Over the last couple of weeks, a number of new releases have been pushed onto the mass market and i just so happened to buy a new Xbox 360 in that time; an Elite model.
With this i got Forza 3 (which i may blog about sometime in the future) and WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2010. While i had played Smackdown games since the very first Smackdown! title and knew the series was starting to grow tiresome and repetitive which little, if any, improvements or even changes between the more recent iterations, i had high hopes.
Sadly it seems as if the core gameplay hasn't changed a bit. With the sole addition of specific cage match controls and a momentum meter in context specific areas, the game shell appears to be a replica of last year's entry, SvR 2009 which in itself bore little difference to that of 2008's title. The worrying pattern does not sit well with investors, nor the gamers who continue to buy seemingly the same product every year. Roster updates and respective design changes (PPV name changes etc) do not represent an honest £40 change each year and whilst downloadable content would suit many, more people would rather THQ and Yukes sat down and started from scratch, even if it was a process which took two years. A reimagining of the product and the franchise as a whole would benefit the consumer and the developer, and while the investors would frown upon the very idea of not putting a game out every year, everyone would take something away in the long run.
One of the biggest differences between the vintage titles of the Smackdown series and the current releases is the story mode itself. In the original games, players would have a chance to take on the biggest superstars in the company, even being able to take advantage of a co-op option if they felt like doing so. There was no actual audio speech, instead the player would choose from speech branches and the weekly shows and monthly PPVs would pan out accordingly, the experience seemingly going on forever.
In SvR2010, the player can choose from six pre-programmed Wrestlemania story modes, which last three months. Titled the Road to Wrestlemania, it follows events from the Royal Rumble to the main stage, Wrestlemania, and has bizarre and frankly ridiculous cut scenes and plotpoints along the way. Add to this shallow and inconsistent mess an actual Career Mode which sets up virtual ladders allowing the wrestler of the player's choosing to eventually challenge for whichever titles are on offer, working their way to the top brass. However, the mode chooses to ignore or simply doesn't care if you win more than one or two titles and blindly allows one superstar to hold every title bar one, the Diva's. The disjointed and badly presented paths leave little to the imagination and there is certainly little motivation to actual play through these modes unless going for Achievements.
The main concern however, is the very thought of Yukes and THQ taking just under a year to put those product out. Other than roster changes (that said, various now-TNA members are still in the game, despite the time lapses in between) and a set of Create modes which again offer little in way of innovation nor any sense of excitement, it really is troubling to see what the development team were doing in the eight to nine months this game took to 'develop'. Hopefully Yukes take on board the vast criticism and actually think about what they're going to do with next year's title as i'm seriously worried.
6/10
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