WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010 review

Say you’re the type of player who appreciates that creator modes exist, but you just don’t have the time needed to make the characters or stories you desire. Or maybe you’re one of the very devoted, and have long made intricate created wrestlers that you could only share via complicated guides. That’s where the truly revolutionary part of the game comes in: the new community aspect. Thanks to the ability to share tons of created content, those two types of players can meet and share with one another, enjoying the game in brand-new ways.

The new community system is where players can upload any stories, characters, finishers, screenshots or highlight reels they created. Did you make the best early 1998-era Mankind right before he added Socko to his move set? Then put him up there for all to see. Did you remake the John Cusack film High Fidelity nearly scene for scene (we actually saw this online, by the way)? Let everyone enjoy it. And the user rating system helps a bit with separating the good stuff from the crap, so the lazy or less dedicated can finally enjoy the work of more promising creators.

Still, we can’t see into the future and know for sure that the community will really support it with anything worth downloading. It could become a virtual ghost town, but we highly doubt that. After seeing for years the dedication players have shown to making wrestlers that aren’t all that easy to share, we’re almost guaranteed to at least see that same amount of work put into filling out a much easier-to-navigate system. There’s one downside, though: content is locked to the type of console on which it was created, meaning 360 creators won’t be sharing anything with PS3 fans, and vice versa. So it’s possible one could end up being better than the other.

Is it better than%26hellip;

WWE Legends of Wrestlemania? Yes. While filled with lovely nostalgia and a nice pacifier for those waiting for SvR2010, this was a slightly fuller expansion pack to Smackdown 2009 marred by overly simple controls. It wasn’t the full sequel that 2010 is.

UFC 2009 Undisputed? Sort of. It really depends on whether you prefer pure brawling and grappling to the much more dramatic elements of wrestling. Plus, the Smackdown series has more than a decade of annual releases and updates under its belt, making it much fuller than publisher THQ’s inaugural UFC game.

TNA iMPACT!? Oh hell yeah. This also-ran tried its best to keep up with WWE, but it came nowhere close. Leave it in the bargain bin where it belongs.

Just for you, Metacritic!

With the long-overdue additions of a story-creation mode and an online community, SvR2010 is a massive step forward for the series’ already-rich feature set, while still continuing the steady improvement of its in-ring fundamentals.

Oct 16, 2009