WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain

"A Great Game For A Great Series"

INTRODUCTION:
First of all I'm not going to lie, I am a Huge Wrestling Fan. Always have been and always will be. (Except the way WWE is heading now I may not be, but then again I have NWA-TNA to watch) I have all of the Smackdown Games but I'm just going to review the newer one. I rushed out to get this one on opening day just like I will do for WWE Smackdown! vs RAW. This is a great game but it does have some flaws.

STORY:

This is a wrestling game......what am I supposed to put....

GRAPHICS: (9/10)

Some people would probably slap me because I didn't give this a 10, but I have my reasons. First of all the LOOK of the game is a big improvement over the last one, the last game was superb but I mean the wrestlers look more real in this one. They have everything from their eye color to A-Trains back hair. They have teeth and they have tattoos. Great graphics. The animations flow together when they do moves and combos, and even when a female wrestler that is wearing a skirt falls down you can see their panties......they really went into detail. They improved the audience from the last games where they were just paper people, although the audience are block people you can put up with it. The arenas where amazing as well.

The camera was great! The had special camera angles for special moves, they showed replays of big moves. The camera stayed focused on the wrestlers, except when a wrestler went all the way to the titan tron and left the others in the ring and got kind of hard to see, but other then that it was great camera work.

Here is the problem, collision detection that is. I saw a lot of the times when we were on the ground in a submission move of some sort I had a hand or foot missing in the mat. It goes straight through, or sometimes your hair was missing. I really don't like this because a lot of games have fixed this problem, but its not that bad I put up with it. The rest of the graphics are amazing.

SOUND: (9/10)

The sound was amazing like in all of the games. They had the actual theme music for the wrestlers (except for a few), the pyro sounded great, the sound effects when they hit the mat was amazing, and there was no commentary, which I think is a good thing because in the last game the said the same thing again and again, and they were the dumbest things....although in the last game J.R. sounded smarter then he does in real life. The thing is some of the music was so cheesy I had to skip over it. They had a looping music file during the matches of about 5 songs. And yet again the wrestlers don't talk. I would love to see the next one have the wrestlers actually say something instead of have their lips move rapidly and have text go across the screen.

GAMEPLAY: (8/10)

The main focus this year was on their grappling system. You pushed circle to tie-up and then push a directional button and another button to do a move. This way you get about 16(I think) moves into your arsenal. They had 4 categories. Power, Submission, Speed, and Signature. And each category had the moves that responded to it. Like a powerbomb would go into the Power category, etc. Then you had your strike moves. Press X and a directional button to do different moves. You have two finishers, push L1 for the main move and L1 + a directional button to do your secondary move. All the controls are basically the same after this. The countering system system is good, Press L2 to counter a strike, R2 to counter a grapple, and L2 + R2 to counter a special move. During the beginning of the match it works great but once you start to get worn down it doesn't work that much, which is a great job because in real life when wrestlers get tired they don't counter everything.

They have a pain meter(I don't know what it is called) that shows all parts of the body and the more you hurt your opponent the more it changes. For instance pummel your opponents head and it will change colors for different levels of pain. Yellow for minimal, Orange for mild, and Red for severe. The darker the color the easier it is to make your opponent to submit or pin them. If you work on their leg the entire match that will be the only thing that will hurt, so it might be hard to pin them but easy to make them tap-out. Oh by the way, in this game THEY BLEED!! And once they bust open the more rapidly you beat on their head they more they bleed!

They have a few more new play options, Bra and Panties, First Blood, Elimination Chamber, and a few more tag options. (I don't think Capitan Tag Team was in the last one). The chamber looks great and I like how they set it up, except when they are eliminated they just get up and WALK THROUGH THE WALL!! Ok, maybe i'm over dramatizing it but eh. Bra and Panties is good I guess. First Blood is great except it takes so long to bust them open. Also in the hardcore matches the outside fighting areas were great! You had the weapons around you and the environment and your disposal. You can throw your opponent in a locker and they will get stuck, you can throw them through a cheaply made wall, and outside there is also this one spot with a helicopter flying over you and a ladder is hanging down.....figure out what that is for.

Season mode is back and is somewhat improved. Instead of roaming around the arena looking for people to talk to you, you have a locker and you can choose where to go. You can buy stuff from the Shopzone store, and it is only a year long. It starts at Backlash and ends at Wrestlemania, could have been a little longer.

Create-a-Wrestler is SUPERB in this game! The best I've seen in any game out there. The also have Create-a-Animation, which is a bit difficult but ok. All and all the gameplay was great, they tweaked a few things to make it better, and somethings still need to be fixed, but overall its great. Although the game is really easy once you get used to it, it is still very fun.

REPLAY VALUE: (8/10)

There is a lot of things to unlock in season mode, such as clothes for your created wrestlers, moves, music, and even legends. Like Deadman Undertaker and Sergent Slaughter...(watch him do the Cobra Clutch on this game, its so funny.) Create-a-Wrestler is hours of fun right there. The game can get boring at times but if you have a friend to play with you it gets competitive.

OVERALL VIEW:
WWE Smackdown! Here Comes The Pain is a game that ever wrestling fan should own. It is outstanding.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?:
If you love wrestling, or just semi like wrestling you should still get this game. Go buy it, it is great and you will have hours of fun with it. If you just like fighting games or want to beat the crap out of some people, or you are a perv and would like to rip some good looking women's clothes off, you should rent this because it is good.

SCORE:
GRAPHICS: 9/10
SOUND: 9/10
GAMEPLAY: 8/10
REPLAY VALUE: 8/10
AVERAGE = 8.5
GameFaqs Score = 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/04/04