SmackDown vs Raw 2007 (Xbox 360)

(THQ)

Have you always wished a bunch of sweaty men would start grappling with each other in the comfort of your own lounge room? Well with Smackdown vs Raw 2007 you have the chance!

THQ have released their eight iteration of the successful franchise on the Xbox360 and it is immediately noticeable that they have not fully re-written the game engine (as it has inherited some of Smackdowns previous glitches) but you can defiantly see a major graphical improvement over Smackdown PS2 and Xbox cousins.

One of the major changes in Smackdown 2007 is the re-worked control system. Yuke, the games developer, have listened to the gripes around the previous control system and have removed the need to initiate a grapple with a button. In Smackdown 2007 you have the ability to initiate a grapple using the right analog stick. You can do differening grapples depending on the direction in which the stick is pushed, also you can initiate stronger grapples if you team up the stick push with the right bumper button. It’s a great addition to the game and seems to make your wrestlers moves more fluid and natural.

Players now have the ability to initiate ‘Ultimate control moves’ with the right hand stick. Once you have a player in a strong grapple you can press down on the stick. This allows a player to pick up their opponent and conduct a whole heap of other moves. For example you may pick up your opponent like you are about to conduct a Suplex. Instead of pulling that move off you may suspend him in the air for a few seconds and finally place him down, fun bag section first on the ropes! This level of variety really shows what a wonderful job Yuke has done at re working the controls. Also players now have the ability to move their opponent into ‘environmental hotspots’ outside the ring. This allows you to smash you opponent into stairs, announcers tables, audience members signs, fire extinguishers and a whole production rig, which is an absolute cack if your playing against your mates.

Apart from the improved controls and better graphics, not much has changed from the previous iterations of the game. Opponent AI is questionable and predictable, with the majority of their moves coming from reversal’s, which are very difficult to pull off yourself, and this can result in an unbreakable string of attacks (especially in tag team mode) coming from the computer opponents, a very annoying feature.

Collision detection has always been questionable in wrestling games and THQ has done a good job at improving it slightly in this version of the game. That said you will often find your players randomly punching fresh air, getting suplexed onto a seeming unbreakable tables and occasionally completely ignoring each other!

You have never been able to fault the Smackdown series on its breadth of content, and Smackdown 2007 is no exception. Simply every wrestling option has been included from Royal Rumble, Career mode, manager mode through to hardcore matches, buried alive matches and car park brawls have always been included. Fresh in this release is money in the bank match and a faily dodgy six man climb the ladder match. Neither of these new matches are particularly exciting but you have to congratulate THQ in coming up with any new match types given they exhausted the list two generations ago.

The story mode has improved with players given the choice of how the story should be played out and a greater feel for the story line, instead of just a list of strung together matches.

The music in the game is a collection of thrash/trash hardcore US Rock and Gangsta style hip hop, so fifteen year old kids will really enjoy, fine if you are into that sort of music…personally I had it on mute all of the way through.. this is a dance music mag isn’t it!
The commentary on the game is surprisingly fluid and doesn’t repeat all that often with lots of comic interludes and accurate match reporting.

One thing that is a major let down in Smackdown 2007 is the load times, they are almost unbearable. You load between player choices, cut scenes, each individual player intro and then another load into the main game! I can only think it is to do with the graphical improvements to the game requiring more memory than usual, hopefully when THQ and Yuke develop the engine from scratch for the Xbox360, instead of overhauling the PS2 engine, then this will go away in Smackdown 2008.

This brings us to the issue that all of these long running series developers must be concerned about and that’s the longevity of the franchise. This is now the eighth iteration of the Smackdown series and you could argue that not much has really changed since Smackdown vs Raw 2. Electronic Arts must be suffering the same problem with their FIFA or NBA series. There are only a finite amount of improvements that can be made to a series before the games need a complete overhall. If you have any of the previous versions of this game you would have to question the sanity of an upgrade, even if you are dying to play it on the Xbox360 platform.
That said, if you are new to the series Smackdown vs Raw 2007 is a fantastic wrestling game that will control and spandex loving wrestling fan for years to come!

Graphics: 4/5 Have I accidentally flicked to FoxTel.. theses guys look as real as it gets.
Sound: 1/5 Horrendous rock and Gansta RnB best left in the States.
Gameplay: 4/5 It’s a great game to play even with the few control glitches
Longevity: 5/5 With these many options you could be still playing this game in years.
Multiplayer: 4/5 Four way local and Xbox Live support, great multiplayer capabilities.
Overall: 4/5 A great wrestling game, worth a purchase if you don’t own anything else in the franchise

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