It's been another rental spree for me, and I decided to go with the education route this time. That and Ninja Gaiden Sigma, but that's a different kind of education. Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 marked the first time I've played a wrestling game in years, and I had a reason for taking that break. First, ever since WCW was acquired, the idea department took a nosedive. I was never a fan for much more than the humor and in-jokes me and my drunk college friends would make over it. In reality, it was much like an MST3K riff, only the characters were actually entertaining. It got bad, the jokes weren't funny anymore, and as far as the games went, nothing was going to improve anytime soon as far as what could be done in a wrestling game.
Give them credit, it took years to get the wrestling control scheme down, but THQ broke the dial-a-combo norm and made its 3D offerings accessible, and it went in that direction with a slick presentation to give basement dwellers more of a show-like experience. It was almost like an actual wrestling event when you would force your opponent to sit through your wrestler's introduction for no reason other than to piss them off.
I got turned off when the sequels were scrapped and were replaced with the sports system of yearly updates. This didn't bother me in itself, but it was a kick in the head to me. There was no point in wasting my time over any of these games until you could actually do what you wanted to do. Sure, steps were being taken, but there was no way to create your own pyrotechnics, entrance music, pose, finishers, or realistic characters. They tried hard, but with sports games in particular, ANY rigidity, flatness of motion, or lack of photorealism get noticed in a hurry. I just couldn't bother to waste my time until it all came together.
Hence, 2009. I look, occasionally, at the used game bin to guage my interest in trying a wrestling game out, but today I couldn't pass. I picked it up, and before long I was in a diva-vs-diva match with a friend, which is the norm for us when testing out games with a roster. We want to know several things, and the diva battle tells a lot.
First, boob physics. This implies that there are physics in the game, or boobs would not fly. We noticed no attention getting bouncing, but I honestly can't remember so I'll have to check again. Either way, the test is always to find out just how badass the females are created in a rostered game and how good the graphics are. I couldn't help feel as if they were only mildly improved from the versions I played easily seven games ago. Sure, it's flashier. Sure, it has a better resolution. That didn't translate into a better flow. Contact was still sketchy most of the time, some moves looked plain stupid, and some animations made the characters look like they were made of wood.
Which got me right from the start: This hasn't improved much. In the age of 1080p graphics, full body scans, and dedicated world-physics, this game still played the same way it did on the PSX. Sidestep the main problems all you want by making everything else look good, but the absolute basics are still troubling to watch. At times, if everything was times perfect so that moves flowed as good as they could, and force the camera to cut to a different view at the right moment, and you could convince yourself that the game might be looking close to a broadcast, but that's as close as you'll get. The crowds look terrible and some characters look like they are deformed in glaring ways, and no character has as much personality outside of the actual moves. Even when moves get pulled off, there's clipping issues everywhere and there's no sense of weight. I've often read the interviews to see what they try to improve each year, and weight keeps coming up but is never taken care of. Of course only a couple of people can actually pick up Mark Henry. That's obvious. But when Mark Henry slams into you like a freight train, I expect to feel the impact instead of see canned animations.
This is a series that desperately needs a physics engine before it can be legitimately awesome. I know developers (especially in the sports genre) cash it in each year for monetary reasons, but this is too obvious. Yes, I can do almost everything I wanted to, but I thought that things like graphics and physics were a given. I expected way more progress, and that is why after I return this game, I won't try the series again for a very long time. I want that realism there, because I know it's possible. If they are setting a pace for ten years down the line, then I'll wait, but any time spent in between is just a huge waste of time if this is what we can expect.
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