Smackdown VS Raw 08 on PS3
I was lucky enough to get this game as a gift a couple of weeks ago and, being a fan of the WWE since I was… hell I don’t know, as long as I can remember, I was excited to get it. The last game was a bit average in comparison the the leaps and bounds the others improved in, and sadly, this game takes a step in the same direction.
The game plays the same, with a few new matches and another new way to develop your own superstars. In fact, I quite like the career mode, but the actual gameplay is essentially the same. Normally, this would be a good thing, but the last game left a lot of fans a little angry. To do it a second time….. well, I will let you decide…
The commentary is a good example that sets the feel for what to expect. ECW matches have Tazz and I think Joey Styles with all new comments which is great. Smackdown has JBL and Michael Cole, their comments are word for word the same as the 07 game, but dubbed with JBL speaking. For Raw, JR and the King’s commentary is EXACTLY the same. The game has the same problems as before, with the very limited hardcore matches. The ladder matches are getting exceptional, but real fans are getting frustrated with the lack of stackable tables.
I also noticed a few really annoying bugs in my adventures. If you want to put a guy on a table, they are counting as if they were still standing. So should you want to climb a ladder, climb the turnbuckle, or if you are like me, and set up a table on the floor, climb a ladder inside the ring and try to do a finisher off the top, you can’t. Also, the conchairto moves are good, but they also don’t take into account anything but the set moves. So, if you set them up on a chair, you can do the preset move, but can’t jump off anything to maximise the impact.
Having said that, the game is still enjoyable. The frantic pace of the game is still there and going back to having a single button combination to do a move instead of grappling, then doing it again makes the game go a bit faster. Locks and submissions have a new look which people may or may not like, but one of the cool things is reversing ultimate grapples of someone is getting too cocky and stalling. You can see a few in the video.
The other is organising superstars into having 2 attributes, eg, powerhouse, brawler, hardcore, high flyer etc and giving each class different abilities. This makes things very interesting and really adds to the characters.
Overall, I am a bit disappointed with the lack of improvements in the game because I get the feeling that it’s changing so little because that is how they like the game. Give the fans stacked tables and the world will be right again.
