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WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2009: Reviews

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Game Score: 6/10

Here's yet another attempt from the people at THQ to successfully make a good wrestling game for the DS.

This time around, the game sports new features, like revised gameplay controls that require the player to use both the D-pad and the stylus. There's also a wider selection of wrestlers, and if you ever feel the need to get creative with your wrestler, you can use the Create-A-Superstar feature to doll them up. The revised Season Mode reminisces an RPG, by letting players accumulate experience, interact with other in-game characters, and fulfill their big dreams.

The graphics were surprisingly good for the DS. The character models are solid and nicely textured, like low-resolution versions of the models from the Wii version, which I do not mean as an insult.

However, the sounds weren't exactly spectacular. Each individual wrestler has their own theme song, and the menu had good, appealing music. But during a match, the only sounds that can be heard are the sounds of the crowd and the thudding of bodies, which aren't very interesting.

The Season Mode, however, is much better in quality than the sound and graphics. It utilizes many of the core elements of an RPG, making it very simple and user friendly, yet complex and entertaining. (The only thing that bothers me is that usually, my wrestler is running around with nothing but shoes and some wrestler's underpants.) But it is missing one of the most important parts, which is a storyline. What's an RPG without a storyline? It's trash, that's what. Halfway into the season you start to wonder if you're merely playing the same match again when you're up against a guy you battled two weeks ago. A storyline would definitely make give the Story Mode even more edge, in turn giving the game a much needed edge.

So basically, everything about this game is bad and average, excluding the graphics.

Unfortunately, the new features and good visuals weren't enough to save this game from the wrath of my rating system. It seems the developers didn't know how to fit in a way to block and counter after using up the D-pad and touch screen, so a player had to only hope they could get the upperhand during a grapple, or hope your wrestler would recover after having lost a grapple. This in turn makes the game very repetetive and imediately shallow.

There are also more moves then there needs to be. Only two of the many moves are really necessary for winning. One would think THQ would have put some of those extra moves to better use, or make them more useful.

Furthermore, there's not much variety to the choices you have for the different types of matches. The game lacks modes like triple threat, fatal four way, or even tag matches.