I'm not going to say that this game re-invents the wheel when it comes to wrestling games. but I do think its taking steps in the right direction. This year's Smackdown Vs Raw does as much right as its predecessor and fixes some of the problems that have plauged the series for the past few years.
The Good: What the game does right above all is the presentation it really sucks you in to the game. If you play it with all the settings turned to max and turn off the Heads up Display you'll feel like your practically there.
The controls are improved a ways they removed the standard strong grapple modifier button (Right Bumper on 360 R1 on Playstation 3) instead basing it on chained reaction attacks connected by a series of reversals. this prevents players from abusing strong grapples as was prevalent in the previous games but also causes a conflict as the more impressive moves have a gateway animation to them which enables them to be countered much easier than in previous installments thanks in part to the simplified 1 button counter system.
In some ways this is a good thing but it will also make competitive play rather bland as most fights will be fought with simple quick grapples with very few impressive non finishers being used.
The So So: The stuff in the game that's neither improved or degraded include the idea of the animations looking smooth as ever although several moves being generically renamed so as to avoid association with specific superstars who have left the WWE in the past year or so. The big "innovation" of the game is the introduction of Havok Physics into the game. Havok Physics being the cornerstone of most modern games as far as realistic physics rendering.
Although with the supplement of the physics comes the idea that while it is used in various areas (ladders breaking, Tables shattering and other environmental objects reacting more realistically the drawback is that these physics haven't been applied to the more subtle elements of the game. Such as the physics not being applied to clothing or hair on the models this is more prominent on the Create A Superstar models as their models are more generic than the motion captured WWE Superstars. It straddles the fine line between it being their first time using the engine and there for not wanting to push into territory they don't understand yet and them being a bit too lazy to implement a subtle touch like that.
The Bad: The aforementioned changes to the control system make it easier for casual gamers who may have trouble getting into the game but I can imagine it makes things rather annoying for the competitively minded player especially any of those interested in starting amateur leagues might have problems keeping things interesting as it will likely break down into spamming basic grapples and such
Also in single player the way the game handles ladder matches is also very annoying as the Computer controlled superstars don't stay stunned remotely as long as the player does and it can make anything more than a 2 person ladder match drag on forever.
The Ugly: While the create modes are strong as ever including the match creater mode the one mode thats lacking this year is the Create a move set as they stripped out a large number of the moves (I assume to make room for the other features and instead of reducing he variant moves they took whole groups of moves out. And from what i've played so far it appears as though there are no ways to unlock additional move sets to supplement what's available in the vanilla game.
Over all in spite of the negative elements of the game its a very solid addition to the franchise and I give it a 4 out of 5
