How THQ And Yukes Ruined The WWE Smackdown Vs Raw Series

Richard Bailey of The Koalition.com writes:
With October and the Fall season literally right around the corner, Yukes and THQ are once again preparing to satisfy every wresting aficionado’s heart and desire with the latest WWE inspired video game. The only problem with this notion is that the franchise as a whole has grown stale and predictable over the years.

[goosepoose]

they didnt ruin anything. wwe games wont push any boundaries any time soon. thq knows it will sell no matter what they do. thq cant be blamed for anything. they did nothing. and when i say nothing, i mean nothing. the grapihics looks the same since the 360 was released. fighting mechanics has never changed, been tweaked every now and then. but it was pointless.

The story line is what you expect. every year the player gets to control one more aspect of the wwe. u stil end up in a ring, fighting one face or 4 faces at a time. uhmmmmmmmm. what els. multiplayer and customization is still not up to scratch. seriously the textures on some of the custom stuff look awful.
customizing your face is still not on par with FIGHT NIGHT ROUND 2 (THE ps2 version).
the multiplayer is laggy as hell.

so ja, its been the same ol series for 20 years or so. i cant believe it stil has a strong fan base. but it does, that is all that matters. and in their eyes thq ruined nothing, cause what idiot will buy the same game over and over.

[-Alpha]

They did ruin things:

-Focused way too much on looking realistic, and they slowed the gameplay down a lot
-Storylines rely on voice acting which means only a handful of superstars can be used
-Lacks the branching storylines and freedom from older games
-DLC BS, whatever happened to having alt attires for 75% of the roster?
-Removal of fun features like GM Mode
-Online networking is piss-poor
-Glitches, poor animations, clipping still exist on a wide scale

Etc, etc.

The game used to be such a solid franchise and it used to be so fun. It needs a serious overhaul, but you are correct, it continues to be minimal update after minimal update because they know the game will sell to the audience.

The series is garbage now.

[goosepoose]

hmm. maybe just maybe i should of said they done the wrong thing which was worse than doing nothing. please dont say you buy this game? (year after year)

[tunaks1]

I stop playing wwe games on the n64

[chazjamie]

why?

[SimpleSlave]

...now those were awesome. The reversals were hard to pull, the Royal Rumble you had to work to drop ppl over the rope(no mini game bull). The controls were as close to perfection, and the create a player...wow! You could change the existing WWF roster. Also, you could change every single move your created character could do, from a single leg kick to button combinations (if I remember correctly :), now that was a Create-A-Character.

Now I don't know if any of the new games are as deep as the N64 ones, but from the reviews and videos I seen, they don't look it. I know I stop playing them by the time the PS2 version came around, it was too easy, shallow and the Create-A-Players suck. I've played the demos for the PS3 and the control still feel shallow, so I didn't bother.

I think a lot of people that love the N64 games also stop playing the new ones because of these reasons.

Cheers.

[King_many_layers]

I think that one of the main reasons for me also is the fact that the wee roster now sucks, you go back and look at gameslike HCTP and just look at the superstars in it, then look at the roster they recently announced.

It would be great if they could overhaul the whole series, give it some challenge and some drama.

[xX TriiCKy Xx]

Why? The BEST ones came after the n64 era. I.E. Here Comes The Pain, SvR, and SvR 06.

[BkaY]

i still remember playing hell in cell match with my cousins whole night..

good times..... i bought svr 2010 it is so damn bad i didnt play it more than 10 mins...

peace

[Dellis]

TNA's last game was more advance in tech then these milked wwe games, which were full of features. Which has never been the problem with those games, their problem is that the engine is so outdated and rehashed it is sickening.

Spike & Aki are the only good wrestling game creators

[Rocket Sauce]

The TNA game did a lot of things right - it was fun, but you could tell it wasn't finished.

I wish they had another shot at it, because Smackdown sucks hardcore.

[GFahim]

thq ruined the WWE franchise the day they ended the partnership with AKI. simple.

...although, Yukes made a decent WWE game in the Day of Reckoning series but thats it. the rest from them was full of crap. they should have contined and made Day of Reckoning 3 for the wii or something.

[Vegeta9000]

It was better when every game for each console was different and catered to that console. Smackdown series for Playstation, RAW series for Xbox, Day of Reckoning series for Nintendo. Of course the first DoR was better as they didn't restrict the CAW and you could make characters like Dante (DMC), Nemesis (RE), & even Spider-Man. Now they want their CAW to be more realistic. I just don't play the games anymore now that it's Smackdown vs Raw.

[chazjamie]

that is so true. i never thought about it like that. but i dont think thq will create a budget that supports 5 seperate teams (ds,psp,360,wii,ps3 and now apple apps) working on wrestling title exclusives. would of been cool if their was a ms and sony team doing what they want with the series. but the differences would of been a deal breaker. so one game with the same features will have to do. yeah for us/s

[Instant_Classic]

WWE in general became stale after it became WWE, from WWF!

[-Judge_Fudge]

bleh none of them will ever be good as SVR06, here comes the pain, or shut your mouth. i stopped playing rasslin games since i found out it was fake in 2005....how little did i know

[WharenPeace]

SvR06 was definitely something special (It has Ultimo Dragon and Brock Lesnar!!). I still don't understand how they could have gone from SvR06 to SvR07, which was a severely limited experience?

I rented SvR07 and it was the last one I would play, until I was given SvR10 last year as a Christmas present. I'm cautiously optimistic about SvR11, especially since it's clear that the franchise has overstayed its welcome and/or its desperately in need of an overhaul (SvR10 still features motion capture from the PS2 days, and that's just not cricket).

PS: I'm surprised no one has mentioned Day of Reckoning 1 and 2 on the GameCube, since those were actually incredible.

[Paradise Lost]

After playing svr 07 on 360. I simply just quit and lost hope through the franchise.
I mean c'mon! Shut your mouth and here come's the pain are still extremely fun to play.
I hated the new controls they did, i hated the character customization it was simply complicated and wasn't enjoyable.

But nowadays the new WWE era sucks the bag..really it really really sucks.

[WharenPeace]

SvR2007 was also a huge disappointment to me, almost to the extend that I ended up boycotting the games. As I mentioned above, I'm now cautiously optimistic that SvR11 will deliver.

[Thepro318]

svr 2010 sold around 4 million last year which is surpising

[GFahim]

when they created the smackdown v raw brand. ever since that it went downhill.

[PS3-247]

WWE got boring when Rcok and Stone Cold left. I still watch it from time to time but I miss those guys.

[RELAX]

WWE 2009 IS THE BEST

[hazelamy]

making virtually the same bloody game year after year ruined the series.

because when they do that they have to keep adding poorly tested, barely working and just plain bad features into the games so they can call them new games instead of just roster updates.

this from the company that has such a huge problem with preowned sales,
i hear that now they're planning like 3 seperate wwe games a year or something.

[Senden]

It was ruined for me when they started forcing you to button bash at almost everything.. plus the over complicated move base for created stars is a big put off. Still, the best wwe game will always be smackdown 2...best career mode too!