WWE SmackDown Vs Raw 2009

It's easy to make fun of WWE wrestling and all of its off-shoots, with its oily men in questionable attire hamming it up for a few thousand whooping rednecks. It's easy, and it's also incredibly fun. But take a step back and look at the elements that make up the WWE experience.

The appeal is very much centred on stylised violence, where athletically gifted men can leap ten feet to the floor and smack their heads on an iron railing and still recover to rejoin the mayhem. It's about breaks from the action to watch poorly delivered, predictable scenes where wafer thin plots are acted out unconvincingly. And it's about the flashing lights and fireworks that accompany the major showdowns.

Sound uncomfortably familiar? Yep, although we may be loath to admit it, WWE wrestling and many of the video games we know and love share a great deal in common. I think I'll take up cross-stitch.

That also goes to explain why wrestling games are often very fun indeed. The spirit of over-the-top scrapping translates brilliantly to fingertip control. But the wrestling sub-genre is still awaiting its defining moment, its Street Fighter or its Tekken which will truly cross boundaries and appeal to the masses. WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2009 isn't that game.

Part of an annual franchise, the game makes only incremental changes (a few new match types, some new minor moves) from WWE SmackDown Vs Raw 2008 – which was itself only a minor update of the game released WWE SmackDown Vs Raw 2006. As such, WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2009 has inherited all of the flaws of the series so far. Excruciating loading times? Check. Clunky controls? Check. Repetitive gameplay? Oh, most certainly check.

Fortunately, this stagnation also means that WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2009 has inherited its predecessors' strengths. It's still in possession of a staggering variety of game modes and customisation options, enough to keep any WWE die-hard happy for months. The variety of options continues into the fights themselves, with everything open to you from throwing your opponent out of the ring (and following, belly first) to picking up a step ladder and clonking them around the head.

It's this latter point that highlights when WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2009 is at its absolute best – when all hell breaks loose. The absolute pinnacle of my time with the game was when I was involved in the two-on-two Tag matches, taking care of my opposite number outside the ring while my partner pursued a legal pin within it. Or during a Tornado Tag match, where all four contestants were in the ring and anything went. The more mayhem rules, the better it gets.

It's in the procession of one vs one matches in the Career or Road to Wrestlemania modes that the game's shortcomings become critically apparent, and where monotony soon kicks in. I chose to take The Undertaker (I know – he's still going!) all the way to Wrestlemania, but soon grew bored when I found myself fighting the same two opponents again and again. It was justified in the special story that accompanied my exploits, but it seemed like a thinly veiled way to eke out the PSP's and the developer's resources.

It also becomes apparent that, despite the wealth of showy moves available, the same basic techniques tend to produce the best results. The 'R' and 'Square' combo attack and the running grab/clotheline were consistently effective, glued together by plenty of standard-attack mashing and the odd Finisher to, well, finish things off. It would help matters if you were rewarded more for varying your attacks, perhaps with greater crowd support or bonus special moves.

It's good to see the comprehensive Create-a-Superstar feature returning, whereby you can create your very own gurning oaf from scratch and completely customise his or her move-set. I created a pot-bellied, clown faced goblin with massive shoulders, elongated arms and short spindly legs. I called him Clarence, and had the announcer refer to him as 'Tiffany.' I then went into the special move creator and put together a charming little combination I called the 'Nadnobbler.' It really is incredibly flexible and jolly good fun for those with the patience to examine it.

While there's plenty to keep you distracted in WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2009, we couldn't help but notice the rather glitchy graphics engine. The game really lacks a sense of contact and of fluidity as the combatants lay into each other. During my first match, where I (as The Undertaker again) fought a much smaller opponent, I appeared at one point to pick him up by the forehead rather than the throat. There are countless other instances of clipping issues, such as when I grabbed my opponent in an elaborate headlock and it ended up looking more than a little, er, rude.

In pretty much every area WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2009 is a series in real need of a back-to-the-drawing-board revamp. While eminently playable and bursting at the seams with potential for customisation, it still feels like a first generation PSP game. We'll swallow our pride and say that we would love to see and play a really good wrestling game on our PSP. On this showing, though, it's going to take revolution rather than evolution to come up with the goods.