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UPDATED on 11/5/2010 after much more time with the game.
While this is a much better game than 2010, it is once again a glaring hole of issues that Yukes and THQ never disappoint on. You will have the regular amount of kids and adults who turn a blind eye to these things, claiming the game is perfect, but you will be SORELY DISAPPOINTED if you listen to these people. I have spent quite a lot of time with the game so far, and while it is a decent title from Yukes for the first time in 4 or 5 years, it just doesn't get up to par with what they promised (shocking I know.)
THE PROS
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-The new physics system is decent, but it will give you problems like anything else. The tables break on cue and work well, but some weapons like chairs, fall apart with one grapple attack. The major issue with the physics system isn't it's set-up how ever, just that in typical Yukes' fashion, they're too lazy to reanimate 6 or 7 year old moves, so getting someone put through a table is only doable with moves they fixed or are brand-new, which is about maybe 10% of them if that. Other than that, you have to REALLY get things lined up for it to work.
-Much larger and fuller roster gives you a ton of selection once you have everyone unlocked, and when (if) they release the DLC you will get another 8 or 10.
-A new ability allows you to counter certain attacks into pinfalls, which can be reversed into pinfalls as well. A friend of mine and I did about 6 reversals and it looked seamless each time.
-Match Creator gives you a LOT more options on what to do during a match, and you can even create your own match, though it's VERY limited.
THE CONS
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While I can go on and on about little aspects in the game... the list of cons are what will make it or break it for a lot of people with this game. Yes... playing with friends is really fun, because two human controlled players can have an awesome time and not get bored. In a 60 minute Iron Man Match, the time flew by like it was just a few minutes.
-Real life active Titles ONLY can be defended in Universe Mode. This causes a lot less replayability in my mind. You MUST have Universe Mode turned on, and only #1 Contenders can challenge for Titles... ONLY at PPV's. Basically, if you want someone to have a belt, you need to go into the create mode and assign it to them, unless you want to spend 2-3 hours working for it. This kills a major aspect of the game lasting as far as I'm concerned.
-Glaring mis-spells. So far in two RTWM's I have seen three clear spelling mistakes in the captions, and by default, the game has Taker and Kane labeled the "Brother of Destruction." To me at least, these is just really unprofessional by Yukes for allowing crap like that to go through.
-Most wrestlers by default all have the same regular moves. Almost all wrestlers have the following; Running DDT, running STO, shoulder block, clothesline, grapple DDT... the list goes on. It looks like they spent the better part of 2 hours assigning the entire roster their moves. Most of us will spend hours and hours reassigning all the workers, as half of them are missing certain moves they use all the time, which are in the game. Inexcusable for me!
-Backstage in RTWM. Boring... boring... boring! The area is sizable enough to where every character in the game could be hanging around, but usually only 3-5 are around at a time, and interaction is so limited, you wonder why they bothered! You can talk to a wrestler, which will almost always result in them insulting you. Then you can shove them 3 times to start a brawl. This is about 80% of what backstage interaction is all about.
-Too easy to reverse everything. Even with the meter turned all the way down and the difficulty cranked, it's too easy to reverse everything the computer does. Once you get the timing down, you really cannot lose.
-Matches are WAY too quick. On average, Easy to Hard difficulty your matches will last about 45 seconds if you're really pushing for the victory in 1 on 1 matches.
-Over 100 Universe cutscenes? I've only seen the same 4 repeat over and over and over again! Someone buys a ticket and sits in the front row... someone goes to the announce table and you never hear from them, and there is also the attack on the ramp, and the sneak attack through the crowd. After boasting 100 scenes, I'm really hard-pressed to find out where the others come in!
-Universe Mode gets boring VERY fast. It is nearly impossible to work your way up to a WWE or World Title bout unless you win the Rumble or MITB, because the system tries to keep you at Intercontinental or United States Title level at all times. Heck, I can't even get my CAW into a MITB match, and he's never lost a bout in 3 years game time! Even after a year's time from winning the World Title, I took it off him to see where he would rank, and is still nowhere near any contention to the World Title... JUST the US Title.
-For a mode that claims to be fully customizable, you are so limited with Universe Mode, it's almost absurd. If you edit a scheduled match for one of your own, it doesn't count towards the rankings. If you touch ANYTHING in Match Creator for a Title match, it will change it to a regular bout. You can't even add a manager!
-CAWs is much more limited this year. It seems as though hundreds of pieces of items and designs were removed. I can no longer make myself like I could in other games, because what I used for my attire is no longer there in any sense.
-Want to put a custom tool design on your CAW? Download one or make one and knock yourself out... but then you can't use that CAW online "just in case" it's offensive. I put the Nexus logo on my CAW, now I can't use him online. BULL!
-When you do win a Championship, Michael Cole will always proclaim; "If this happens on Sunday, we will have a new Champion!"
-Online STILL HAS MAJOR LAG! I tried fighting a guy online last night, and I couldn't do anything. Apparently he has been playing with the lag for years, because he was spamming moves left and right, and used a ridiculous multi-tiered finisher that took almost 30 seconds to complete, and he used it almost 10 times before I couldn't kick out anymore. When you try to do something in an online match, there is a half second delay... EVERY TIME. Worthless!
-The Legends suck. Same old... same old. We've seen all these guys before multiple times. If you can't put anyone different in, Yukes, STOP PUTTING IN LEGENDS! You would think these guys are currently in the WWE since half of them have been in almost every single release since 1999.
-MITB is almost impossible to win past Easy setting. With the physics system, the ladder is always constantly being knocked down when you try to climb it. Any time someone does a move while you're climbing, the ladder goes down immediately, even it's barely touched.
-The RTWM's are terrible, aside from Christian's. Rey loses his memory, Undertaker's is filled with cosmic garbage set for a bad 1980's movie... INCLUDING a Bill & Ted Time Machine Phonebooth! Cena's is about his staler than heck feud with Orton, and I haven't even touched Jericho's because I'm sick of trying to play them.
All in all, while this game could be very fun for you, pick wisely. If you haven't liked previous Smackdown games, RENT IF FIRST because you may be very upset at spending $60 on a game when once again, Yukes promises and delivers on very little. The game will give me longevity because I play it a lot with friends, but as a single player game, you will get sick of it VERY quickly. I urge anyone who is thinking about buying it, PLEASE save your money and play it a friend's who has it, or rent it first. If you buy this game brand new thinking it's going to be a complete over-haul, and worked on greatly to be a better game, you will get a hard kick in the face by reality.
As I said, it's great fun with human players in the same room. My friend and I just recently spent 2 hours battling each other in a 6 Man Elimination Tag and it was just great fun.
But on your own... the game is just the same old repeating nonsense.
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My number one complaint last year, was that there was not a real season mode in Smackdown Vs Raw 2010, i ended up thinking it was all for the trophies. But THQ proved me wrong this year, this was a huge step, do not listen to the negative reviewers at all, this is worth your money, the season mode is Universe mode, which when you set up an exhibition game(Universe is intertwined with it), it can play out like a WWE RAW or a WWE Smackdown storyline, even the jump behind attacks are a nice extra.For example It shocks me when i play a singles match, i played as Randy Orton versus John Cena, and as Orton was walking down the ramp Cena jumped him from behind and attacked him, on the WWE News after i beat Cena, it says " John Cena has turned his back on the fans" which was fun and it has other news on things that is happening. Universe Mode is like a combination of GM Mode and Season mode of Smackdown Vs Raw 06, 07 that i loved so much, the only part i wish THQ improved on was maybe adding one on one confrontations and choosing what you want to do.
The unlockables are unbelievable, it might be the deepest wrestling game that THQ has ever done or even created, it has guys like Vance Archer, Mickie James(now in TNA), Goldust, Ezekiel Jackson, it even has Jimmy Superfly Snuka, and other legends with their own themes. I am not lying about the roster it probably consists of 40 to 45 perhaps. Also the player select screen has been revamped, it has a fighting game style screen like Marvel Vs Capcom but keeps it's identity like the previous Smackdown Vs Raw's, deviating from the fans who say "Same old smackdown vs raw".
The weapons have been revamped along with the creative moves that needed to be done to become more realistic. First of all you can set a ladder on top of a rope and run on the ladder and hit a wrestler, or even set a ladder on the step of a already set up ladder and use that as a high flying acrobatic move set. Also THQ fixed a long glitch i remembered in it's past games such as the steel steps, it use to be you picked it up automatically, but now the superstar turns the steel steps until it is on the back and picks it up.
As for the moves, remember how cheap the moves and animations where you had someone groggy on a turnbuckle and then it was just one move? Now you can set them up on top of a turnbuckle with there back against you(for a backwards suplex) Forwards(for a toss move) and then finally a tree of woe(which the wrestler is upside down and the legs are on a turnbuckle. As for a wrestler when he is on the top rope you can now run and then press the grapple button to counter his jump, if you time it right. It is much easier, and fun to chain moves together than last year.
The appearence of each wrestler and the crowd has been really altered, they are not like action figures, when i played Shaemus going against Triple H it is almost like if i was in front row seats at a wrestling event, or watching WWE on television. As for the crowd, yes they kind of look the same as last year, but i notice THQ has worked harder, and i was almost fooled by the fans, because sometimes they would do different things depending on what the wrestler would do. Another example was when i used my created guy used a finisher and then pinned, but Yoshi Tatsu interfeared in the match and was argueing with the ref, the crowd kind of booed him, and was standing up having cameras out, just like some WWE events on TV.
Online needs an improvement sadly, Royal Rumble is fun, but it is far to easy for people to cheat and just eliminate you, also the matches are slow if a person has a dial up or slow connection , THQ needs to work on this, because for so long this has been it's hindering problem on it's backside, i suggest dedicated servers and to buy a better server next year, because oldschool fans want to fight someone without much lag if any at all. There has been some cutdown on it, but not enough to say that it has changed much.
Overall i recommend this to people who did not buy last years game, or has not baught a Smackdown Vs Raw game in a long time, even those who had 2010, all should find significant changes and new things that will wow them over time. Sadly i just wish there was more exploration like in Here Comes The Pain to the back locker rooms, and to other places in the arena, apply some other ideas and THQ could probably out due itself with next years edition. This years edition is a solid buy, no questions about it.
Buy WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 Now
If you are a fan buy this! why?you will love this.
If you are a casual player then buy another fighting game! Why?
because its the same thing as previous smackdown games, just updated... and 2 new extras.
Overall its ok... :p
Read Best Reviews of WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 Here
My point of view is that of an inactive wrestling fan. I was a kid for Hulkmania in the 80's and the peak of my wrestling fandom came during the retroactively titled Attitude era. As that era came to a close the product grew stale for me. My affection for wrestling never diminished, but my interest in the then WWF did.As a result, I don't know who every wrestler in this game is and the active roster is of little interest to me. I'm interested strictly in the gameplay and create modes. Even though I don't keep up with the television product, the wrestling video games have never totally lost their appeal. The only thing that has changed for me is that I usually skip a year with the games. Since THQ doesn't see fit to change much from year to year I stopped buying the game every year. Even with a two year gap, the game hasn't changed a whole lot. The reversal system has been consolidated to one button and a new physics engine implemented. The physics system isn't as good as advertised, though it does make for a more realistic portrayal of the in-ring action. Limbs get hung up on the ropes, as do ladders and tables. It does hiccup sometimes, particularly with the ladders, but for the most part works.
Aside from that, the game largely plays the same as last year's edition. There are some other minor changes, such as with the Hell in a Cell match, now you have to perform a cell finisher to exit. For some inexplicable reason, Yukes decided to remove the ability to climb on the announcer's tables. You can still place an opponent on either table and drive them through with a diving attack, but no more climbing on the table for a pedigree or a piledriver. This is something not foreign to longtime fans. THQ/Yukes will intentionally remove items/matches/movesets/etc. just so they have something to "add" to next year's game. One of the "biggest" additions this year is Universe mode, where the game creates a continuous season mode of sorts and generates cards for every show and keeps track of title holders, feuds, etc. For longtime fans this isn't really new, this has been experienced as far back as WWF Smackdown 2: Know Your Role. Yes, this Universe mode is a bit more sophisticated than the one that showed up 10 years ago but the difference isn't as great as one would expect. That's partially due to this system's broken feel. There's little change in the rankings for each title and it's usually the same 5 or 6 guys competing for each respective belt. Created wrestlers will have a hard time breaking out of the mid-card status. It should be hard to take a wrestler from zero to WWE Champion but there's no rhyme or reason to how the game works. I've played over two years with my created wrestler and he's never gotten past the 5th spot on the contender list for the WWE title. I'll score victories with him over guys ahead of him on the rankings and his ranking won't change. Sometimes I'll win a match and his ranking will go down! Only through exploiting a loophole was I able to get him a title match (for those with the game and are curious, unlock the Million Dollar Championship and assign it to whomever is the current champion you want to challenge. Create a custom match against that player and in the advanced setting when selecting the wrestler it will ask you if you want to make the match a title one and allow you to select any belt the wrestler is holding) and I'm convinced I could have gone undefeated for another five years without receiving a title shot.
I have other complaints about Universe mode but they're the same as everyone else's (repetitive scenes, matches, and so on) so I'll stop here. Despite the flaws it is easy to kill some time with it but it will grow stale eventually. There aren't any new matches added this year, and none of the old ones returned. Going back to my earlier complaint about THQ intentionally removing content, there's no reason why the casket, buried alive, special referee and I quit matches aren't here. Certain weapon abilities have been removed and the general out of the ring options aren't as varied as they were in past games. A large amount of content has been removed for the create-a-wrestler which is a huge disappointment. On the technical front, the game has a lot of audio glitches, particularly where custom music is used. If I pause a match with my created wrestler his music will play when I unpause it. If the song ends before the match the game will go on to the next song on my hard drive. Sometimes wrestlers will enter to no music, other times static will come over the speakers. I've had the game freeze on one occasion as well.
So what does the game do well? Despite the flaws with the AI, the basic gameplay is still fun enough. While the AI can be down right dumb at times, and it's impossible to find a healthy balance between a challenging AI and one that just reverses everything, you'll still get some good matches out of it. As someone who always liked to envision scenarios playing out in my head, the create a scenario really appeals to me. It's my understanding little was done to improve upon it from last year, but what's there is slightly better than bare bones. I've created one scenario that was a Road to Wrestlemania of sorts for Kane (cheap plug alert: Kane Rising, for anyone interested in downloading it) that lasts one in-game year and by the end of it I was finding it challenging to find scenes I had not used before. It's kind of mind-boggling that the game doesn't have a preloaded scene for two wrestlers just talking backstage. If you do create a scenario and want to upload it for others to enjoy, beware that the profanity filter is pretty terrible (the word "title" gets censored presumably for the first three letters) and you'll sometimes be left scratching your head as you try to figure out what word it wants you to change (it gives you the option to edit the text or just have the game replace it with asterisks, it unfortunately just gives you the full text box with the offending word in it without high-lighting what the offensive word is), apparently "Santino" is considered profanity (his gimmick certainly qualifies). Ultimately, you can create pretty cool scenarios with what Yukes has provided. Sadly, you're still limited to how many instances a created wrestler can appear in, 15 this go around, and I imagine that's another one of those things Yukes and THQ are intentionally holding back.
The Road to Wrestlemania modes are mostly what you would expect. They're entertaining in their own right, though you'll have to use the superstar the scenario was made for. I recommend editing the move sets as a lot of the pre-existing ones are awful (Undertaker doesn't have his Hell's Gate submission, Kane can pretty much only perform a scoop slam and choke toss, everyone has a running DDT, and so on) and just plain inaccurate, and this is coming from someone who doesn't watch regularly. These modes though, and Universe, are where most of the game's unlockables are. For the most part, the unlockable items are the same cast of characters you're familiar with as well as some belts and alternate attires.
I've pretty much spent the bulk of this review listing complaints which is unfortunate because I am having a good time with the game, it's just that the faults that exist are so clear and have existed for years now which is causing the frustration to boil over. I can't help but feel like if THQ just brought in one casual wrestling fan for consultation on next year's game a lot of what we fans want would get implemented. The fixes are quite clear let us customize everything, give us all of the match options we've had in the past, don't skimp on the create-a-whatever because that's what most of us care about most! Unfortunately, THQ has more interest in nickel and diming wrestling fans than giving us the ultimate wrestling video game (I find it disgusting and greedy THQ charges users an additional dollar for the privilege of editing the ratings of existing superstars. I'd love to edit some of them, and a buck means nothing to me, but on principal alone I'm not giving THQ an extra dollar for such an ability). I don't play online, so I can't comment on it though I haven't heard many positives. If you bought last year's game and aren't particularly itching for a new WWE game than you can skip this one. Universe mode isn't really worth dropping another 60 bucks for it. If you're like me and didn't get last year's then this becomes a more intriguing buy. I think it's worthwhile for the create a scenario mode as I do enjoy that, and I did have the itch for something new. Maybe one day THQ will get it right, but barring a major overhaul to the create modes, I think this may end up being my last Smackdown vs Raw video game. It's all too clear that THQ isn't really interested in improving the product so much as just doing enough to move another million units every year. If your expectations are realistic, you'll probably enjoy this game though.
Want WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 Discount?
Probably the best of the SvR series but it is not far from the previous game in terms of new features. Even without much changes if you are a fan of the WWE games than it is a must buy regardless. The game is worth buying just for the creation systems alone. The worse thing about this game is the online play. Sure there are some bugs and whatever but all games have them in some fashion. The Rock says "Just buy it and bring it!".
