WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2011 reviewed on PlayStation 3 by Joe Bennett. Game supplied for review by THQ

Much like the WWE, games have to change in order to stay fresh. While I still prefer the Attitude era to the current WWE offering, I understand and appreciate that things can’t stay still forever and that you have to look to expand the audience. And likewise I understand games that are updated annually have to sometimes take a backwards step in order to move off into a fresh direction, bringing most of the previous fans with them but also attracting a new, perhaps younger audience at the same time.

It was therefore disappointing to find that not only was Smackdown vs RAW 2011 a backwards step, but one that, yet again, does nothing of any significance to advance the franchise. In essence, it’s becoming a little like Kane. The once forceful, exciting product has been doing nothing innovative for the past few years, but still pretends to be a force all the while reducing its move set.

I think it’s safe to assume that, for the majority of you reading, you’ve already played a wrestling game developed by THQ at some stage during the past ten years, so I’m going to skip over the basics. Instead I’m just going to concentrate on what has changed, and what has been added.

Legendary killer
The AI in THQ’s wrestling games has never been known for providing much of a challenge; however it could often be enough of an opponent to put on a decent bout and to cause the odd upset every now and again. What we have here though is AI so schizophrenic that, in the same bout, Undertaker blocked 32 out of 36 attempted grapple moves, 11 out of 11 finisher attempts, yet wasn’t able to kick out of a side russian leg sweep. This was with the AI set to Legendary, but with the reverse AI difficulty sliders reduced to the second lowest setting, as I had already experienced issues with the AI reversing everything.

In another bout I couldn’t land a single grapple move on Batista, as he proceeded to reverse everything I tried and put the beat down on me, including his signature and finisher moves. When CM Punk came down to interfere (for Batista) I thought my time was up. Somehow though I managed to finally get a suplex to connect, and I accidentally hit circle for the pin (in my excitement of finally performing a grapple move, I had intended to land a ground attack but pressed the wrong button). What followed was shambolic. CM Punk jumped up on to the apron to distract the referee. After about thirty seconds of both gesticulating at each other, the referee finally signaled for Punk to go backstage. At this point the referee turns around, sees that I’m still pinning Batista, and counts to three. Batista was defeated with my only attacks being two flying moves, and a suplex.

In my many hours spent with the game the same sort of things happened time and time again. Moves being reversed almost constantly, opponents kicking out even after four finishing moves had been delivered, only to then finally have no answer to an arm drag. Not only is it frustrating, it means that you can never really judge when you’ve got the upper hand, or when you should pin. Obviously playing in multiplayer removes this frustration, but then it adds a whole new level of it as well.

About as balanced as the Great Khali
Reversing moves in multiplayer is far too easy, especially grapple moves. The timing is far too lenient and, it would appear exclusively, grapple moves can be reversed purely by spamming the R2 button without any skill required. It makes for very unbalanced gameplay and, in my experience when taking it online, bouts mainly consisted of people attempting running strikes as they were much harder to get the timing correct to reverse.

Another element that affects the timing and your ability to reverse is the lag. Yes lag rears its ugly head yet again and hasn’t been improved. In some bouts it wasn’t too bad, almost unnoticeable, in others I had a second or two’s lag between the screen and my button presses. Worse still, there appears to be a bug with the online Royal Rumble, whereby connections are regularly lost and bouts abandoned.

There are so many other foibles with Smackdown vs RAW 2011 as well. Ladder matches can be won in seconds, even on Legendary, as it doesn’t take long to knock an opponent down and climb the ladder. Battle Royals against the AI are incredibly difficult, as unless you’re incredibly quick with the randomised button presses with almost snake like reactions, you can be eliminated without even taking a blow. Also the requirement of rapidly pressing the x button to remain in the ring is so much more intense than having to kick out of a pin. Then we have the matches that are simulated by the AI in the WWE Universe. In my current game, over the past month, Cena has lost every bout to a mid-carder, Sheamus won a number one contenders match, then lost twice in succession to Santino and JTG, only to then win the title. Tyson Kidd is also my current WWE Champion. It would appear that the word simulate should be replaced with the word randomise.

All the reaction of a Lance Storm match
No matter who you choose to participate as, in terms of atmosphere it will almost always be the same; almost completely stunned silence. Whether I chose Cena or Chavo Guerrero, the response I got from the crowd was almost non-existent. On top of that, the commentary team can go minutes without saying a word, and then when they do they can often call the wrong move or say something completely out of context.

The move sets for each wrestler have also been reduced and the controls have been tweaked (see made worse) from Smackdown vs Raw 2010. Most wrestlers now only have one flying attack, and have had their ground and pound moves restricted. To put into perspective, if your opponent is on the ground and you are standing near his legs, whether you press down, left or right (up is always reserved for lifting your opponent), the outcome will almost always be exactly the same move (such as a stamp). Strong grapples have also been taken out of the player’s choice and instead the new grapple system performs a move based on the condition of your opponent. This isn’t something I’m comfortable with, and I would have preferred to choose when I wanted to go for a more powerful move in favour of a quicker, less powerful move. As a result bouts often tend to play out very similar, with the same four or five moves being performed ad-infinitum. Which I suppose if you’re a Randy Orton fan is what you’re used to.

What about the new additions?
None of the additions to this years release do enough to lift this out of mediocrity. The Havoc engine is a welcome addition, but for every foot on the rope after a body slam, there’s a ladder having an epileptic fit in the ring as the engine can’t work out what to do with it. The WWE Universe is a welcome enough addition, which tracks the results of all bouts played, but as mentioned above it introduces some odd results. It’s also not fleshed out enough, with too many run-ins, too many times of having Ted DiBiase in the front row holding a ticket (I’ve played for two years in the game now, and I’ve yet to have anybody else ever sit in the front row, and I’ve never fought Ted DiBiase or been in a feud with him) and too little meaningful story driven content.

The WWE Universe also removes the affiliation between your chosen career wrestler, as essentially you just set up a load of matches (or allow the AI to take care of that for you) and then choose which matches to participate in. Some may prefer this approach, but I longed for the days of taking my chosen fighter through a story driven career mode. Technically you can still do that, but you do lose the affiliation with your chosen fighter.

The Road to Wrestlemania mode is an interesting addition, but there are only five different stories and they require a lot of walking around backstage talking to other wrestlers. These have all been voiced by their real life counterparts, but in truth it just doesn’t work and feels like a step back to the early wrestling games of the PS2 days. In order to level up during this mode there’s also a requirement to get into backstage fights. However as the rewards are very miniscule you have to get into a fight with almost every backstage wrestler each week in order to level up your fighter to anywhere near maximum.

The story designer is oddly the best addition, with plenty of story elements to play around with and an opportunity to really affect the game in more meaningful ways than THQ have provided in their basic WWE Universe offering, but the stand out feature of a new wrestling game shouldn’t be its story designer. Even the highlights reel doesn’t work, often showing the set up but then cutting before the finishing move has even hit.

There’s also somewhat of a caterwaul on the official website with regards to all of the bugs present in the game, and features that have been restricted or removed. It would appear that a vocal and sizeable part of the community is starting to get more than a little frustrated with the lack of meaningful progression. For a title so important to THQ, that could be a worrying concern.

Equally worrying is the comment from a THQ member (THQ Tank) who states on the website “As is the case with any game launch, the focus always turns to hyper magnify the somewhat small-niche things, that while critical to our core community, in the grand scheme are merely but a fractional percentage of the entire game.” He goes on to say how they understand this. But the bit about that statement that worries me is that they see many of the above mentioned bugs and foibles as, and I paraphrase, hyper magnifying the somewhat small-nice things which in the grand scheme are merely a fraction of the game. At best that’s short sighted and very rose-tinted. At worst, it is arrogance.

It’s too long in the franchise now for some of the age-old problems to still be existing, and when new issues have crept into this years’ version, almost to an extent where you’re sat questioning whether the product actually went through any quality control procedure whatsoever, it’s hard to recommend to anyone other than the most devout fans.

WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2011 is available now for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 2 and PSP from Amazon.