WWF SmackDown! Just Bring It

"Disappointed but not surprised by JBI"

If you haven’t picked up this game yet and are thinking about it, I will try to help make your decision a little easier with my lame attempt at a review. So here goes.

I waited in anticipation for a long while for this game to come out, constantly checking for updates on the web, excited over every bit of new information I was able to get. I finally was able to scrape together 50 bucks Saturday, so I went and picked it up.

I gotta say, I am a little disappointed, but not altogether surprised by Just Bring It. I have been playing the SmackDown! Franchise since its inception back 3 years ago with SmackDown! I’ve seen Acclaim come and go with Raw and Attitude and come again with Legends of Wrestling. So I’ve experienced everything both the PsOne and PS2 have to offer, wrestling game wise.


Game Play: 5 out of 10


Well, Yukes (or THQ) decided to do away totally with the “career” mode, a stable in every wrestling game to date. Instead, they replaced it with new “Story” mode. A good idea, that was just done wrong. But the potential is there.

Most story mode games that you will play consist of about 3 to 4 matches, ending with your wrestler winning a belt. Then that story ends and you have to start a new one. You can choose the wrestler you just won the title with in Story mode again and defend the belt. In this case, Story Mode lasts for one match, then you have to start a new story.

Each story starts out the same way, with Vince McMahon asking you if you want an opportunity to go after the tag titles. You can decide to or go after a singles title. You are then given opportunities to interact with different wrestlers and whatnot backstage. What you choose to say to them or do to them decides the path of your story.

Sounds really cool in theory, doesn’t it? But sadly, it just isn’t that cool in practice. After you see the story mode a few times, you get sick of hearing Crash Holly talking smack about how he is the number one contender and that he deserves a title shot.

The free roaming portion of the game again fails to live up to the hype. It is cool the first few times, but quickly becomes a pain in the rear and just shows in greater detail, the lackluster graphics.

The story mode is a good idea, but it was just done wrong in JBI. There is no real incentive for wanting to keep playing the game. You are given something like 50 cards to unlock (kind of like Madden cards). You unlock 4 each time you win a belt or one each time you successfully defend a belt. You are able to unlock items such as extra body parts and clothes for created wrestlers, and other wrestlers themselves. (Like Spike, Stephanie, Shane, Tajiri, and even Fred Durst…the opportunity to beat the heck out of Durst? Count me in!) But once you unlock all of them, which can be done in about 6 hours, there is no real incentive to keep coming back to the game.

In games past, you started your wrestler out at the bottom of the rankings and the more matches you won, the higher in the rankings you went, and got that much closer to the title shot. In JBI, you are given a title shot in your 4th match in story mode. Heck, I saw the credits roll after I played it for 10 minutes. Never a good way to start out a new game you just spent half a paycheck on.

The fighting aspect of the game is identical to previous SmackDown! games. X for strike, 0 for grapple and use the directional pad for different moves of those types. Beat up your opponent enough and the SmackDown! meter will fill up and you will be able to perform your wrestlers special move by pressing L1. Pretty simple, yet effective. A new and pretty cool addition to the controls is the use of the reversal button (square). Just push it when you are being put in a hold and sometime you will reverse it and sometimes you won’t. No real science to it, but it does make the matches look more like what you see on TV.

Game play is fun, but does get repetitive after a while. The computer AI isn’t that smart, but if put on the hardest difficulty setting, will provide a decent challenge.

There are 70 match types to choose, though, some of them are just the same match, but 4 on 1 instead of 3 or 2 on 1. But there are plenty to choose from and aside from the table match, all are pretty fun.

Graphics: 6 out of 10

Well, if it wasn’t for the impressive entrances, the score would be much lower. But excellent entrances do not a great wrestling game make.

Looking at the game play graphics for JBI is basically like looking at SmackDown! 2. The fine game designers at Yukes decided to use the same engine for the game as the previous two installments. This wouldn’t be a problem if this game was released on the PSOne. But this is the PS2.

The hair on the long hair wrestlers such as, Jericho, Ryhno, Kane etc look really bad. Unacceptable for a second generation PS2 game. The faces on most of the wrestlers look decent, with Steve Austin having the best likeness to its real life counterpart. The bodies, well, sometimes they look really good, and other times, they look chunky and like not enough polygons were used to render them.

The animations are really done well. Smoother than the previous SmackDown! Games. Complete with taunts, all the moves are animated well and are believable.

The arenas are all very simple, but they do convey the feeling of a jam-packed arena full of wrestling fans. But the audiences in the front rows are just laughable. They are 2D, and are not very pretty to look at, especially when the fight is taken into the audience and they all “scoot” out of your way. Not pretty at all.

Like I said before, the entrances are all done exactly as they are on the TV show. The fireworks and Titan Tron are all very impressive. Aside from those little jewels, the graphics are very good for a PSOne game, and very bad for a PS2 game.


Sound: 2 out of 10


The sound in JBI is just plain bad. No excuse for this in a second generation PS2 game. The color commentary offered up by Tazz and Michael Cole takes me back to the day of Sports Talk Baseball on the NES. It sounds just like it.
EXAMPLE:
Cole: “This (pause) singles without manager (pause) match (pause, in excited voice) WILL BE (pause, in normal voice)a very important match up.”

Cole: (In excited voice)THE ROCK! (pause, in normal voice) is a nice guy.”
Who ever headed up the play by play direction did a very bad job. I turned it off after one match. There’s just no excuse for this when you look at games like Madden who do a great job at the play by play.
The music that plays in the background while wrestling gets old quick as well. I find that it keeps playing the same song over and over again, even though I have it set on random. Go figure.
The reason I gave it a 2 is for the wrestler intro music. All on there, all perfect. Even Undertakers Rollin’.
But once again, we are forced to read what the wrestlers say, instead of the makers using voice-overs. Wouldn’t be that hard to do, seems how the wrestlers all say the same thing, and only a handful of phrases at that.

Value: 4 out of 10

I have had this game for 2 days now. Played it most of the day yesterday. It’s all beaten, everything unlocked, and I am tired of it. There is no real replay value to this game after you open up everything. Nothing that makes you want to go back to it. Even the wrestler intros get old really quick, despite their coolness.

Over all: 4 out of 10


Believe me, I wanted to like it, but after playing it, I got the same feeling I got after playing the second on. “This is just the same as the first one, with different wrestlers and a few more match types.” Only this time, I found myself saying that as well as, I can’t believe I won the belt after 10 minutes of playing this, and there is no career mode.
If you are a die hard wrestling fan, as I am, you will probably not care what anyone says about this game and will want to own it and see for yourself what this game is all about. So go buy it die hard fan. But if you are just a casual fan, then you better rent this first to see what I am talking about, then decide for yourself. Believe me, I wish I would have listened to some of these other reviews, and rented it, then I could afford to get Splashdown. But, live and learn I always say.
There are those who will like this game a lot, those who haven’t played the first SmackDown! most likely will not know what they are missing. But most will see through this game and be disappointed with it, as I am.

Bottom Line:


This game feels like it was rushed out the door. It has a lot of potential, but it feels incomplete. It feels like and for the most part looks like a PSOne game. A PSOne game which costs $50.00. Definitely not worth the money. Rent it first and decide for yourself though.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 12/10/01, Updated 12/10/01