Posts Tagged ‘Finlay’
Smackdown Vs. Raw 2009 Game Review–Better Than You Think
Sports games have always been a significant portion of the gaming landscape—be they football, baseball, basketball, or another other sport, there’s no shortage of people looking to step into the roles of their favorite players, racers and fighters and try and do those things that their heroes do every time they show up on television.
This is no different with the release of Smackdown Vs. Raw 2009.
I’d give you the plot synopsis for this one, but it’d take a couple pages. See, one of the really truly awesome things about Smackdown Vs. Raw 2009 is that each of the characters will have a positively huge storyline. Just for a for instance, if you play as The Undertaker (my personal favorite), not only will you get to pound both Santino and Finlay into the ground (possibly opening up the patently ridiculous Hornswoggle as a management character), you’ll also go into the heavyweight championship to take on the Great Khali when both Santino and Finlay will form a coalition specifically intended to take out The Undertaker.
I have never been so convinced that Transmetropolitan was right. TV wrestling is, indeed, phallocentric soap opera for, among others, intellectually lazy intellectual people who get off by cultural slumming. I admit to enjoying a bit of the brain candy every so often, and there’s really nothing like this for brain candy.
Of course, it’s not all about just really arrogant ways to say “brain candy”, no sir—this is also about pounding cultural stereotypes into oblivion. Santino, for instance—he’s from JERSEY. His accent is thicker than Olive Garden’s alfredo sauce, and he comes in with an on-screen graphic that features a waving Italian tricolor flag. It almost—ALMOST!—felt like I was beating the hell out of Italy itself.
I will say this much for Smackdown Vs. Raw 2009—they really have captured the pomp, circumstance and majesty that this entire sport is built around. When I walked the Undertaker in for Royal Rumble, they actually had a dozen guys wearing hooded cassocks line my path with live torches. It was probably unnecessary, but really, I’m glad they took the trouble. Why the Undertaker doesn’t show up in more horror flicks is beyond me. But anyway.
Sure, the gameplay is sort of limited—pound hell out of a competitor until he refuses to continue and then attempt to pin him. But you can’t really blame the game for this, as this is pretty much all that wrestling actually is. That whole saw about silk purses and sow’s ears? Yeah, that was made for games like this.
If you’re already a Smackdown / Raw / ECW fan, then you probably don’t need me to tell you that this is a fairly fun game with some interesting storylines. Thus, this next remark goes out to those who already aren’t watching the show with any regularity, much like myself. You don’t need to have a really intimate knowledge of the show to be able to follow the game, so if you want a quick introduction to the world of Smackdown / Raw / ECW, then you’ll have exactly what you need in Smackdown Vs Raw 2009. For fans it’s a must-buy, and for everyone else, it’s actually a pretty good rental.