Review: SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth

GRAPHICS (9.4)

The graphics are the best so far in any wrestling game to date put out by Yukes and THQ. There are some clipping issues, but that is to be expected. From the ring ropes, backstage areas, everything is perfectly done. There's a lot of details as well. The animations are as good as they ever have been. The game could still use a new graphics engine in the future. Of course, the only reason we're still using a tweaked out version of the last engine is due to the huge collection of move and other animations that Yukes has assembled since the first game of the series. Cannot really fault them for that one.

The character models are very detailed. Rock's raising eyebrow is a sight to behold. The animation of Rock removing his elbow pad, or if it's been removed, how he notices and goes for the other one is very nice as well. All the characters closely resemble their real life counterparts, sometimes it's even scary how detailed they are.

The create-a-wrestler mode is even better than it was last year. I was a little disappointed that the password system was removed, but once you dive into this deep, deep mode, it's easy to see why it wasn't working as they wanted, and thus was removed. You start with your base wrestler, male or female, body shape and go to work. Anything and everything can be changed, modified and/or tweaked. From the eyebrows to the nose. Customize your character's ring gear, add some tattoos, a goatee, a mask or whatever you feel like. Select your move set or customize all the moves. Add a video and theme song, the detail in this mode is so amazing you can get lost here for hours at a time, and that's a good thing! You have 32 spots for custom wrestlers, so, you'll definitely have a ball.

The entrances are handled very well, very authentic to the WWE television shows.

SOUND (8.9)

The sound is all there. Unlike the last SmackDown game, the commentary is not fluid, it's done in random comments and it works really well. It's much less repetitive this time. I still wish that Tazz and Michael Cole were doing the commentary as well.

The sound in the backstage area was handled nicely as well, from the car horns to the sound of being tossed into a car in the parking garage. Everyone has their real WWE theme, except for Maven I believe, and I understand his theme IS in the game, how do we access it THQ?!? There's also two Angle themes in the game, one has the "You Suck" chants and the other doesn't. All this game really needs in the sound department is voiceovers for the wrestlers backstage. Maybe by the time the PS3 is out we'll see that as well.

CONTROL (9.1)

If you have played any SmackDown game before, you know the controls. However, this year they made a change to the counter system. It's easy to counter simple moves, but the harder moves require you to also use the dpad when hitting square to execute the counter.

Pressing L1 after you do your finisher will give you a nice Matrix like effect. You can also steal your opponent's finisher. If it's one thing that doesn't really need to change, it's the control system, it would be nice to have a few more moves though, but that would require more buttons on the controller, of a complete re-write to a button mashing type scheme which would hurt the series.

FEATURES (9.7)

There are numerous match types, these include Single, Tag Team, Six Man Tag, Handicap, Royal Rumble, Lumber Jack, King of the Ring, Hardcore, Survival, Cage, Elimination, Hell in the Cell, Ironman, I Quit, Last Man Standing, Slobber Knocker, Ladder, Street Fight, Special Ref, Submission, Table, Table Ladders & Chairs, and Three Stages of Hell. Singles matches you can choose wether or not to have a manager at ringside. Tag Team matches you can also have a manager if you wish, you can also make it a Tornado Tag, meaning, all four wrestlers in the ring at the same time. Six Man tags also give you the Tornado option, making it a three on three battle with all six in the ring at the same time. Handicap gives you the one on two or one on three matchups, are you able to survive? Hardcore matches allow you to wreak some havoc in the ring, as well as backstage if you so choose. Your options are Single, Tornado Tag, Tornado Six Man Tag, as well as Triple Threat Tornado Tag (three teams of two), Fatal Four Way (4 men, everyone for himself) and the brave may choose the Time Limit hardcore match, 6 superstars against each other. Any match you can think of, you can do. And this year, the Hell in the Cell surrounds the ring and yes, you can slam people through the top of the cage.

One complaint that I do have, and that's in tag team matches. It seems that all too often you're double teamed by your own tag team partner and an opponent in tag matches. While this would be a realistic feature if it happened on occasion, it occurs way to often. There needs to be some improvement in the AI to lessen this from happening.

Career mode has been drastically improved. It takes the best from the last SmackDown for the PlayStation and the best from Just Bring It for the PS2, tosses them together, shakes it up and gives us what we wanted. The season lasts about 2 years with every PPV represented, including the European PPV arenas. The story line starts with the draft where they split WWE into two unique brands, Raw and SmackDown!. You can control the draft or let the CPU make your picks. Choose to be on SmackDown or Raw, walk backstage in first person mode, visit the owner (either Flair or McMahon depending on the brand you chose) and request title matches or find out your status. When you win at a PPV, you unlock something. It could be a move set, new create parts or the PPV arena itself. You choose what you unlock. A little bit of a disappointment to some may be the fact that you cannot control a female created wrestler in the story mode, you can, however add them to the roster so they appear in the story lines.

Create an Animation allows you to customize your created wrestlers every movement. You can start from scratch, or you can edit an existing movement.

Create a Wrestler mode is the bread and butter of the SmackDown series. It gets better with age, just like a fine wine. We start with the appearance of your custom wrestler. You start with the base model, choose what he or she looks like body wise, customize the eyes, eyebrows, eyeshadow, nose shape and length, skin coloring, eye color, lip size. Get even into more detail with the sliders that allow you to actually change the length of a nose, or the width of the eyes. Add your superstars ring gear. Give him or her a ring name and a nick name. Head into the Biography area to specify weight, height and if he or she is a face or heel (good or evil). Head on over and start making your own move set, or choose one of the numerous existing move sets. Set the logic for when your create-a-wrestler is controlled by the CPU.

The Options include Rules: knockout, give up, rope break, Ring Out, Ring Out Count, DQ, Entrance, Interference, Match Length and SmackDown meter speed. Venue allows you to choose the arena or backstage area. In game options include difficulty, superstar's name, player indicators, targeting system, sound, in game music, camera angles, background music volume, entrance music volume, commentary volume and turning on or off the vibration of the controller.

Basically, every superstar that was in the WWE at the time of the draft is in the game. Here's a list that I remember seeing. Al Snow, Booker T., Bubba Ray Dudley, Chris Jericho, Christian, D-Lo Brown, D-Von Dudley, Goldust, Hurricane, Ivory, Jacqueline, Jeff Hardy, Kane, Lance Storm, Maven, Molly Holly, Rico, Rob Van Dam, Val Venis, Shawn Michaels, Spike Dudley, Stacy Keibler, Steven Richards, Test, Triple H, Trish Stratus, William Regal, Albert, Big Show, Billy Kidman, Brock Lesnar, Chavo Guerrero, Chuck Palumbo, Billy Gunn, Chris Benoit, Crash Holly, Edge, Eddie Guerrero, Hulk Hogan, Kurt Angle, Matt Hardy, Rikishi, Rock, Tajiri, Torrie Wilson, Undertaker, Jazz, Kevin Nash, Rhyno, Scotty Too Hotty, Hardcore Holly, Mark Henry, Bradshaw, Faarooq, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Tazz, Ric Flair and Vince McMahon. You have a pretty big roster to choose from as you can see.

OVERALL [Not an average] (9.6)

You can purchase the game online at Amazon.com or GExpress.com.

Erik Roth, Webmaster - Designer, Inlewd.com