Posted by Josh Salem on January 16th, 2008

Yuke’s WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 (SVR ’08) was released to the world November 13, 2007 and it feels like everything’s been a little bleaker ever since. This is a review for the Nintendo Wii version of the game. SVR ’08 for the Wii does not feel like a game, it feels like a demo, an early, unpolished demo.

In WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008, you can play and develop the superstars of today into the legends of tomorrow. The game features an updated roster, eight superstar fighting styles to choose from, and a new struggle submission system in which players naturally control their superstar grips using analog sticks. WWE 24/7 mode combines traditional season and general manager styles of gameplay, giving you the ability to develop your character, track your stats and guide yourself towards becoming a WWE legend. Utilizing the Wii’s special controls, players get a more arcade feel as you act out slams, strikes, taunts and finishers with specific, realistic movements.

While all the above said is true, it’s pretty much all that was promoted in the game. Once you open the package and pop in the disc, it is not what you would expect. To begin the onslaught, the first thing you will notice is how sharp and old the menus look. With few options to begin with and not a lot to go through, it hurts to navigate this title. From time to time, the menu selection choices go from pointer controlled, to button controlled without so much as a warning. If you’re the type of player that enjoys perusing through the manual before playing a game to learn the button layout and how to play, you are out of luck here as well, the manual is short and besides a few basic maneuvers, you will not learn how to play. The manual says nothing about tag team play, climbing on turnbuckles, using the environment, how to pick up a player on the ground, how to run, and more! For a game that touts itself on unique and revolutionary control, they really do a poor job explaining how to play the game. If you want to learn some more about how to play than just the basics, your only option is to read the loading screen hints, which don’t stay on the screen for nearly long enough and occur way too frequently.

The controls themselves are cool, they just would have been cooler if they worked better. Swing the controller to hit. Push A or B and swing the controller to grapple. The direction of your swing determines which move your player will perform. If you are far from the player when you attempt a strike or a grapple, your player will perform a running attack. This is the only way to run in the game, so if you’re the type of player that likes to run from a fight, you are out of luck. The new struggle submission system is trivial and doesn’t really add much to the game. The manual doesn’t tell you how to perform the maneuver. The direction you swing the Wiimote can sometime feel very responsive and natural, but at other times, you may have to swing wildly two or three times to get your wrestler to do anything at all. There aren’t many match types in the game. The few available types are pretty boring and simple. The hardcore match consists of no count-outs, pins anywhere, 2 announcer tables to use, and two chairs as the only weapons available. While the selection of weapons is a great disappointment, it was nice to see that this game has chair specific finishing moves, something I really didn’t expect, and boy, did it look painful to slam my opponent’s face into two chairs (the second one magically appeared for the finisher and disappeared after…magic chair).

The countering system is interesting as well. To counter your opponent’s attack, you must do exactly what your opponent does right before contact. The biggest selling point I have for this game is the taunting system. In order to taunt your opponent, all you have to do is move your Wiimote and nunchuck to mimic your wrestler’s real taunt, and we all know what that means. After years of DX, players can finally mimic the chop and get momentum in game for it! This is by far the best part of the game. The only downside is that if you do not know your wrestler’s taunt, you cannot taunt. Another change that didn’t need to be made from past titles is that now you can get the crowd on your side and gain momentum by taunting outside the ring, something that usually made you lose steam in past titles. A few other aspects present in past wrestling titles that I found lacking in this one were the ability to take turnbuckles off and expose the metal underneath. You can no longer stand on aprons unless in tag team matches. There is a lack of body sensitive blows, meaning it no longer seems to matter where you hurt your opponent as it will just deliver general damage. Finally, the inability to hit an opponent while they are grappling with another opponent, in triple threat matches especially, is frustrating.

The career mode in this game is lackluster and basically consists of answering your cell phone, fighting a match, and training or getting a massage. A few times in the career you have choices to make like if you want to wrestle with ECW, Raw, or Smackdown. Otherwise, there really isn’t much here. You can create a tag team with anyone you want or form a rivalry. You can get a girl to walk with you and give you massages if you speak to them three times on the phone. That’s pretty much the extent of the deepest part of the game. Your screen when choosing what to do is a map of the United States. Once in a while, it can have some Pay Per View arenas placed on it. Canadian gamers will be sorry to find out Montreal, Quebec is in California now and Texas according to the in game map. A favourite part of any wrestling game, is the create a character mode. Luckily, this might be the shining light in the travesty that is WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 for the Wii. With a multitude of specific options from forehead size to goggles and customization abilities galore, any type of player can create any type of wrestler they choose. Nearly everything you would want to customize is available from the perverse to the obscene. If you are more serious about this, you can create a wrestler that looks most like you in real life. Once your wrestler is chosen, you select their move set and decide on 3 custom signs to be rehashed throughout the repetitive crowd, now you’re ready to battle. Unfortunately, your player begins with mediocre skill and the only way to improve this is by playing the dull career mode and training.

The graphics in SVR ’08 are smooth, but that’s about as far as it goes. The models themselves look last-gen and feel old and dated. Their animations, while improved, still look and feel a little better than awkward dolls being pushed across a floor. The game sounds slightly better than it looks. Hitting sounds, thunks on the ground when slammed, introduction music, and commentary are all you’ll hear in this game. The hits and thuds are all on par with past titles and the introduction music is what you see on TV. There are different commentators for ECW, Smackdown, and Raw. The commentators interact between each other and begin each match with a city specific little quip. This becomes annoying very quickly and with very few locations, it can get tiresome as well.

For a game type that prides itself on its lasting appeal (much like any other sports game), WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2008 is just not fun to play. Besides the wrist strain from flicking the Wiimote every second, the enjoyment is lacking. Each match is the same difficulty and can easily be won in 30 seconds or less (in single player mode: strike, slam, slam, favourite move, finisher, pin. In tag team mode, do the same, but pin after favourite, making the opponent’s partner hit you out of the pin, and getting your partner to hit him out the ring, then finisher and pin. In triple threat, favourite one, finisher other, pin the favourite, and in hardcore mode, just add some chair bashing for fun). While there are some WWE legends to unlock (like Ravishing Rick Rude and the Rock), they really don’t warrant playing this game any longer.

Having played past WWE Smackdown games, I feel a little ripped off being given so little compared to past titles, especially since this is the first on the Wii. Even WWE Smackdown vs. Raw for the PS2, a game that came out three years ago, had online play, a multitude of match types, and plenty of weapons – heck it even had a button to run! All in all, The only thing this title has over the original SVR is the smoother graphic engine used, which is exactly as smooth as the PS2 version of SVR ’08. Finally, the biggest let down was the lack of a Royal Rumble. Come on!

Graphics 2.0 / 5.0
Gameplay 2.0 / 5.0
Sound 2.0 / 5.0
Replay value 2.0 / 5.0

Tags: review, smackdown vs raw, wwe