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WWE SmackDown vs RAW 2008

Date Added: December 08, 2007
Story By: Will Hengelbrok

Smackdown Vs RAW 2008 (PS3)

Reviewed by Gareth Jones

You know that £50 in your pocket, give it to charity, you’ll get more satisfaction. This year’s game seriously disappoints and on so many levels. The new features, while moving in the right direction, cause other areas of the game to suffer, and once again THQ remove options which overall compromise performance.
This is the honest truth. I actually took the disk out of the system after playing for 20 minutes to check that I hadn’t been given the PS2 version, the difference is that little.

Positives
This section will be very simple.
There are some minor good points that can be found. Firstly some of the ideas with the new fighting style system are good. The high flying style is far superior, just for the entertainment value. Pulling off a springboard shooting star press to the outside looks awesome; Billy Kidman would be having a field day. All of these high flying moves can be used to put people through tables, so there’s something special about performing a springboard corkscrew dive to the outside through a table. Inside the ring these moves also feature. Nitro can perform his springboard enziguri, Carlito has his elbow, and Rey can pull off a sweet Hurricanrana. Then when his opponent is down, Rey employs a phoenix splash, basically a 450 splash off the top rope that looks utterly ridiculous, but is fun all the same. (Especially seeing as he can fly 18 feet across the ring using this!) High flying gets a big thumbs up.
The other fighting styles work well, but to many past game features are compromised for this (more on that later).
The game has a load of unlockables which give you something to aim for, bald Vince, Shane, and all the legends previously named feature. Also DX attires for HBK and HHH, the regular additional move sets and several additional belts.
A minute number of moves have been added, which make the game slightly interesting. The face wash for example is a great way to hurt your opponent, as is the Hardy corner drop kick. These are moves that have been needed for some time. The inclusion of Samoa Joe’s Muscle Buster and inclusion of RVD and Angle’s movesets are also notable additions.

Minuses
We may be here for some time.
Le’ts look at how the main fighting style feature has attacked the rest of the game. Firstly, several everyday features have been removed. Only certain superstars can steal taunts and steal finishers, there are no super dirty moves unless you’re a dirty superstar, oh and did I mention, you can only have one fighting style at a time, so Kennedy can either be a showman or a dirty star, but can’t be both so his character doesn’t feel right. Then, fighting against technical stars may cause you to loose your hair. They should not reverse that much. It’s like playing the old versions of the game where there was one reverse button and you and a mate sat there for hours without either of you performing a move, just constantly countering. Anyway, back to the list.
Whereas in 2006 we has a possibility of 20 grapple moves, and then in 2007 we went to a still respectable 16 moves with 4 UCM, we hit a new low in this game with a mere 8 grapple moves and 2 USMs. Brilliant! In addition to this, while your superstars fighting style determines what moves your character can have, it’s nearly impossible for a superstar to have his correct moves. It almost seems entirely random to what moves you can select from. Oh and why we’re at it, yeah moves have been taken out again, and those added are minimal. I’ve found one new front grapple that I would consider using as a finisher, with all the moves out there in wrestling, why haven’t THQ decided to use some.
Even better, unless your superstar is a hardcore specialist, they can only use one weapon move. No more weapon grapples or weapon finishers.
CAW has become ridiculously over complicated. While no new features have been added with the exception of being to add a design to a shirt/trousers/jacket etc when you actually select the item of clothing, yet more hairstyles, makeup, etc has been removed. CAW will be harder than ever.
Oh yes, only a possible CAW roster of 30, and before you say it, yes there are still only 32 possible layers on your superstar while the 360 gets 64. Once again, thanks THQ.
While we’re discussing the roster, I’m not one to manically complain about certain superstars missing. But hey, while I’m here. The roster reads like the same one from last year. I’m a little odd in the respect that I like to only use superstars that are still in the WWE. It just makes me feel like I could be creating an actual WM24 match. However, if you look at this year’s roster of new stars, and then remove those who have already left the company, excluding Divas, half of them have already left the company. Of the 36 male superstars on the active roster, just under 20% are no longer with the company. Yet we’re missing the tag team that had a year with the Smackdown belts, the current world tag champs, WGTT, Highlanders, half the ECW roster, the list just goes on. This is the PS3, the most powerful console in the world, give us something to really look forward to playing with or as, not Snitsky and First Person Entrances, which by the way are pointless.

Next controls. They’re fairly insane. The former classic controls have been done with and we’re left with some untidy, frustrating system. Apart from the basic lack of moves to actually perform, the finisher button has moves, and instead of having to press a different direction to perform a different move, i.e. a second running strike, you have to press square R1 and run all at the same time. Huh?
Speaking of running, the new freestyle system is rubbish. Difficult to control, involves constantly holding down the button, it’s just not needed. I know previous games have featured a similar function, but that was only used in backstage areas, not in the middle of the ring where you struggle to run straight.
We still have the shotgun finisher sound, which completely takes away from the games realism. In addition to this, when you are in a multiplayer match and the sound doesn’t occur, moves seem ridiculously weak. The GTS hardly makes a noise; The Pounce (which requires the opponent to be on the ropes so is almost impossible to pull off anyway) sounds more like a bird hitting a guy than the monster truck that was Cor Von. Also does it take a lot of effort to have the crowd cheer when you put your opponent up for the finishing move. The game sounds like a Snitsky match.
That is of course if you can drown out the incessant babbling of the commentators. Tazz and Styles work well. That has obviously had some work on it, and while there is repetition to what the others two sets of commentators say, the joking between them works well. Tazz doing a catfight impression cracked me up. JBL must have lost all his money on the stock market the day he recorded this, as I have never heard him sound so dull. I love JBL as a commentator, but there is no passion in his voice. JR and King talk the same rubbish as ever. Do we really need to hear about Batista leaving Evolution again? That was almost 3 years ago. Then there are the frequent mistakes, at some stages silence, and this time it’s in general play, not even a chair shot that results in JR screeching stunner.
24/7 most is a waste of space. Storylines make no sense, hey I’m number one contender, but last week no one new my name. Your stats apparently improve through a selection of exercises, but these only involve you standing in the ring against a random opponent for 2 minutes and attempting to fulfil either a ridiculously easy task (taunt 5 times) or an impossible one (make your opponent bleed, on legend difficulty, in two and a half minutes).
You can only have either storymode or GM mode running, so if you suddenly get the urge to play GM Mode, that’s your whole season, which is very repetitive, down the drain.
The new submission system overall gets a thumbs down. While I’m pleased I no longer have to mash buttons in order to make my opponent submit, which I could never do anyway, the new system seems random and for the life of me I can’t work out what I should be doing. The MAJOR flaw in all this is that each submission move now needs a reversal, so there are only around 20 submission holds in the entire game. No lie. See what I mean by eliminating parts of the game.
I’m putting this last because it’s not imperative but a strong point none the less. Isn’t it time THQ we get more than 6 people in the ring at once. The power the PS3 has, there should be a greater scope for superstars in the ring.

Neither here nor there
The game is slower, whether this is a good thing I don’t know, but it takes some adjusting to.

Some in-game menus are easier. Challenging for a title is done on the same screen as player select, and choosing your arena is done on the same pre match screen as your match options.
A majority of characters are well done, but just seem plain at the end of the day. You won’t get anything new from any character that has appeared in the series previously.
While the weapons reel is a nice touch, it’s only available in extreme rules matches. Yeah they didn’t tell us that before did they? However, it does mean you can create a TLC match with a few additions like a guitar. Does it make up for the rest of the game? What do you think?

Verdict

I really hate to be so negative, but this game deserves it. It will keep me happy for a week until something better comes out, (which may or may not feature an assassin). THQ fail big time to deliver, and create what can be described as a mediocre version of last year’s game. No, that’s unfair on last year’s game which sadly surpasses this.
5/10

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