WWE Smackdown vs. Raw for the Wii? Yup! When I saw Smackdown at THQ’s setup the first day of E3, I didn’t plan on touching it; I already played the last couple of titles, so what was the point of seeing slightly better graphics with a few wrestlers I don’t know? After talking to some THQ people, though, I noticed it wasn’t the Smackdown I thought it was…it was on the Wii! Obviously, I had to try it.
How it works makes sense from a gameplay point of view, but the use of the Wii remote is obviously forced for the sake of using it. Shaking the Wii remote and nunchuck in any four directions is how you accomplish varying strikes, grapples (after initiating them), lift your opponent, and Irish whip them. It looks fun, but pressing A+B and swinging the remote left in order to perform a headscissors just doesn’t feel right at all.
For a Wii title, the graphics looked good, at least. The only characters available in this build were HHH, HBK, Randy Orton and John Cena, but all four of them looked like their real-life counterparts; as far as entrances are concerned, those weren’t included in the demo.
The game may be fun for wrestling fans looking for something different, but in my opinion, the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Smackdown will remain superior (unless the PS3 version forces Sixaxis use…).
To be fair, there was one cool way the remote and nunchuck were used; to taunt you have to hold C and move the two in a certain way to initiate the taunt, so for HHH and HBK’s "Suck it!" taunt, you actually had to perform the motion. I didn’t get a chance to see if Orton and Cena had similar situations, but at least for those two guys (who are probably the favorites of many fans, anyway), it added a nice touch.
