Smackdown Makes it's PS2 debut and loses by clean pinfall (WWF Smackdown: Just Bring It (PS2))

Member Name: iamasadlittleboy

Product:	WWF Smackdown: Just Bring It (PS2)
Date:	22/09/09 (24 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Improved graphics and brings the Smackdown series to the PS2

Disadvantages: Too fast, too crowded, poor commentary, poor story

When I first got my PS2 all those years back my first three games were Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, Grand Theft Auto 3 and Smackdown! Just Bring It (the third in the Smackdown series funnily enough). Released in November of 2001 (so I'm guessing I must have gotten the console in December of that year) the game was the first PS2 version of the Smackdown series by THQ, and the third WWF game by THQ for the Playstation systems in totally (their sixth home console WWF game behind WWF Wrestlemania 2000 (N64), WWF No Mercy (N64), WWF Royal Rumble (Dreamcast) and the first 2 Smackdown games).

With the step up in processing power I myself was hoping for a huge step up from previous game which I, like many video gamers loved, though I'll admit I preferred No Mercy as it seemed more solid. With a long standing relationship with THQ and an understanding they made great wrestling games, as evidenced by their N64 games (WCW V NWO World Tour, WCW V NWO Revenge, WWF Wrestlemania 2000 and WWF No Mercy) I thought I'd avoid the rather negative reviews the magazines had been giving the game. I knew better, I said, I should have known I really didn't.

The games great selling point was allowing 8 people in the ring at once (the Dreamcast Royal Rumble allowed 9) which many thought would prove to be excellent and a great step in the right direction as far as Royal Rumble matches go, another was that each wrestler now had 2 finishing moves in the game and the commentary team had changed to Michael Cole and former wrestler Tazz. The game also overhauled the major single player game to a mode similar to that used by No Mercy.

With a roster of around 40 fighters it was a significant step down from many of the previous games which had been around the 60 mark, though it had all the main fighters were and used some of the lesser used talent (Jerry Lynn for example) the lack of Shawn Michaels (who as retired but had repeatedly been a secret character in other games). It still felt a bit small and short on numbers, even more so when you remember you'd have 30 fighters in a Royal Rumble contest so you'd see almost all of them in the single match.

The graphics had seen a dramatic improvement on the previous games in the series, but sadly it cost, in massive load up times that seemed to last longer than some of the matches what was worse of all was how much the game then decided to rely on the PS2's less than cheap memory cards, using up almost ½ of a single memory card, around 4000kb of an 8000kb capacity. The graphics despite being nicer seemed to make no difference as the game play was too fast to enjoy them, and by too fast it also made the game unenjoyable as characters were too fast to do things, the animation looked rushed and quite lousy, sadly not helping when their was 8 characters on screen all running around like Usain Bolt. The screen seemed crowded, the ring seemed too small to contain the 8 characters and sadly this could have been easily solved by creating slightly smaller characters and a bigger ring, compromising the character models slightly to allow more in ring freedom.

The idea of 2 finishing moves it's self wasn't actually a new idea for THQ who had done it in WCW v NWO Revenge allowing people like Diamond Dalls Page to do his Diamond Cutter from the middle of the ring or the turnbuckle. The WWF at the time used them quite a lot such as the Rock using The Rock Bottom and The Peoples Elbow though many wrestlers seemed to be without need for them in the game it was still nice to see it added.

The commentary however was diabolical, it would have been better off left out altogether as it seemed broken and never seemed related to what was actually going on in the ring. A shame though I do appreciate how difficult it is to get commentary onto video games in a way that actually works, games even now such as Fight Night 4 are still struggling to really manage it, though this really was just diabolical.

The single player story mode seemed like it was tacked on and really poor, a poor way to unlock much of the games content and a rather laborious mode that seemed to provide little for the single players meaning the game was almost solely a multi-player game. As each career could last less than an hour it just felt rather pathetic.

Overall the game seemed to be a step backwards when compared with the others in the series, despite the fact their was more there for the programmers to work with. The changes they incorporated seemed either excellent or terrible (the amount of characters on screen was dropped and it was left at 6 ever since). The fighting system was unchanged but the fact is it was too fast to be really playable and it just felt nasty to play, sadly it was a complete waste of money at the time and I wouldn't advise anyone picks it up looking for a PS2 wrestling game as the follow ups are all significantly better and are around the same price.

Summary: Decent if you're playing multiplayer, otherwise it's not worth it.