A great game that, for me, is let down by its difficulty.
On an example of the ups, however, is the latest addition to the series. SmackDown vs Raw 2009 is the best grappler since Here Comes The Pain, which was way back in 2003. This year's edition is one that resolves the problems with last year's game; A huge roster this time, plus many new modes to keep us entertained. We have a revamped Tag Team Match, the first ever appearance of an Inferno match in a videogame, Career Mode, and so many more. The main game mode is Road To Wrestlemania, which features 6 different storylines, designed for their respective wrestler. The stories are short, but sweet, and stick true to the character throughout. This story mode is also the best we've seen since HCTP.
The graphics are very impressive, once again, although we still have the occassional clipping faults, which have been reduced since last year.
The sound is reasonable - commentary is improved by far, yet still has flaws here and there. Unfortunately, though, the sound of a powerslam isn't quite as "oofah" as it should be.
Gameplay is same old, same old, for an avid wrestling game fan. Whilst with a few new tweaks, many returning players will instantly recognise the same mechanics from previous games.
So far, so good. But there's one thing about this game that really puts me off it, and takes a good 0.5 from the scoring system; Difficulty.
I'm not sure if difficulty is the correct term, seeing as there practically is none. I play the game on Legend difficulty (the hardest of the four) and still plow through matches with ease. It annoys me that I can't enjoy a challenging match without playing online, in which case I'm bombarded with noobs that repeat a diving elbow from the top rope. I'd love to see a Madden NFL 09-style 'adaptive skill level' system, but knowing THQ, I'm pretty sure it'd be half-assed and completely unhelpful.
I hate to end a review on such a bad note but it's just as the game is; You'll enjoy playing it until you get bored of winning so easily. And even if you want some more content, for the Xbox 360 edition in particular, THQ have botched up the DLC aswell, with the downloadable addition being over 2 months late now. Will we ever see the DLC? Will we ever see a challenging SvR game? Hopefully, because soon enough, boredom will come.