Having grown up during the ‘90’s, wrestling has always been a big part of my life – that was up until about seven or so years ago when the spectacle lost its luster and when the WWE’s rival, WCW, was bought out. After that, wrestling has seen its fair share of ups and downs with only one company competing against itself with a few other smaller organizations trying to step into the spotlight to become a legitimate competitor.

In fact, this year WWE wrestling games received its first true challenger with Midway’s own TNA! Impact challenge for the rightful claim of best wrestling game on the next-generation consoles. Surely enough, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 steps up its game and proves to be the better wrestling game this year as no other wrestling title has yet to come close to providing a real threat in terms of quality in recent years. The Nintendo Wii iteration of Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 has received bite-sized changes to help improve the overall package to compete with its HD-console version (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions). 

The main single-player mode offered is Road to Wrestlemania mode that gives you the chance to choose from playing as Triple H, Undertaker, Chris Jericho, John Cena, CM Punk and the option to play as Batista and Rey Mysterio in a tag-oriented mode. As a huge fan of storyline modes, Road to Wrestlemania delivers a satisfying story arc that, while seemingly short, will hold you over until you have friends over to play multiplayer with. It’s incredibly more interesting than last year’s Main Even mode, so props to Yukes, the developer, for pushing forward with providing an entertaining single-player game mode.

Create-A-Superstar mode makes its triumphant return and it’s with good measure too as this is one of the biggest attributes of wrestling games: the ability to create. Outside of creating your own fighter, players can also enjoy the luxury of Create-A-Stable, Create-A-Entrance and even the ability to edit current fighters already introduced into Smackdown vs. Raw 2009. Having the ability to customize and change things on the go, these features add hours upon hours of replay value as you can create any wrestler from your childhood and use them online and offline.

Yes, online is included, which is - in fact - the biggest addition for the Wii version. Having the ability to play against your friends online is sure to draw many back to Smackdown vs. Raw franchise. You can play with up to four players online in any matches found in single-player. On top of that, there’s an online and friends leaderboard to help increase friendly competition with a rating system for match-to-match standings. As you win matches online, your legend status will increase to provide you bragging rights. The major letdown is that it’s a friend-to-friend system, so there’s no matchmaking of any kind to pit you in matches against a bunch of strangers.

The gameplay is basically the same with the general requirements of wearing down your opponents and draining their health until they enter the “danger” mode to which you can pin them. It’s not an intricate system that will have you scratching your head, rather it’s one that is easy to pick up and play with ease. There are few hiccups that I’d like to see addressed next time around such as adding in the ability to run, better interaction with objects, more time motion controls, and two-handed maneuvers.

First off, there’s no running allowed inside the ring, only outside. Yukes needs to add in the ability to constantly run in the ring until you become tired or are attacked. Next up, with the Wii-mote/nunchuck combo, it’s difficult at times to interact with objects in the game world. This can be a nuisance due to many of the times you will want to hit your opponent with a chair but will have a hard time picking it up thus causing your opponent an opening to recover and attack. While the Wii-mote allows for grabs and throws, don’t expect a thorough system that is overly complex. There’s no use of the nunchuck in coordination with the moves, so it’s important that Yukes implements more interaction with both controllers next time around. Lastly, it’s too sad that there weren’t more timed motion controlled maneuvers since only the finishers require timed motion. You’d think that developers would take full advantage of the Wii motion controls, but alas, there’s hope for Wii MotionPlus to provide that when it releases Spring 2009.

There are more than three dozen types of match types to bask in, so be prepared to compete in TLC - hell in the cell, cage, royal rumble and much more are included.  The only concern with so many options is that not all of them are in-depth like you may want.  With the ladder match, when an opponent is climbing the ladder, your only chance of getting him off the ladder is to climb the ladder itself rather than knocking it over as it’s too difficult to pull off.

This being the Wii version, it’s expected that the graphics wouldn’t look as good as its next-generation partners. The crowd is terrible; and when I say terrible, I mean before the PlayStation 2 kind of terrible. The camera isn’t favorable to the gamer when participating in matches; too often it’ll pan too far out and isn’t changeable in game. The animations, particularly the mouths of the wrestlers, are stiff and aren’t executed properly. The list goes on, but Wii gamers should already be used to the downgraded graphics portion of their multiplayer forms. The overall graphics aren’t pretty and are on par with the PlayStation 2.

Gameplay: 8.0
The controls have improved, the single-player campaign is a blast and there are several options to create within the game.  It’s evident that Yukes is making the strides to improving their Wii efforts, so the next iteration should be even better.

Graphics: 6.8
480p and 16:9 returns, but this still is a poor looking title in comparison to what the Yukes pulled off with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. At times, it almost looks worse than the PlayStation 2 version.

Sound: 7.0
The voice-overs are overused, but when you hear them the first time, you’ll appreciate the quality dialogue.

Difficulty: Easy

Concept: 8.0
Interactive entrances are fascinating as they add pre-match momentum. Next time around, I hope they put more emphasis on this feature to add a lot more depth before the matches begin.

Multiplayer: 7.0
There’s also text that you can insert that’s pre-entered by THQ to go around the lack of voice communication.

Overall: 7.7
While this is better than last year’s version, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 shows that Yukes still have a long way to go to take full advantage of the Wii’s features. The added online functionality is a step in the right direction, so one can only expect things to get better from here on out for the series.