Previous Next

A pretty average wrestling title for what's becoming a pretty average series.

It's no secret that I enjoyed some of the changes made to the Smackdown series with last year's entry, but while Smackdown vs. Raw 2011 does have one really cool edition, and I'm completely lukewarm and even a bit downright disappointed on the rest it has to offer. It still has the very cool create a story mode from the previous year, which was definitely a highlight for me then and still is now, but outside of the addition of the WWE Universe mode, there's a lot of things wrong with this particular entry.

First up, the Road to Wrestlemania mode. Just like last year, this provides the scripted story based portion of the game, divided up between a handful of wrestling superstars, like Jericho, Christian, John Cena and so on. The storylines are all pretty awful, and at times, certain elements of this mode can be downright broken. I had to restart Christians Road to Wrestlemania twice because I got stuck in the backstage area of the game with no objectives and no way out, forcing me to either load up a previous save or start completely over from scratch. There are weird collision issues at times with objects that you're supposed to interact with, characters all have a funny walk and run animation, and the character models don't even attempt to lip sync with what's actually being said. The dialogue is also extremely wooden, there's not a single performance in this mode that stands out as good. Also, the "rewards" for winning matches that come in the form of points to spend on character attributes feel like a waste of time, because they seem to have no real effect on my character at all. Overall this mode is easily the worst thing about the game, and it needs to be seriously retooled if they're planning to use it again next year.

Besides that, the game has plenty of the other stuff you've come to expect from the previous years, including a heft create a character mode that'll satisfy most CAW creators. There's already some really nice additions added by players, and I'm sure we'll see even cooler creations as time goes by. The create a story mode returns here as well, with a nice tutorial to introduce the different things you can change and combine to create your own tales in the WWE. All of this stuff is pretty much what we've come to expect from the series at this point, and while I'm not the creative type to get super excited about this every year, I'm sure there's quite a few people that'll be happy to have it included once again.

However, I still feel like the series needs a serious shot in the arm. The create a story from last year was a great addition, and something I've been dying to see in the series for quite a while, but I'd really like to see more done with the single player experience to make that a little more enticing. The presentation side just isn't there this year, with bad AI, collision issues with things like chairs, ladders, and tables, and some often wonky looking physics that cause for unintentional hilarious moments. The changes to the grapple system this year are ok, but I don't feel like the really differentiate that much from what came before, and they certainly don't feel like any kind of improvement. In all, the fighting system still feels like it's stuck in the mid 2000s when this particular series began, and I feel like it could really use some type of creative push at this point.

Also worth noting, I didn't have a lot of fun with the online mode. There is a new edition with Royal Rumble being available, which certainly sounds nice, but every match I've played so far has been plagued with lag. This is probably fixable with a patch or two, but at the moment I'd avoid going online, as it makes the reversal system an absolute pain if everything is stuttering around you.

So basically this is another yearly entry that'll probably bring in the hardcore fans looking for an updated roster, but for people that only touch wrestling games once in a great while, you won't really miss anything by skipping this entry. The WWE Universe stuff is pretty cool, but outside of that, this really feels like a title that's gone back to the well one too many times at this point.