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| Source // Giant Bomb |
Now we're talking. The UFC might be entertaining to you, but the weird world of professional wrestling is entertaining to me. Or was. Still sort of is, but not so much the WWE.
Anyway, the point I'm making is that ever since WWF SmackDown! on the PlayStation (yeah, that's right, too late for the N64 greats), I have had, on and off, a damn good time with WWE video games. Professional Wrestling doesn't make sense, and so neither do the video games based on it. Whether you're making your own superstar, picking the coolest of finishing moves, or smashing your opponent through all the announcer tables in every single match, these games are about having fun.
I've not played them all of course - as my interest in the 'sport' comes and goes, so does my interest in the video games - and one of the (lengthy) lulls in my attention meant missing out on WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010.
What was happening in the WWE at this time? Who were the main eventers? This is as much a trip through video game history as it is wrestling history, and after my poor performance in UFC 2009, I'm ready to dive right in.
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| Source // MobyGames |
Fun Times
There is a training mode in SvR 2010, but I only skimmed it. The buttons were different to those that I was familiar with, using the right stick far more than memory served, but the fundamentals of controlling these grapplers is ingrained in my being much like the control scheme of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is. You just know how it works, and so I went straight into the Road to WrestleMania mode.
This isn't a career mode, nor is it a campaign or story. It is a story mode, but it's not the actual story of the road to the actual 25th Anniversary of WrestleMania which had already happened by the time this game came out. Instead, this is an excuse for the developers to flex their own creative genius in storytelling by taking players through 6 storylines featuring the stars above.
Sadly for me, the screenshots I have appear to be from the Brand Split story, whereas I was playing as Edge on his quest to sleep his way to the top. I'll work with it.
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| Source // MobyGames |
Licensed games come with likenesses of everyone involved, including the commentary teams of Cole and King, and JR and Tazz. Wouldn't be the pairings most fans would pick, but that's the Brand Split for you. What a novel idea it was. Has it ever worked out well?
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
Your chosen story takes you through backstage segments from a couple of months before WrestleMania, where you'll be watching badly voiced, badly animated wrestlers putting on a bad story for the millions of fans at home. You'll even get the odd voicemail message from your rivals to really set the scene.
I only half-joke. SvR 2010 is unquestionably the kind of game whose budget has not gone into its cutscenes and storylines. You and I could write better, and we could probably voice it better as well, despite the actual wrestlers lending their mic skills to this game as well. You are not going to sell the idea of playing SvR 2010 to someone by telling them to watch the cutscenes.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
Put them in a match, though, and things soon change. In an era where every sport-based video game needs to be presented as though you're watching the TV, SvR 2010 is both no different and so different. No different in that this game, too, is presented like it was more cinematic than sporting, but so different in that what I was seeing was completely unexpected from what I had seen from wrestling games before and since.
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| Source // MobyGames |
I was expecting the hard cam, and only the hard cam, along with some HUD elements to tell me how badly my wrestler was beaten up, but SvR 2010 gives you basically nothing by default, and it's a breath of fresh air.
The most you'll get is prompts for reversals and when your finishing move is ready, and then the kick out and submission meters when they're needed. Other than that, you're left to just enjoy the spectacle of wrestling.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // Giant Bomb |
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| Source // Giant Bomb |
Playing SvR 2010 is still a case of pressing circle to grab and whip your opponent into the ropes, triangle to execute a finishing move and so on, just like the olden days, just like THPS, but more and more moves have been put onto the right stick.
Grapples and suplexes, be they from standing, prone, or up on the turnbuckle are all done with a press of the right stick in one direction. You'll need to remember what your wrestler can do and which direction to press to perform that move, but that's all you need to do to perform it. Be in the right place, press the right button.
Of course, WWE games allow anyone to just press buttons and see what happens, and when you get to sit back a little and watch the action unfold - many of these moves take time to fully animate out, of course - you get to actually enjoy what you're doing.
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| Source // Giant Bomb |
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| Source // Giant Bomb |
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| Source // MobyGames |
Frustrations
But like any WWE game, SvR 2010 is not without its quirks. Many jibes are thrust towards the infamous engine that these games run on, and to say that it hasn't changed in two decades usually feels accurate. It's changed, obviously, and changed right back when the changes don't work, but at its core is this same old engine that gives these games a feeling that is rooted in the 1990s.
That's not inherently a bad thing. Wrestling is over the top and elaborate, it's as arcadey a sport as you can get, and so arcade-like controls make sense. It's not a simulator, is it? I keep referring back to Tony Hawk because these controls are like Tony Hawk controls - perfect for what they're trying to do.
What is a bad thing is that they lead to matches where you need to work with those quirks to get anywhere.
I was in a fatal four-way match as Edge, against Mr Kennedy, Kozlov, and Jesse. I had to win to progress, but an optional objective that would unlock something for use elsewhere in the game was to deliver a finishing move to each of my opponents before winning.
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| Source // Giant Bomb |
I'm running out of screenshots, pretend Triple H is a submission specialist. Finishing moves in WWE games used to be a case of dishing out a load of damage or taunting your opponent to fill a meter, and then store it for future use with a press of the triangle button.
Not so fast, says SvR 2010. You can build up your meter and have a finisher, sure, but you better use it, else you'll lose it. Matches are more centred around momentum. If it's with you, you'll be able to pull that finisher off with ease. If the contest is much closer, you'll have a harder time not only getting a finisher but getting an opportunity to use it.
So here I was, trying to get and deliver three finishing moves to three different opponents in one match, before winning it myself. Good job it was an optional objective, huh? Your wrestler does have an option of changing targets to focus on a specific wrestler, but by default, the game will just guess which target you want to deliver a move to based on where you're moving and who is nearby.
I didn't deliver finishing moves to the wrong people, but I sure lost finishing moves because I accidentally started performing a different move on a different target.
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| Source // MobyGames |
When you're locked into a move, you're locked in to the point of invincibility. Someone wants to attack you while you're slowly wrenching someone else's arm? Tough luck, this animation is going to play out no matter what. If you're looking for a flawless representation of wrestling, this engine just cannot deliver it, certainly in matches with more than two combatants.
As such, you can exploit the system to your advantage, too. What better time to go for a pin in a fatal four-way than when the other two wrestlers are locked in an animation of their own and unable to break up the pin?
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| Source // MobyGames |
Edge's road to WrestleMania takes him on a bonkers story. He fights Triple H for control of SmackDown and romances its General Manager, Maria Kanellis, leading to easy fights every week until Mr Kennedy gets up in my grill and things turn south.
It is an easy set of matches, made even easier when you have the power to choose your opponents and teammates, right up until the final match itself, a cage match against Mr Kennedy, where the difficulty doesn't just spike, it skyrockets. The entire mini-story has felt like walking down the entrance ramp, and the final match is the climb up the outside of the cage just to get into the ring.
But that annoyance aside, I found enough in SvR 2010 to want to play more - so much more that my TV reminded me that it'd turn off soon if I didn't press any buttons. Not before my PS3 controller ran out of juice, it wouldn't.
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| Source // Giant Bomb |
Further Fun Times
There is, of course, plenty to do outside of the Road to Wrestlemania, and SvR 2010 even features the tools for you to create (and back in the day at least, share) your own storylines.
I remember creating Pay Per Views way back in WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role, if memory serves - everything was a cage match, obviously - but the promise of actually writing convincing storylines with your favourite wrestlers is certainly appealing to many. As is the creation of the absurd, I suppose, but sometimes any kind of story is better than whatever the WWE is putting out.
If you're not in the mood to create an entire spin-off wrestling universe, you can stick with the create a superstar mode, and give your new champion a finisher of your own design too, and not just in the form of "this move is my finishing move", but actually chaining together animations into a finished finisher.
In short, WWE games are like digital action figures that you slap around and throw off the furniture. What's not fun about that?
Final Word
SvR 2010 is showing its age, however, and it's not going to amaze too many players who aren't fans of wrestling in the first place, but this kind of ridiculous nonsense is my jam when it comes to wrestling, in the same way perhaps that UFC 2009 is exactly what a UFC fan wanted from a video game.
The engine is old, the likelinesses vary from spot-on to good enough, the stories are as good as the real deal and the presentation is pretty good, but nothing amazing. All in all, WWE SmackDown vs Raw 2010 is a game you can enjoy despite - maybe to some people because of - its flaws.
It is a game that allows you to have fun, and when you're watching something as silly as wrestling, you want to enjoy your time spent engaging in it.
I am genuinely looking forward to seeing more SvR 2010, as I say, in part for video game history, in part for wrestling history, and in part for a sense of nostalgia for a product I didn't play, but that feels quite like those I definitely have.
Is it good? Yes. Great? Probably not. Is it wrestling? Very much.
Fun Facts
The ageing engine under the hood of WWE games was introduced to the Havok physics engine in this one, though just with baby steps at first. A few collisions here, some rope physics there. Let's not run before we can walk, eh?
WWE SmackDown vs Raw 2010, developed by Yuke's, first released in 2009.
Version played: PlayStation 3, 2009.