome. Blood spreads from the head, to the mat and then onto you making for some pretty gruesome looking matches

What’s Not:

• Quite a few graphical errors hold SvR back quite a bit
• The A.I. is quite unresponsive making it easy even on the harder difficulties
• The lack of legends this year really makes WWE Legends of Wrestlemania a mandatory for those who love the old timers meaning more money for THQ and less for us
• The online is super laggy and doesn’t offer much
• The dialogue and voice acting can be laughable at times

Final Verdict: The Smackdown vs. Rawgames have never been perfect. Ever. But this is the best we’ve seen them. With more superstars, more matches and more customization, the possibilities have risen giving us more to do and more replayability. My only qualms are that there are a few missing top contenders as well as the legends that we’ve seen in past games. SvR2010 is neither here nor there but deserves a rental… at least until THQ releases a patch fixing the bugs.