Smackdown Vs Raw: Official

[Jeremy]

Nothing on WM 21 for the Xbox has been announced. I saw the new IGN stuff, and I'll say that visually, the game looks good. Although the gameplay appears to still be highly flawed judging from the vids. If everything announced in the Gamespot Q&A ends up holding true, and working out really well, that might not be the case, but right now, I'm really doubting that this will be much of a wrestling game.

There are druids in Taker's intro, but the fire effect is Attitude-level bad, which kills it. There is some really nice, subtle lip movement on Taker though, which is neat. Evolution's entrance looks fantastic, aside from HHH doing Orton's part of the entrance, and anyone not Flair being bowed to. The pyro looks great. The parking lot brawl match looks like a mix of good and bad. There appears to be a LOT of canned animation, which could probably all be seen in just one match. The glass shattering effect looked neat, as did landing on the car, I just wish it took more than an irish whipe to do some of this stuff. Hell, No Mercy had great vehicular stuff in it, with the truck fighting, and here, it just looks very fake and artificial. The fact that some of the stuff appears to just take the place of the ring barrier, and on top of that, not even have the wrestler model lying on the car, just just on air, makes it look very cheesy and fake. Although given that this IS the SD series, I guess I shouldn't be shocked by that.

[Korly]

How goes the online beta test Tobal and Dyne?

Also, IGN has new videos.

[Agent X]

According to this article from IGN, THQ has confirmed that online play will be in the final version of this game!

[Korly]

Awesome!

[TobalRox]

It was off to a VERY shakey start... it was lagged like hell to the point of being like a full second delay... but that cleared up after a day, and things are great now... it's very limited as to what you can do, but it's been fun, and I can't wait. I can't say anymore until the test is over though.

[Korly]

When's it over?

[TobalRox]

sometime next week, I think

[Jeremy]

Online play will rule, assuming the game doesn't end up to be shit. The broadband-only rule should help things out in terms of lag and stuff.

[Drewbacca]

Nothing on WM 21 for the Xbox has been announced. I saw the new IGN stuff, and I'll say that visually, the game looks good. Although the gameplay appears to still be highly flawed judging from the vids. If everything announced in the Gamespot Q&A ends up holding true, and working out really well, that might not be the case, but right now, I'm really doubting that this will be much of a wrestling game.

There are druids in Taker's intro, but the fire effect is Attitude-level bad, which kills it. There is some really nice, subtle lip movement on Taker though, which is neat. Evolution's entrance looks fantastic, aside from HHH doing Orton's part of the entrance, and anyone not Flair being bowed to. The pyro looks great. The parking lot brawl match looks like a mix of good and bad. There appears to be a LOT of canned animation, which could probably all be seen in just one match. The glass shattering effect looked neat, as did landing on the car, I just wish it took more than an irish whipe to do some of this stuff. Hell, No Mercy had great vehicular stuff in it, with the truck fighting, and here, it just looks very fake and artificial. The fact that some of the stuff appears to just take the place of the ring barrier, and on top of that, not even have the wrestler model lying on the car, just just on air, makes it look very cheesy and fake. Although given that this IS the SD series, I guess I shouldn't be shocked by that.

It looks like a gameplay type they slapped on the game so people wouldn't get angry that there was nothing new to do. Knowing Yukes, you'll probably have to make a full 8 man PPV just to defend your world title. I sincerely hope you can just do an exhibition match and choose whether or not the title is on the line.

Tech TV/G4 just did a count down on the 10 best wrestling games of all time and they gave Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain #1 and No Mercy #2 and the thing is... what they were saying about No Mercy blew SD: HCTP out of the water.

I assume they picked Smackdown over No Mercy to appease THQ.

I'm more excited about Day of Reckoning than the new Smackdown. WM 19 was a great start.

[Jeremy]

WM XIX was the single greatest replication of actual wrestling I've played yet, and hopefully, DoR will continue that trend. The only thing worrying me with DoR is the grappling animation, as it doesn't appear as organic as XIX's, and looks artificial, like in SD 5. They're likely using online in SvR to mask the shitty gameplay of the SD games, which seems to be working, as JUST this feature being in has people fawning over the game.