Late may be better than never

            Since I was little, I have been a wrestling fan.  I have so many of the games, I've rented ones I've never bought, I've got DVDs;  but the big thing now, is the SmackDown vs. Raw series.  Each year just like all sports games, a new WWE wrestling game comes out.  Back in November 2007, THQ released WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008, keeping with the tradition of releasing a sport game a year early than the year it is supposed to embody.  In this game, the ECW brand is first playable.  This was also the last year that the general manager mode was playable.  Three games later in SvR 2011, the ECW brand is just for you to play with and list Superstars you don't want as free agents, custom, legend, or WCW, and is no longer on television.  In SvR 2011, THQ introduces a new physics engine allowing for far more exciting weapons matches.

            Three years after the first SvR game that featured the ECW brand, was a physics engine employed that allows someone to fall through tables, break through ladders, lean items on ropes and the outside ring apron and if someone is slammed onto the items, it reads and the announcers respond and point out if it was a chair, ladder or table.  The exception to this is stairs, the game reads with a satisfying "BONG!" on the stairs and the opponents body bending and folding around the stairs.  The reason I decided to discuss this, is by far, this is the best WWE game released since WWF No Mercy for the Nintendo 64; but really because these outside object usage and physics is something that was sadly missing from the series that said plainly on every cover, "Featuring ECW".  For non-fans, ECW is Extreme Championship Wrestling, it rose to fame in the 90's with its no holds barred rules and very racy stories that pushed the bounds of "is this something my kids should watch?" when this was during the WWE's, or WWF's at the time, "Attitude Era" where they had more edgy stories than the golden days of the late 80's.  For a game that features Extreme action, it took three more games before it would be released and feature some really extreme action.  Not saying that this would have saved the WWE rebirth of Extreme, but it would have made the games much better had they went with this physics engine for SmackDown vs. Raw 2008 when the ECW brand was getting its first showing in a WWE game.


Thanks for reading again, had fun typing this one. ^_^