WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2007
Posted by: kmikeym | From: December 4, 2006
I can't imagine that the majority of people who play videogames really fantasize about being muscle-bound gun-toting xenophobes, and yet more and more games are minor variations on this theme (gears of war, rainbow six, f.e.a.r., dead-rising, small arms, fall of man, call of duty, etc). Move, shoot, kill, move, shoot, explode, kill. Repeat with bigger guns. Repeat with bigger bad guys. I'm no Jack Thompson, I don't have a problem with it morally, I just find myself bored killing more evil alien-nazi-zombies.
My fantasies aren't muscle-bound warriors defending humanity. I want boardrooms, email, power lunches, and strategy sessions while looking at Excel documents, and while the idea of Manager Mode was pioneered with sports games I'm finding that WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2007 provides the best playing experience where sipping whiskey and smoking a cigar is appropriate. In General Manager mode you take control of one of the two WWE shows, either Smackdown on Friday nights or RAW on Monday nights. The world of professional wrestling, called "sports entertainment", begins with a draft of the performers you want on your show. You can sign them for anywhere from 5 weeks to 1 year, with re-negotiations and trades occurring throughout the season. The goal is simply to get better ratings than the other show.
A game based on ratings is a different beast entirely from a sports franchise game, where you are attempting to win games. There are no "games" to win in WWE. You set up matches and build a story so that the climax happens during a Pay Per View event. You have to manage your budget so that you can afford to fund the more expensive style events but also you don't want to waste all your promo time selling ads when you could be promoting a future show or a specific story line you have set up. The game goes deep, allowing you to hire additional writers who bring in new plots to apply to rivalries.
It's not all good times and fun. The game is very frustrating to navigate with a terrible menu system and all the valuable information hidden in the nooks and crannies of the vast text-based menu system. Pen and paper are an invaluable asset to tracking the action and not getting lost in the terrible user interface.
As frustrating and limiting as the menu system is, the game allows you to plan and manage a weekly television show. Combining my favorite elements of "sports franchise mode" with the soap-operatic stories and characters of WWE means that I can finally put down my virtual guns and use my virtual business degree to live out my fantasy in the virtual world. Unfortunately I have to fight through an interface that is worse than Windows and put up with the terrible, terrible music to run my virtual media empire. But it beats shooting an undead Nazi alien monster in the face.
That is a great point, and something I have not done yet! :)
Posted by: Mikey at December 4, 2006 1:48 PM
As hard as it can be to use and as bad as the music this is a fun game. You can make your own character, which means you make characters for all you friends. I enjoy that part.
Posted by: robin at December 4, 2006 1:17 PM