WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2009 (Xbox 360) Preview

Posted by Chris Lansdell on 09.23.2008

First Look: Enough new bits to make you need it? Looks that way!

Five years ago, if someone had told me that wrestling video games would become mainstream fighting games, and that they would be accepted as such, I would have laughed loudly. Then I would have gone back to tweaking the eyebrows on my create-a-wrestler to make them just…like…Macho Man's. Yet here we are, 5 years later, staring both the end of 2008 and the newest instalment of WWE Smackdown vs Raw right in the face. THQ's wildly popular wrestling franchise is back with the 2009 incarnation promising all sorts of upgrades and changes.



Will SvR 2009 put a chokehold on the competition?

Most fans of the genre look first to the story mode. Recent versions of the game have been panned for having only one path through the story mode, and only one title to chase on each show. The problem was partly rectified last year with the introduction of star ratings for your matches, the goal of becoming a Legend, and non-linear storylines. This year they look to have gone even further. The story mode has always had the ultimate goal of reaching the main event of WrestleMania, and the trend continues this year with added depth. The major change is the introduction of co-op storylines for the first time. This also opens up the opportunity to win the tag team titles in the storyline, which is something that has been asked for several times.



There's a story here. I believe it contains the word "Ow".

Tag teams are a focus of the latest episode in the SvR series. There are more double-team moves and finishers, the possibility to build team chemistry, momentum and other tag team attributes with your partner, and a new "hot tag" feature, which provides a boost to the incoming partner when executed. Details on how this will work are not yet available, but it will likely involve a stored finisher.



Hot tag imminent!

The other big draw of the series is the create-a-wrestler (CAW) mode. There are entire websites devoted to telling people how to create their favourite stars using the CAW editor, from moves to hairstyles to forearm-to-bicep proportion. That's all staying, but a major addition has been made in that we now have the ability to create our own finishers. From what I've seen, you will be able to create a sequence of steps in your finisher (up to 10), combining set-up moves with taunts and other moves. The choice of moves at each step is tied to the one you chose before, so as to make the move flow nicely. For example, if step 7 is to lift your opponent up in a suplex, then step 8 can't be something that doesn't follow from it. This is something I've been crying out for in wrestling games, and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

What? I'm a wrestling geek.

The online functionality of the game has also been tweaked and improved, enabling downloadable content and better online play. One of the knocks on the series has been that the rosters are often outdated by the time the game hits shelves, and while it seems unlikely that the online updates could be used to remove someone from the game, they could certainly be used to add new wrestlers, clothing, titles, tag teams and so on.

November 9 is the day. From the video trailers online, this iteration of the franchise is looking to be the best yet.