WWF SmackDown!

"One of the best wrestling series to date also had a very humble start."

The WWF (now and hereafter known as the WWE, except for any mention of ''WWF'' in the game itself), with the help of THQ and Yuke's, began work on their latest wrestling game. With the WWE having decent success on their past two games at the time, Warzone and Attitude, could they keep the streak going with a third game? In the end, yes they did, and not only that, they started a series of wrestling games that continues to be expanded on a yearly basis, with major upgrades in all directions. Yet who would have thought that this game, now responsible for what I think of as the Madden series of wrestling games, could have had such humble beginnings? Looking at the game now, and the serie's latest outing, Here Comes the Pain, you wouldn't believe something so great came out of something so little. Let's give you a deeper look into how it all began...

Story (4): Although the WWE cut off the whole ''run for the title'' in exchange for a deeper style of play called ''Season Mode'' in Attitude, they continued this in SmackDown!, but on a much higher level. When a season begins, a limited amount of cutscenes will play as you go through your season, and continue on your quest for being the WWF Champion. The amount of cutscenes are very small, and you may have to spend a good amount of time on the game before you get to watch them all, if ever. That's what gives it a 4, but there being an effort to make a very basic story with cutscenes in the first place is what makes this score even existent.

Music/Sound (7): The game is littered with techno-ish rock music, in the menus, in the game itself, it's everywhere. They may not be that bad to listen to, but it's certainly forgettable music, and there's nothing in it that gives it an edge or makes it anywhere worth listening to. So thumbs up for the game giving you the option to turn the music off. Turning the music off is also good for another thing: it brings to life all of your match-ups in the ring. Without the music, you can hear the roar of the crowd, the sounds of a wrestler's body crashing into the canvas, the cheers, the boos, it make the game feel like a real wrestling match when you've got the music turned off. Although, with the music turned off, you will have to face the annoying sounds in the menus as well, especially with all the selecting you'll be doing with the matches, and the wrestler creating, so it's really kind of a danged-if-you-do, danged-if-you-don't kind of affair. Now, finally, there's just one more topic I have to touch on with the sound, and that's the lack of match commentary, and you'll probably see the game catching a lot of crap because of it. I offer you this alternative: what use has commentary been to the game, anyways? Would you honestly LIKE to hear Jerry ''The King'' Lawler screaming ''Puppies!'' every 5 seconds? Didn't think so. Commentary never did anything good for wrestling games, it just clogs up the game's memory which could have been used for something more productive, thankfully, you didn't have to listen to it in this game.

Graphics (8): The graphics, in comparison to the rest of the series, are very primitive. In a different sense, however, they are the best of their time. The faces of the Superstars are very realistic and their body structures are well-designed too. The arenas (three in all, with extra backstage areas) are large venues with crowd activity, although, in all honesty, the crowd is just a 2D group with about 3 frames of animation and the same 2-3 shirt and sign designs scattered throughout the arena, along with ''flashes'' from pictures being taken from cameras. The only beef I have with the graphics, and what keeps it from being a 10, is that sometimes when the Superstars move, parts of their body move too, but in a zig-zag motion that's very distracting. Take, for instance, Mankind's entrance, as he walks, you can see his shirt zigging and zagging with every step he takes.

Gameplay (6): There are so many ups and downs about this part of the game, there are things you wish could've been done better, and things that seem just right. The in-ring action is well done, with a barrel-load of moves you can use to lay out your opponent. What's even better is, it doesn't use the annoying combo-button layout that Warzone and Attitude had, but a simple one button press, along with any direction button being pressed, allowed for an easy way to give your opponent a powerbomb without some ridiculous 5-button combination having to be pressed.

There is a large collection of matches to choose from as well. The most anticipated match type when this game came out was the Special Referee matches, where you get to play ref for a match or have a computer or friend play the ref in a dirty or clean fashion. In dirty fashion, I mean as in not slapping the canvas to the count of three when someone is pinned, or counting to ten very quickly when a wrestler is outside the ring. Besides this match's first outing in a WWE game, there are King of the Ring tournaments, Royal Rumbles, and Cage matches, Hardcore matches, Anywhere Falls matches, along with Survival matches (1 on 2, or 1 on 3) and 4-player Battle Royals.

The balance of the game is very accurate too, in the easiest mode, you can pull off moves with no worries of reversals and your chances of losing is very low if you're good enough. On it's toughest mode, computer reversals are constant, and they'll keep on you, too, so your chances of winning are slim, unless you're working hard enough to counter their moves too. One noticeable difference between this game and the latest game in the series is that the AI tends to come after you very, very often. In Here Comes the Pain, they'll at least occupy themselves with the opponent their working on then, but in this first game, once they pound their opponent into the canvas, they'll start coming after you or someone else again, even if they're busy with another wrestler, this can sometimes make for a confusing experience. However, no matter what mode of difficulty you're in, and no matter how hard you beat down your opponent, be it through a strong grapple move, a hit in the head with the chair, or a 5 SmackDown! finishers in a row, your opponent still has the annoying tendency to get up after as much as 10 seconds or as little as a half a second, and they rarely ever ''nurse'' their wounds, so the game continues very quickly until someone is pinned or someone taps out.

Another unbelievable comparison between games is how speedy this game is during in-ring action. Compared to Attitude, this game is a lot faster and a much quicker pace. However, compared to Here Comes the Pain, this game is very sluggish and matches feel drawn out for minutes at a time. It gets even worse with 3 players or 4 players, as the result there being all four in the ring is major slowdown to the action, even more so than just 2 player action. There is, however, no doubt to when playing this game for the first time, our jaws dropped at how much faster the game seemed despite the previous two WWE games.

The season mode is also very well done. Going through one venue is a snap, just press ''skip'' to skip matches that aren't yours, and you're given the results lickety split, then all you do is go to the next match, and you fight whatever match you're given for that venue. The pre-season for your created wrestlers is an awesome extra as well. The pre-season allows for your created wrestler to add to his or her stats through winning matches, and depending on what you do and say to other wrestlers backstage, you can make a friendship with them, or turn them into your most hated foe, it all depends on what you do. Unfortunately, the season mode also takes a very unrealistic turn since one venue happens once a month, so you go through a year of doing some house shows, some appearances on Raw and SmackDown!, and about 3 or 4 of the big Pay-Per-View specials, 12 fights a year, that's all there is.

There's one last thing to mention about the gameplay, and that's the terribly done Create-A-Wrestler mode. You're given only 60+ pre-made templates to choose from between a head, upper body, and lower body, and that's all you can do in terms of how your wrestler looks, very pitiful in this sense. You can also choose all the moves you can pull off, but it can tend to be a somewhat time-consuming process. In the end, however, you get the pleasure of having a CAW with the moves you want, but very likely not with the look you envisioned it to have.

Replayability (6): The season mode could entice you into playing through 20 whole years (that's 240 matches) to get every unlockable thing, but after that, if you're not impressed with the load of unlockables you get by the time you exhausted the season mode, you may not come back for more ring action, unless you can talk friends into jumping into the fray with it's 4-player action and the large selection of matches to choose from.

Overall (6): THQ was able to make one of the best wrestling games it could with the technology and power it had, and this game has since become one of the hottest wrestling series around. The game is great, but to come back to it, years after it's release, it's hard to find the decency all over again, because everything feels more sluggish then it once was, and after the season mode has done it's damage, there's really nothing left for you to do except make it a party game.

Buy? Rent?: There are so many great things and so many primitive things about this game, but the series has continued to improve with every release. While I would recommend skipping out on buying this release, and to go with buying Shut Your Mouth or Here Comes the Pain, if you're still one of the hardcore WWE fans who want a taste of the last great days of the Attitude Era, despite the very outdated graphics and gameplay (not to mention the VERY outdated roster), I'd say go ahead and squirrel it up. Seriously though, go with the latest in the series, at this point, getting anything earlier than Shut Your Mouth is a disappointment.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/27/04