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Product Features

Genre: Fighting
Publisher: THQ
Release Date: October 29, 2010
Available Platforms: PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo Wii, XBox 360

WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2011

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A hallmark of the franchise, WWE SmackDown vs Raw 2011 will deliver its largest offering to date of best-in-class creation and customization features. Players will have more creative tools than ever to customize their Superstars, finishing moves and story designs. In addition, searching and sharing content will be greatly simplified with improvements to the highly regarded WWE Community Creations feature, which generated nearly 10 million downloads, including more than 7.5 million Created Superstars, 500,000 story designs and 500,000 finishing moves in its franchise debut. WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 will also boast one of largest rosters in franchise history with more than 70 of today''s prominent WWE Superstars and WWE Divas. Each in-game model will feature new skin textures and movement technology,...

David Coulson November 26, 2010 360

****

Another year, another WWE game, but surely after 11 years the series must be going stale? If you asked me a year ago the answer would of been yes but this years game has giving the series a swift kick up the backside with all the right improvements.

To start, the game features over 70 superstars and divas with 56 available from the start, the rest are unlocked in the games 2 main modes; Road to Wrestlemania and the brand new career mode WWE Universe. Like most sport games the roster is a little outdated by the time the game is released. This is because the roster cut off point is much earlier in the year so if they are in WWE at the start, more than likely they will be in the game. This means the Nexus are not in this years games although THQ are supporting the game with at least 3 packs of DLC which include characters and arenas and one of them packs features 3 members of the Nexus so that should keep most WWE fans happy, although no Daniel Bryan in this years edition.

Now onto the actual game play, this has been given a complete revamp using 3 different engines, one for the weapons and environment, one for the characters moves and one for their body parts and muscle flex's. The biggest improvement is using weapons and how they react, for instance if you suplex your opponent onto a table but only catch the end, it won't break or simply move to the side, the new game engine means that the table will react realistically and the table leg might close or break off but the table doesn't break. You can also change direction mid move to position them to land on a table, ladder, chair etc. This gives a much more realistic feel to the game and makes hardcore matches much more extreme because a lot more variety of violence can be done.

As mentioned earlier the game features 2 main game modes. The Road to Wrestlemania mode has been in the series since Smackdown Vs Raw 2009 but this year it has had a huge feature added which now allows you to walk around backstage and interact with other characters, start fights and take part in side tasks. The only downfall is some of these tasks can be abit childish at times like capturing souls in Paul Bearers urn, rebuilding a time machine and having the Undertaker taking over your mind. But overall it's a fun mode to play and is one of the main ways of unlocking bonus characters and costumes.
The other mode is the brand new WWE Universe mode which merges exhibition mode and the boring career mode featured in the previous years. In WWE Universe you can go through the year creating your own matches and storylines, deciding who runs for each title and who are allies and who are enemies; it will automatically do this as well if you simulate matches. This mode goes on forever and is very versatile and adds a lot more life to the game as you can really make it yours and have complete control over it.

Now onto the section the series is most famous for and that is the brilliant Create mode which now features Create A Wrestler, Story, Finisher, Entrance, Move set and more. The Create a Wrestler mode allows you create real life wrestlers or even create yourself or anyone else for that matter and put them into the game. Once finished you can upload them onto the Community Creations section and other people all over the world can download them. This is a great feature to have because not everyone is great at making Wrestlers or just don't have the time to sit for hours trying to get the jaw line just right. Rather than spending all your time creating, let someone else do it and spend more time playing.
The main fault with this mode when introduced last year was anything downloaded could not be edited in any way, shape or form. And after thousands of complaints THQ listened and now anything downloaded can be edited. Downloaded a superstar but their entrance not quite right? Now you can correct it rather than putting up with it. Is their attire outdated? No problem just go into the Superstar Thread section and update it to your liking, this game really is the most versatile its ever been and in my eyes if it didn't head in this direction the series wouldn't of lasted much longer.

Overall this game has all the much needed improvements the series has been in desperate need of and if THQ can to manage to make this many improvements to next years game then Smackdown Vs Raw 2012 will be out of this world but for now I recommend picking this up as it is the most realistic fighting game to date.