1997. The first time I ever set eyes on the WWE (Then known as the WWF) franchise. The World Wrestling Entertainment is bascially a bunch of highly skilled men and women in the career of entertainment wrestling. Their prize, to be the WWE Champion. Every single fan has their own favourite star, duo and group of wrestlers. No matter who you are, you will know someone who has a secret obession to WWE, you don't have to be a teenager. It has been found that WWE is watched by many walks of life from OAP's to working professionals. Watching it is a fantastic way to kick back and let professional wrestlers do the most fantastic moves, follow exciting story lines and see their passion to be the champion.

Why Buy It?

This game was only released in November 2008, so is in games top of the range. I bought this because I am such a big fan of WWE. I have to admit having two brothers and having a boy orientated family has not helped, and we regularly watch Smackdown and Raw on Monday and Friday nights anyway. We had already S.Vs.R 2007 and 2008 which were great fun so it seemed logical to buy the 2009 version. Unlike a lot of games, this is still being released on PS2 which is great as it is more common for new releases only to be released on PS3 and it is great for us people who haven't made enough Ciao money to buy a PS3 or an Xbox 360.
This is a really fun game, and fans of wrestling will love it. If you have a PS2/3 Xbox or Wii then you are missing out on experience. Even if you are not really a fan you would like this if you like creating characters, following storylines or just love to play a good fight.

Starting Up

Unlike previous WWE games, you start off on the road to Wrestlemania. This is a huge event where you can contest to be the WWE champion, against everyone else worthy. You can play this as part of the 'main game' where you pick your favourite character, ranging from Triple H, the Undertaker or even the Great Khali. I picked to play Triple H as he is my favourite character, but you can pick from a huge range, and I am sure that your wrestler will be there.
If you don't want to do that quite yet, although that is the way to unlock all these fantastic items/characters and follow the real life of a WWE champ, then you can play and practise matches. This is a really fun feature and you can range from doing championship matches to ladder to even just normal! This is a fantastic feature and also includes the two player, which I will discuss later on.
The start up is really easy to follow and you have instructions throughout incase you get stuck. If you have never played the WWE games before then you get shown how to play at your own pace until you are a pro.

Characters/Tag Teams

The characters are much improved on last time. In the 2008 game, it was a bit more difficult to distingish between characters but here the detail is excellent. No matter who your favourite character is whether it was John Cena, Batisa, Rey Mysterio, Triple H or Shawn Micheals they will be there. There are hundreds of characters from ECW, Raw and Smackdown plus most of the Divas. There are also some classical characters however in this addition they have decided to not include the legend, the Rock. This is a bit of a let down and a bit confusing for fans as he will never be forgotten. Yet you are unable to unlock Stone Cold Steve Austin?
The tag teams are the best they have ever been. I was so excited to see Triple H and HBK back into the legendary DX, in which this game does. You can unite your favourite tag teams like Kane and The Undertaker, Jeff and Matt Hardy and the recently united Edge and Rey Mysterio.

Difficulty

If you have never played the game before it can take a couple of days to master. If you have already played the WWE games then the controls are pretty much the same which is good. I started off my mode on easy as I wasn't fantastic at the game and thought I would start it out easier. However even in my first match I was struggling, this was prettty difficult. I then got my first handicap match, in which there is one opponent (you) against 2 other wrestlers. This is really difficult and this match alone took me a good 20 minutes to complete which was a little frustrating. I got better but I thought it started you out a bit too much in the deep end.

Creating Characters/Finishers/Entrances

This is one of the funnest bits of the game. Like the Sims, you get to create characters but with this you get a twist, you can create fantastic beautiful/hunky characters or terrible funny ones. You can make them however you like and the attention to detail you can use is fantastic. You can even change the height of their nose, or the exact color of their eye. It is very attention to detail and great fun.
Whether you want to re-create yourself, a celeb or just make a really short fat funny character you will not be disappointed with creating the character. However it can be a bit slow when loading up clothes, face features etc which can be irriating.

Creating entrances for your new characters is also vital. Now you can go onto easy creation were you just decide how your wrestler walks down the ramp, enter the ring and of course the music, titranton and lights. Of course you could then go onto advanced which lets you decide the camera angles, exactly how they walk and fireworks and screen effects. Some of the ways in which you can make them walk is hiliarious. You can let them enter like the Undertaker for example, where they even have his hat on! They you can enter as diva which is so funny if you have created a male character. Then my favourite, there is one where they just role down the ramp. This is great fun and you can really personalise your character like that.

Of course your wrestler needs to have their signature move as well. This feature is a bit more limited as the other two creators but still good fun. You have to pick from a range of starting moves, then build up what your character does. This could be anything from running at the opponent, to head butting them or even just flicking them in the eye! This makes your character truly unique and is great fun.

Two-Player

This is a vital part of the game is you have siblings or friends who also love the game. If you have the port adaptor, you can actually have up to 5 people playing on this. Two-player is really easy to set up and you are away picking your characters in no time. Of course, the more you progress through the "Road To Wrestlemania" part of the game, the more characters you are able to unlock. You can pick any ring, any match and anywhere whether it is in the USA, Britain or even Australlia. You can play against the computer as well as using two player, making the match more interesting. You also have a much better feature of looking under the ring and actually able to pick the item you wish to attack the wrestler with. This could range from a steel chair to a stick covered in barbed wire. The two player is excellent.

Commentry

This is a vital part of the game and it has got even better. Of course you have JR and various superstars commentating. This is really important and it works really well and makes the game. What is great is the witty comments "I heard he had an IQ test, and the results came back negative!" Which was one of my favourite and made me laugh while my character was wrestling.
It is much

Pictures of WWE SmackDown vs RAW 2009 (PS2)

Kane Vs Rey, An Unfair Size Match!!!

better than last time as it actually fits in with the game. If you are flipping someone they will say "Ouch, that is gonna hurt" which is really effective. I've noticed if you are also playing more famous characters, they have their own comments added. For example if you are playing Kane, it will say "Kane is a long standing champ. Why would anyone mess with this guy?" for example. This is fantastic and makes the game much more fun to play.

Graphics

The graphics just keep getting better. For a PS2 game, I think this is one of the best graphics I have ever seen but I also use a HD TV as well which adds to the effect. The graphics are exceptionally clear and there are not glitches for example if you are running. The hair moves, the muscles look very realistic and there is actually facial expressions. The movement of the characters is excellent and the attention to detail is fantastic.
When fighting, the crowd are poorly animated but it doesn't even matter. They have hundreds of different funny signs and are very good. The entrances with the graphics are superb and the titrantons shown are the real deal and look movie quality in the background. The graphics, for a PS2 game are excellent and make the game even more highly enjoyable. No one wants to be playing a game where you can't even tell between characters.

Soundtrack

Love it, love it, LOVE IT! What I like is, you can click 'L3' while in the menus and it will change the song. Every time a new song comes on, a little icon at the left hand side appears and tells you what song, and the artist. This is great and I have actually been able to buy some of the music off the game now, as I know what it is called.
Every time a WWE wrestler enters the ring, their signature song goes on which is a fantastic effect. My favourite song is John Cenas "My Time" which is him rapping. The sound track is fantastic and includes every single WWE song you can think of, plus other rock bands as that is the genre they tend to use.

Classification

This is a 15 for obvious reasons. This is violent, has pretty saucy clothes on the men and the women and of course has a story line which includes getting beaten up and many other things that young kids should not be doing. The annoying thing is that there are many kids who LOVE WWE and I got into the show when I was about 8 so putting a 15 classification seems to me to be for more insurance purposes if anything. I would take this a bit lightly if you kids are fans of the show, as there is nothing that hasn't been not seen before and would be ok, if you let your kids watch the show anyway. As long as they understand that these guys are professionals and actors.

Where To Buy It / Price

I bought mine in Argos for £29.98. I thought this was a great price as I had bought it in December so got it when it was just new out. Looking at different prices, Amazon and HMV seem to be the best places to buy. Although I would also check out Play.com and ebay for some great deals. This will be one of the most common games on the market as there is a huge number of fans in Britain. I wouldn't pay over £30 for it new however. If you are going to buy for PS3 or any other format then the prices tend to be more expensive.

Overall

I really enjoyed this game. It is so much fun and has kept me amused for months. I still haven't completed it yet and can't wait to finally reach Wrestlemania. However if you play as another character, then you will have a different story line which means the game is ultimately infinate. This is really good fun and I would take the classification lightly as I have younger brothers at 13 and 10 who play it happily. They know that these are buff guys who do this and are trained athletes.

So would I recommend this game. YES!!! If you are a fan of the show, or are an old fan or even if you have never seen the show then you will enjoy this. It does help of course if you watch the show but it is really fun, and easy to follow. I love this game, and am actually away to play it for the millionth time. I will get that WWE championship!!!

Copyright of Scotlandizdabest 2009 on Ciao.co.uk