WWE Smackdown

If watching greased up men unconvincingly pretend to fight then WWE Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain might be just the thing for you. Our good friends at GameShark have reviewed the game for us so we don't have to get our hands dirty!

At the heart of Here Comes the Pain is the same basic game mechanics with a lot of improvements - so many in fact that the game will feel a tad bit different than Shut Your Mouth.

The first thing players will notice are the graphical changes. All the models, animations, backgrounds, entrances, etc. have been revamped and look as good as THQ's RAW 2. Crowds are now more animated and offer a more realistic look than previous. Wrestlers look more like their real life counterparts and the animation, movement and the general overall presentation is pretty polished in this latest game. Throw in blood, souped-up cinematic presentations and animation for location-based damage into the mix and you'll see that SmackDown!'s presentation is the most polished of all the wrestling games currently on the market.

The second important improvement to the game is the grappling system. Using categories to group grappling moves, each wrestler now has access to 16 grapples under such categories as Signature Move, Quick, Submission and Power. The way it works is pretty straight forward: players initiate a grapple by pushing the O button and their keypad up, down, left or right. Once the move set is selected, players push up, down, left or right to initiate one of four moves under that category. Players also have access to the usual extra curricular move types as well as a SmackDown! power move.

The thing that players will notice right off the bat is that some of the button functions have been moved around to facilitate new features: picking up weapons is now done with the Square button, along with a number of other functions like getting in and out of the ring, climbing in onto the ring post and climbing cages, ladders, tables and anything else - the square button is essentially the action button now. The L1 and L2 buttons now facilitate a countering system - L1 for striking moves and L2 for grappling situations. The new grappling situation works pretty well with that configuration and getting used to using the square button won't be too much of a problem for long-time SmackDown! fans. The controller configuration remains unchanged for the rest of the functions in the game like executing a special move, striking, running etc.

Yuke's new location-based damage (which is essentially a sort of mini-game of tug of war) will also have players pounding away at buttons. The system tracks damage to specific parts of the body using a small character icon. The iconic representation starts out green and as damage is inflicted it slowly turns yellow until finally turning a critical red. The tug-of-war aspect of this that ties into that little iconic indicator is the new submission and pinning system. When putting on a submission move, the player can tap any button on the controller in a bid to escape. A line represents the tug-of-war with both extremes on each end (submit on one side, escape on the other) that players must get to by rapidly tapping any button. The cool thing about this new feature is that it makes it a lot harder to beat the AI and the player with a submission move by giving participants a chance to get out of the situation. When players have doled out enough damage to an opponent it starts to take affect physically - for example, a character that has had his or her head beaten in with a chair for an hour will occasionally pause to hold the battered body part. Overall the system works nicely and even though I'm not a fan of button mashing gameplay, it does provide players with more options besides just giving up.

It should be noted that a new stats system can have a profound affect on how difficult a match can be. A created wrestler just starting out will have a difficult time beating a character like Goldberg or Brock Lesnar in any kind of match. Stats determine how strong you are, how well you get out of submissions, how much damage you take and receive and how fast your are. Created players can only grow in season mode by fighting in matches and earning experience points.

While Here Comes the Pain is certainly the best SmackDown! game to date and the best wrestling game this year, it's not without a few quirks - even though none of them really affect gameplay in a major way. There's a real problem with focus, players don't always turn to face other characters properly, often resulting in misses and mishaps. Another problem I encountered while playing is diving off the top rope onto characters that were outside the ring; often you'll completely miss your opponent and hit the floor instead. This happens from major heights like the top of a steel cage or in the elimination chamber. Finally, AI characters sometimes get stuck in areas that are of a lower level. For instance, we encountered characters caught between the ring ramp when on either the left or right side. While these quirks are minor, they obviously should have been taken care of before the game shipped.

SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain is a polished, well-refined game experience and a must-buy for wrestling fans looking for an intelligent and more complete game system than other games on the market can currently offer. The vast number of improvements to gameplay and the addition of legendary characters, new modes like Elimination Chamber and Bra and Panties matches and a better season mode makes this game the king of the world. Get it and play it today!