Smackdown vs Raw look sometimes like Smackdown is Raw. And not in a good way.
I know this game has many flaws but somehow it seems that I have played it a lot. Alone or against friends.
So it's a real hard one.
The graphics look nice, your character looks good (at that moment in time this was a game with the best character graphics). It still looks good and if you can buy it for 20-30 € you should do it. I also have the 2010 version and those graphics are much better BUT that campaign mode is very short and I never thought I would say this, but I want the 24/7 mode back that is in this Smackdown Vs Raw 2008.
About that 24/7 mode. Hated by many, also by myself many times. This is one thing that has a lot of potential, but none is truly correct taken.
Whats good about 24/7 mode is that you need to put a lot of time in it if you truly want to succeed. Another good thing is that they decided to put cutscenes in that very long campaign, but its bad that they dont seem to make any sense.
There is "a story", if you can call it like that. It is just a bunch of cutscenes to show you what happens but thats actually all. You also have a little computer pda thingy which enables you to recieve messages from anyone. This is also a big part of the "story". You will get informed by your general manager who you shall need to fight and why and those enemies will send you very bad messages which will make you happy to enter the ring and knock their br*ins out! Sometimes you have a beef with someone and if you are walking to the ring (cutscene) you see this person in the backstage to give him a pet on the shoulder. In the ring you need to fight him because he is your big rival.
And these kind of flaws are all around the 24/7 mode and that is a shame. If they had put in a good story line with no flaws, I am sure that this game would be the best in series untill now. Even beating the 2010 version which naturally has better graphics but in my case will give you less hours of playing.
But thats a personal opinion offcource. With the 24/7 mode you keep on playing, in a weird way it makes sense enough to know what you are doing and doing that is actually really fun.
Because of the fact that the 24/7mode is REALLY long you probably never complete it but always will return back after a time to progress a bit further. The variety of fights is fun: cage, ladder, hardcore...matches are just a click away. Another shortage in the game is the problem that sometimes when you have won a fight, the cutscene that plays after winning shows your character hurt like hell leaving the ring while your opponent, which YOU pinned down, is daring you to come back in the ring and fight him.
These little faults make it sometimes really hard to really be in the game, but the sort of matches you will play will be more then enough to addict yourself many times again while replaying the game.
Now you know the bad which in some sort of way also is good.
It's really a weird game.
Some of the good things are the nice graphics which are still more then watchable but the 2010 version is naturally better.
Another replaying value thing for me personally, is the creat a character option. How many characters would I have created in this game, to play many hours with it, trying to beat the game. For me, this is a good thing.
In this creation tool you can not only change your appearal and looks but also your entrance and moves-set! Thjis is a time consuming thing, specially if you really want to pick the moves which the character can execute yourself. Sometimes it took me 3 hours for making a character, giving him an entrance and a moveset. If you dont like doing these kind of things there are many presets available so you do have the option of choosing a preset character, move-set, entrance. Still the fun part is in creating it.
There are also special abbilities you can master like for instance; powerhouse.
This makes you as strong as a bull. You can throw your opponent of yourself when he pins you, and I mean THROW. With the abilitie Hardcore you have the chance to use weapons which can be picked up in no dq matches in another way then people without the abilitie can use them.
Normally you can only hit with these objects, but with the Hardcore abilitie you can also do grappling moves with a weapon.
There are many abilities and you can only choose two for your character. Which also is a good thing. It leaves you room for creating a second character and a thirt and... Do you want a strong big fellow and a high flhyer like Mysterio or a cheater and hardcore bully. You name it you creat it. And thats something this game does very well.
The fighting style system is one you should grow into, but once you know what you are doing you can hit you opponent with some various deadly looking moves. If you attack his head enough it will start bleeding. Chairs are a master to make ones head bleed.
Since you can change your move set you can also choose your own finisher, which is a fun thing since it gives you the chance to change it while you are playing the game which makes the game more fresh after some days of playing.
The fighting system on itself is something that looks like impossible at first but believe me, after a time on easy and learning how things are done, even maybe playing the first threesome ladder match for a movie contract and cheat a bit by using other controlers to "control" the charachters, if you know what I mean ;) eventually you will be playing the game on legend mode to have a challenge in the battles.
You can punch, kick, all kind of grapples, throw your opponent against the buckle and perform a grapple which performs a turn buckle move, pin someone down, use submission based attacks to make your opponent give up,...you can even go out the ring into the audience where you can jump from a very high platform unto your opponent. You can even lay him on a table first! This is a area is based on the idea to hurt eachother. You can throw them into the rails where the people are standing. Take objects from those people to hit your opponent with, causing various cutscenes to start in which you damage your enemy a lot or he damages you a lot...
The limits are truly endless and you'll have a fun time exploring the ring and the outside of the ring.
You can also play as a general manager and manage your stars but I really never started playing like that. So there is no info I can give about that mode.
Another downside is the loading times, these are ridiculously high.
Specially when you go into a fight, you really need to wait along time before you can actually fight.
You can train your character to improve it and you have two chooses here:
Do you make the computer train him, which can go either way or do you train him yourself?
These trainingsessions are a good way of learning to use the controls AND recieve many points for it but again will the loading times get on your nerves.
This is something that has been correctly changed in the 2010 version, where the loading times are really, really, short.
SO there you got it, its a weird game. I have not much good to say about it but somehow I keep on playing it from time to time and when I do I really spend a lot of time on it.
There are many wrestlers from the 2008 smackdown, raw and ecw roster like for instance:
Matt Hardy, Baptista, Rey Mysterio, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Kane, John Cena and many, many others...
You can even unlock legends like: The Rock and my favorite Stone Cold Steve Austin.
You dont need to be afraid that there are not enough wrestlers to choose from.
The choice is really large and I am sure you will find someone that suits you best and if not, just creat one.
You can play this game in single player mode or you can smash the sh*t out of your friend at home.
There is a online multiplayer (playstation network) but I never really played that. I rarely play the multiplayer of a game.
I remember playing it a short while after I started playing the game. I remember getting my ass kicked over and over again by ninja looking players.
I remember I never played online again, even when I had gotten better.
Overall this game is a game you should consider buying at a maximum price of 30 €.
How bad the 24/7 mode may look in Smackdown vs Raw 2010 it is gone.
And you never know what you have untill its gone...
7.5/10