What all this means is that SvR2007
gets a hell of a lot right before the
ball even gets rolling. In terms of
sheer presentation, it’s about as good
as you can get – motion captured
movement makes all the moves and
wrestler interaction incredibly believable,
the in-ring entrances and arenas are
pretty much identical to their real-life
counterparts and the inclusion of voice
acting from all the wrestlers on the roster
make for some absorbing cut-scenes.
But then, the most important part of the
game is obviously the actual wrestling
and thankfully, we’re not let down there.
We’ll admit, we were rather worried
about the new control method that
Yuke’s brought to SvR2007; the analogue
controls felt rather flimsy in the preview
build we played, but we’re pleased to say
that the whole thing has been tightened
up nicely. Even the ‘ultimate control’
moves that are accessed by clicking in
the right analogue stick during a grapple
work well, allowing you to mess about to
your heart’s content with your opponent
and dish out a world of pain depending
on where you are in the ring – it’s a
little unbalanced in relation to the drain
on your stamina bar to be sure, but not
enough to ruin the overall effect.
No, there’s no doubt that virtually
everything that SvR2007 offers
absolutely nails the wrestling genre
perfectly… so why hasn’t the game
scored higher than it has? Well, it’s
because while almost every aesthetic
and element of the old Smackdown
template has been brought up to date
and even improved upon in some
respects, two incredibly basic parts of
the combat system spoil the broth to the
point where playing the game almost
stops being fun. Primarily, it all comes
back to our four new friends: tap any
button repeatedly. Now, we’re well
aware that the concept of hammering
the buttons when you’re knocked to
the ground has been a staple of the
Smackdown formula since its inception
but the big difference is that in previous
games, hitting the buttons rapidly
actually made you get backup. In
SvR2007, that just isn’t the case – you
can be knocked down by the weakest
of attacks and yet you’ll be hammering
away for a good seven to ten seconds
before anything happens, and even then
you’ll be treated to a lengthy recover
animation before you’re back on your
feet. Why is that bad? Because you’re
completely vulnerable to attack for the
entire duration (even during the recovery
animation) and if you’re so much as
touched, the whole process starts again.
Needless to say, this is bad enough when
you’re fighting against the computer,
even though most of the time it’s
idiotic enough to stand around waiting
for you to get up; however, against a
human opponent, it means the match is
basically decided by who hits the canvas
first. Example? We managed to defeat
The Great Khali with Rey Mysterio simply
by applying the same ground submission
over and over because he couldn’t get
up in time between attacks. But what’s
that you say? Why don’t we just reverse
the attacks? Well, there’s the other
problem: the reaction time for reversals
has been reduced to mere milliseconds
and when you’re using a pad with
analogue triggers like the 360 has, they
become virtually impossible to pull off
with any skill, making it more about luck
than judgement. And that, dear friends,
is what we refer to in the industry as
‘fundamentally broken’.
