Smackdown vs Raw 2011 Review

Not quite the Smackdown you were expecting…

by : GrathiusXR

©2010 Arthur Kotsopoulos

Another year, another Smackdown Vs Raw title from the team at Yukes, but this one however raises some eyebrows and continues to baffle many of its most hard cores gamers, including myself.

Regardless of how good last year’s iteration may have been, each year it’s never the same, as there is always some options that never make it into the final cut.  In Smackdown V’s Raw 2011′s case, rather than make the game easier for the casual gamer, the team at Yukes actually made it a great deal more difficult.

Whilst the general core gameplay is still  present, certain options that were once there have just disappeared altogether and make you question what the guys at Yukes were thinking when they decided to leave them out.

Such as the option to remove the door from the Hell In A Cell (caged) match. Sure, this keeps the fight within the boundaries of the ring, but the ability to NOT have a door is frustrating to say the least. Competing against your friends in multiplayer matches you will almost never get the chance to be able to complete moves on your opponent to the point where the wall finally caves in and you can exit the ring safely, leaving them to their fate.

Additionally, the ability to put the Title Belts on-the-line in exhibition matches can only be achievable now by unlocking the other Tittle Belts, then assigning them to the wrestlers of your choice.

Then, and ONLY then, will you be able to select the WWE Heavyweight Belt to be put on-the-line in whichever match you choose play. This process is frustrating as the Story Mode hasn’t really improved over last year’s and you do not want to go through boring monotonous methods to unlock a few Tittle Belts.

The new story-based mode, Road to Wrestlemania, is just as boring as ever and after last year’s effort, I barely scratched the surface of 2011′s Road to Wrestlemania (RTWM).

The Road To Wrestlemania mode has a weird 3rd person camera, which has you running around backstage interacting with other wrestlers in an odd sort of way, and is just as cheap and useless as the 3rd person story mode in Mortal Kombat: Deception. To me, it feels as if it was put together in a matter of days just to have something else to do in the game.

I’m more than happy to have a calendar-esque type story mode much like RAW 2 back on the 1st-Gen Xbox. Sure, it wasn’t anything majorly crash hot, but that basic micro-management system that it used was more satisfying than running around with the worst 3rd person camera ever and lifeless conversations with fellow wrestlers.

Lip-synching is horrible to sat the least in this game and does not even match what the wrestlers are saying. It’s almost like watching a ‘dubbed’ kung-fu movie, you just can’t help but always mock them when they talk.

Although it has some really poor gameplay decisions, the core gameplay still feels much more refined and a lot more fun whether you’re in single player or multiplayer.

The single ‘reversal’ button is back and makes matches, if you’ve mastered the technique, a very one sided affair which can become problematic at times. However, when ramping up the difficulty levels against the CPU in a 5 minutes match, you’ll be lucky to pull off 1 Suplex.

It’s just a back and forth tug of war of reversals. You grapple and the CPU reverses; from there you reverse, the CPU grapples and from here the CPU reverses your grapple etc.

Roughly up to 90% of the matches in Smackdown V’s Raw 2011 are like this, which makes me miss the older layout of simply using Left and Right triggers as the reversal buttons for punches and grapples.

That particular button layout made matches much more challenging and exciting, as well as adding the ‘unexpected’ comeback from your opponent. However, now you almost certainly know that your opponent will reverse and that element of surprise is simply gone altogether.

I won’t even bother to talk about global online Multiplayer access, as my experience with a previous Smackdown vs Raw wasn’t just tedious but it took me at least 20 minutes to find a match to enter from a list of just 5 matches.

The latency was through the roof within 5 minutes of playing, and having had to wait for so long, the match was over and I hadn’t even had the chance to lay a single punch or grapple on my opponent.

However, the local online Multiplayer with these types of games in Australia are good, mainly due to many gamers forgoing the global arena and the singleplayer side of the game.

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I enjoyed my laying down the ‘smackdown’ only at select times locally with mates because technically unless you’re a heavy WWE fan, this is the only real way to enjoy this game anymore; it’s where it shines the most.

So, the local Multiplayer in Smackdown vs Raw is ALWAYS a blast and 2011 is no exception, especially when you have friends who know the game and are willing to try new things to make it more exciting. Then I guarantee you that it’s definitely money well spent!

Whether you take part in Triple Threat shot matches where the losers must skull a shot of alcohol or play 4 way Ladder matches, you will get hours of fun from these few game types alone. There’s nothing better than being completely drunk and power bombing your opponent off a ladder and watching him land on another ladder in the middle of the ring and then bouncing off it grabbing his back in pain.

Wrestlers are more lifelike now and rather than going straight through the ropes or ladders if they land on something you’ll physically see the wrestler react according to where he was tagged by the object. It’s a treat to see but with the somewhat dated graphics, which haven’t really been updated since a few years ago, it’ll grow rather tiresome and lose it’s visual ‘wow’ affect in time.

On a personal note, I’d strongly recommend that Yukes take a break next year from releasing a new Smackdown vs Raw and take some time to perhaps re-think things over, update their graphics engine, and come up with a balanced control layout scheme that will not only be simpler to use, but still have that depth that will have your attempting new moves.

If they added a lot more customization in match options, that would assist also, because the Create A Match that exists now, whilst a great addition, just feels too restricted and basic.

Refresh rather than rehash is what I want please Yukes. Refresh, because it’s another year and whilst certain areas are vastly improved, others which were perfectly fine have been omitted and definitely hinder certain aspects of the game.

Having said all that, as mentioned, the local multiplayer is definitely Smackdown V’s Raw 2011′s major saviour.

Pity about the rest.

“7/10

©2010 Arthur Kotsopoulos

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