WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth

"Improved, fun and good but still not quite perfect....."

The closest you can get to a real life WWE emulation.....

Well that time of the year has once again arrived, mid-late November, when Yukes and publisher THQ grace us with another WWE wrestling game from the Smackdown series on the PS2. Many of you, myself included are hoping that this year's installment erases all the dissapointment and bad taste that last year's PS2 game (Just Bring It) and this year's other long awaited WWE game, Wrestlemania X8 left on us. It appeared that after those 2 huge dissapointment's, Yukes would have to do their homework and put a better effort on the next Ps2 game and Im happy to inform that they did just that.

Graphics- The game shines on this category as it offers a great graphical improvement from last year's title, sporting better visuals than X8's cartoony look and almost close to Raw on the X-Box(minus the lame, robotic walk Raw has). Each wrestler now has their own proportioned physique, molded and rendered to look exactly like they do in real life and faces are a lot, lot better than in JBI, which suffered from a few fish mouths and odd looking facial expressions. Adding to that, wrestlers now portray various facial expressions including smiles, groans and anger depending on the situation. The animation is now smoother than before, and that in part can be attributed to the slower paced the game now has, more on that later. A lot of the jumpy, odd looking move animations were fixed, which was a problem with JBI, that made some moves look as if they were missing frames of animation. The arenas are as spectacular as in real life, but while the first 2 rows of fans at ringside are now 3D, they suffer from a blocky, Tekken 2-ish look. Backstage areas are more abundant and interactive than before. Overall the improvements on graphics, and animations are noticed. 8/10

Sound- The original WWE themes are intact, well most of them except for about 4 themes(Maven, Stacy, Tajiri, Hardy Boyz) but they are replaced by accurate looking versions of the originals. The rest of the themes are intact plus both the Smackdown theme ''Beautiful People'' by Marilyn Manson and the RAW opening theme are in and that makes up for the 4 missing ones. The sound is well, still the same generic slaps, hits, and mat hits which arent bad at all, but theyre still generic. The commentary which was one of the biggest letdowns in JBI has been fixed, sorta. You see now JR and King give you a simplified commentary instead of play by play which is nice, and an improvement over the idiotic phrases that both Tazz and Michael Cole used in JBI. Still there are a few moments where JR and King sound tired or their comments are a bit out of place. There are also various wrestler samples in Season mode from the Rock, Stone Cold, Flair and others which is nice. The crowd sounds are much better as well. The crowd will now boo, cheer, woooo, and even say the annoying but funny What!? catchphrase. Also during one of Kurt Angle's entrances they will chant You Suck! along with the music like in real life. Nice touch and details make the sounds good overall.. 7.5/10

Control- The control is still the same as in past games except it adds a few new tricks. Now when picking up an opponent from the ground into a grapple you can position him/her before performing a move. Also L1 and L2 have now additional functions during special/finishing moves, in which you can either get a 360 degree ''Matrix'' spinning camera effect or a 3 angle instant replay. Very responsive overall and easy to lear and get into for novice players. 8/10

Gameplay/Fun Factor- The game has a fair amount of match types to choose from, including the most notorious like TLC, Ladder, and HIAC(which is full sized by the way) and some of them like Cage Match can now be modified to suit your rules, for example instead of escaping you can just make it a pinfall and submissions only match. The ladder match has been greatly improved as now a wrestler can grab a standing ladder and push it away while the opponent is on top causing them to slowly fall down to the ground. Like I said before the Hell In A Cell is now full sized and there are a variety of moves that can be performed in it, like raking your opoonent's face to the cell, slamming their heads against it and even a chokeslam from the top of the cell. Dissapointing though is the fact that theres only 1 square on top that can be broken like in the previous games. The ring is also more interactive, as you can now remove the turnbuckle padding to cause more harm on your opponent, pull weapons from under the ring(watch out for DQs!!) and throw opponents into both the ring post on the outise or the ringside barrier, both of which allow you t perform 2 or more moves onto them. Did I mention you can climb and run on the barrier? wel yes its a cool addition but like the tables, wrestler float when you fall off it. Speaking of tables, while you can now set them up in the corner to put people thru, the physics are still the same as in JBI, which is a shame. The commentator's tables are now bigger and more likelike and they now break realistically on impact, instead of just going flat like in JBI. There are now weapon grapples/moves, and in some cases weapon speacials(Vandaminator anyone?). Also the ladder is now more interactive as a weapon and you can finally spray opponents with the fire extinguisher. Also the new weapon and backstage interactivity makes hardcore matches more fun as you can now throw people against glass frames, put people inside dumpsters, throw people against parked cars(which causes a huge unrealistic but fun explosion) and several other goodies you will discover for yourself. The CAW or Create A Superstar has been improved greatly as now you have twice as many layers to add accessories/clothing etc. and the ability to morph and edit separate body parts to create realistic renditions of non WWE superstars and other wrestling legends. Masks paints are plenty, from The Great Muta's paint and new mask, to Rey Mysterio's and countless others, so mix and match to get all the results you want. The hair has been improved, but still could use a little bit of work. Create mode now also allows you to take any design/logo/letter/number available and place it anywhere you want with the option to either resize it, turn it or move it. A huge and I mean huge, and detailed selection of moves makes this one of the best selection in CAW's ever. From 12 different Shining Wizard's, the Viagra Driver, Spin Doctor/Last Rites/Test Drive, to the Kryptonite Krunch, this game has it all. Plus some move sets from non WWE stars are so detailed and life like that it makes creating them a joy. Now the Season, which is something a lot of you have been waiting for gets redone completely. Now its a mix of Know Your Role's season(without the annoying load times and match simulations) with all the WWE storylines from this past year merged into a 2 year Season. Everything from the nWo, to HBK and HHH's return, to the draft, to Kurt Angle's hair loss is there. Season also gives you the chance to unlock rewards by winning on PPVs, which include wrestler's extra attires, CAW parts and movesets, arenas & backstage areas, and the ability to use certain characters in Season mode. The counter system has been improved and changed, now instead of mashing a button to counter you have to press a button and a direction with timing to be successful. This also allows for finisher/special counters. Overall one of the most fun wrestling games in a long time but with one flaw that I still find unforgiveable, the lack of a proper or realistic submissions system. 8.5/10

In closing arguments I would like to say that I had quite good expectations about this game and they were all met. WWE Smackdown Shut Your Mouth is a great wrestling game and finally improves a lot of the problems that the previous installments had. But still its not quite perfect and it has flaws. Most of them are clipping problems and like I mentioned before, the unbalanced, unrealistic submission system but still the positives outweight and create a balace with the negatives. Bottom line is, if youre a wrestling fan, no matter if its WWE, New and All Japan, Indy feds etc., you will love this game due to the attention to detail Yukes pays to moves, taunts, outfits and several create parts. Season provides a lot of fun matches and cutscenes plus the rewards you have to earn add a lot of replay value to it. But still most will agree with me that the most fun is in multiplayer excitement where yourself and 5 other friends can hook up and cause chaos inside and outside the ring. For open minded wrestling fans this is a must own game. Now here's hoping next year's installment finally fixes all of the problems the engine has.

Overall- 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/17/02, Updated 11/17/02