SmackDown Vs. Raw: Initial Thoughts

To be perfectly fair, I've only been playing this game for a couple of hours, so my opinion may certainly change. But so far, I'm seriously underwhelmed.

The graphics seem to be a slight improvement over Here Comes The Pain, with the audience looking far more realistic. Still, the wrestlers seem to be slightly more cartoonish than in the last version of the game, if that makes sense. Some of the characters (Booker T and Big Show, for example) look tremendously accurate, while others (Shawn Michaels and Roddy Piper come to mind) are more cartoonish-looking than before. There also seems to be less competitors than before (insert your own roster cuts joke here), and I'm SHOCKED that there's no Eugene. I mean, he certainly was around when this game was being created. I mean... they have Randy Orton's lame-ass Maven ripoff theme song, which debuted after SummerSlam... why not Eugene as a playable character?

The season mode, or what I've seen of it so far, is intriguing. So far (as Big Show) I've stolen Torrie Wilson away from Rene Dupree (and apparently slept with her); defeated Booker T for the U.S. title, and am now feuding with The Undertaker. So on that front, it's better than previous storyline modes. Oh, and got to unlock Bret Hart, which was a bonus.

I am not a huge fan of the commentaries (JR and Lawler or Cole and Tazz), just because I know it's going to get repetitive after a while. But thankfully you can turn that off. And as a warning, the Royal Rumble takes FOREVER to complete.

I guess my main beef so far is that it doesn't seem like there any huge improvements over HCTP or previous generations. Maybe that will change with time (for example, I haven't started to create anyone yet, which is where I've spent most of my time in the past). But so far I'm not thrilled or anything...