Publisher: THQ
Developer: Yuke’s Future Media Creators
Genre: Sports
Release date: Available now

A lot of folks consider baseball to be the national pastime. And while I don’t disagree with that, the sport I grew up watching was wrestling. It was the pastime of my household. I watched Big Boss Man dish out hard times in the early 1990s, and The Rock laid the smackdown at the end of the decade. I even had an inflatable Stone Cold Steve Austin stand-up that I filled with stuffing, so I could perform rock bottoms on it in our basement. That’s why, while I’ve grown up and don’t watch the sport anymore, there’s still a certain nostalgia I get when popping in a wrestling game from Yukes, their latest being WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010.

While I haven’t seen a wrestling match in almost a decade, every few years I do get the hunger to take control of a greased-up grappler in tights and beat up other similarly dressed musclemen. SvR 2010 is my first experience in this generation, and my initial reaction upon booting the game up was, “Whoa, look at these options!” It was like being a kid in a candy store, only the store was selling violence and mayhem instead of sweets. The Road to Wrestlemania, career mode, creation modes and a variety of matches return from previous games in the series. But the newest, and neatest, addition has to be the story designer. This mode gives us all the opportunity to channel our inner Vince McMahons.

In story designer, you’re given no tasks or objectives, just the choice of running the WWE your way. Want to create a storyline in which The Rock returns to the WWE, whips HHH’s monkey tush for the championship and reigns for 10 years? Do it. Want to create your own version of Gillberg and have him rage through the WWE roster? You can do that, too. Create matches, create scenes and decide how the fate of the federation should play out. If you’re looking for more structure, hop into one of the six pre-determined Road to Wrestlemania storylines and enjoy all of the cheese of real-life wrestling as you take your superstar to sports entertainment’s most thrilling venue. Or ignore all of the storylines and conquer the belts in career mode.

The number of options you have in SvR 2010 is certainly the most appealing aspect of the game. You’d be hard pressed to experience everything this grappler has to offer, even months after you purchase it. The actual wrestling experience isn’t too shabby, either. It’s about the most fluid fighting experience in a wrestler to date. It had been years since I stepped between the virtual ropes, but I was spearing folks and rock-bottoming jabronis in no time. The presentation is also about as slick as its ever been. Wrestlers feature their signature mannerisms, belts flash across the screen in title matches, and match stipulations are announced as players walk down the ramp. There is a very authentic feel to this edition of SvR. They even have the cheeseball commentary, acting and plotlines nailed down.

Now, SvR isn’t without its fair share of embarrassing Mankind-esque face dives. The career mode is epically boring, since there’s very little variety to squeeze from it. The scenes in several portions of the RTWM storylines are absolutely painful to watch, and some don’t even make sense. And the story designer is cumbersome. It’s a fantastic mode, but it would have been nice to include a “simulate match” option from the menu. As it is, you’re stuck loading up every match, even if you want to skip them. When on the actual mat, the level of difficulty is confounding. Normal and Hard are far too easy, with the computer rarely fighting back. Legend is just about perfect in all modes except handicap matches and the Royal Rumble, in which it’s nearly impossible. Fortunately, switching difficulties is painless, so this is only a minor quibble, like most of the issues with SvR.

If you have SvR 2009 and you’re on the fence on whether or not you should upgrade, I think it boils down to the use you’ll get out of the story designer. If you envision yourself creating epic wrestling storylines, then I definitely recommend picking up WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010. For all the other folks out there, if you’re a past or present wrestling freak, put on your mullet or rat-tail and pick this sucker up.

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