E for All 2007: WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 Impressions

By The Wiire Staff / October 18, 2007

Rob Galbreath, Editor-in-Chief

There are no buttons. No, the Wii Remote hasn't been misconfigured, but a new revolution in gaming may be upon us. A rough wrestling match between two players can be played without pressing a single button, and it's my firm hope that intuitive games can grow like this one. Smacks, attacks, hits, body slams and other signature moves can all be performed by swinging around the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. In terms of controls, this game wins. It may not have all of the fighter necessities, and it may even be a little flawed in the wrist-twisting motions of playing a game, but it's a wonderful start.

Unfortunately, that's not the first thing noticed when playing WWE Versus Smackdown Raw 2008. What really jumps out are the god-awful 3-D characters in the crowd. Imagine a lacking Nintendo 64 game blown up on a large television. Actually, imagine a cheap DS game blown up on a television. Quite possibly the worst designs in the 21st century, crowd models are horribly disfigured and look like something from a Silent Hill movie. Fortunately, the models of the playable wrestlers are wonderful. There's a great deal of detail in every character, but the background severely suffers because of it. Why they bothered to make these people at all, I'll never know. If the final product has no one in the audience, be thankful.

Finishers can be performed using the buttons, as well as some grabs, but a fun match can still be had without them. While most of the initial attacks were swinging the Wii Remote like a 10-year-old girl in a closed-eyes slap fight, other times felt planned and well timed. After losing a rough match to Shawn and realizing that I shouldn't be pressing any buttons, I managed to beat him while performing the Macarena with the controllers. Okay, so it's not perfect.

A wrestling fan might really enjoy the game, despite how bad the background graphics are. The 360 and PS3 versions of this game are stunning compared to the Wii version, almost flawless from what we viewed, but there's just no way of mapping all the buttons needed to play the game on other consoles to something as smooth and fun as the Wii's gesture controls. They aren't perfect yet - there's a lot of mindless flailing so far. But in the end, the graphical downgrade from the 360 and PS3 is worth the revolutionary new way to fight: with your hands, not your thumbs.

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