Original Release: THQ, 2003, PlayStation 2
The Smackdown series rolled on for another year in mostly the same style as the excellent prequel, but with a mixed bag of changes and additions
WWE Smackdown: Here Comes The Pain (PS2, THQ, 2003)
Where to Buy: Amazon
How to Emulate: PlayStation 2 Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
Here Comes The Pain (HCTP) pretty much sticks with what worked for immediate prequel Shut Your Mouth (SYM), only making small tweaks and adjustments within the same overall framework. That’s a good thing, though, as SYM was the first real “classic” of the Smackdown series and the first one I felt really put everything together into a complete wrestling game package.
It’s kinda down to personal preference on little points as to which one you’ll like better. As an example, let’s start with the graphics. Technically they’re improved here, but they also went with the odd choice to add a layer of “gloss” to skin that actually makes characters look a little more unreal and lower-detail in some cases. You can make more visually impressive CAWs with this one, but the stock wrestler roster doesn’t always look better.
The roster is another one of those points of personal preference. HCTP technically has a slightly larger roster count, at 65 to 60 players. But about 10 of these are “legends” rather than active roster guys of the time. The game did once again cheekily include about a dozen prefab move sets and animations that JUST SO HAPPEN to line up with popular guys that didn’t make the lineup this year, for example DDP and Jeff Hardy, but you’ll have to do some CAW editing to actually get them playable. In terms of strength of lineup, it’s very good overall but doesn’t quite feel as power-packed as SYM (which happened to land during the year when WWE still had its “Attitude Era” big names but were also working in the biggest stars of WCW and ECW). This one is the first instance of being able to play as Goldberg, John Cena and Batista in a WWE game, though, if you’re looking for those guys.
The play style feels a bit different too; after taking a bit more slow and tactical shift in SYM, HCTP feels like it’s veering back to the “traditional” Yukes style of everything constantly moving at a fast arcadey clip and the computer usually popping right back up like the Terminator from everything (while playable characters sell the shit out of every little move). This makes certain match types like the vanilla cage match very difficult, no matter how much damage you do it never seems to be enough to keep the CPU down for long enough to not knock you off while climbing out. Only way I found to win these matches is that once in a while if you climb near a turnbuckle, the CPU derps out and just stands there watching or punches air forever as you escape. This style also biases toward certain types of special moves, for example if your special requires elaborate setup or even just to grapple a dizzied guy from the back, it is WAY harder to get opportunities than something like a ground submission (Figure 4, Steiner Recliner) or a splash off the top turnbuckle.
While the gameplay engine is mostly the same otherwise, there has been some initially confusing moving-around of buttons (which can’t be changed). R2 and L2 are now your counters rather than Square, one each for grapples and strikes. Square is now the “swiss army knife” that R1 was in the previous game, doing things like tagging, picking up weapons, pulling the turnbuckle cover off, slide out of the ring, etc and so on. R1 now switches focus (in tandem with pointing your stick in the general direction of the desired opponent, a bit more accurate and quick than SYM), and the right analog stick does your taunt (no longer interruptable unfortunately).
Some “quality of life” features from the Gamecube “Day of Reckoning” series (also developed by Yukes) have been fused in here. There’s now a “give ’em up” bar that appears when you do submissions, and a limb damage indicator for each player. These are roundly just improvements, but the match types are another trade-off: HCTP gets the then-new Elimination Chamber as well as “first blood” and the button-mashy Bra And Panties modes that debuted in DOR, but at the expense of losing the King of the Ring tourney and “I Quit” matches.
Season mode is also extremely similar to SYM, but with a lot of ensmoothening done to the play experience. Each new season no longer opens with a draft, rather the rosters for each show are pre-assigned and you can just swap people around however you like. You can also exclude any superstars you want from the season, which ends up being a key addition that I’ll get into more below. You can still talk to people backstage between shows to make stuff happen, but there’s no more wandering of the arena, just a simple menu that shows whether someone is available to speak to in each area. Much more convenient and time-saving, but it does take away some of the ambience. The purpose of random backstage interactions has also been made more clear, you’ll be told if you gained or lost “superstar points” from the outcome. And you no longer have to make a PPV card and win a match to unlock stuff, you now just earn money from each match and can visit a shop at any time to buy whatever unlocks you prefer. Finally, the EXP system from DOR has also been fused in here, you can now (eventually) cash in points from your matches to gradually update your stats (for both CAWs and established superstars).
One big downgrade is the overall gameplay balance. The “top guys” are just too overpowering now. The grapple system has been expanded to include more possible moves, which is generally a good thing. Problem is, some of the top guys get their special finisher as one of their regular grapples! Stone Cold can literally just do gut kick + stunners all day. Some of their regular strikes are also insane, like Goldberg’s “shotgun boot” basic attack (and he’s another one that can just do constant spears as a regular grapple). The quality of Story mode matches really improves if you exclude all these OP guys, but you’ll also miss out on special events that involve them.
Yukes also pretty much threw up their hands and gave up on in-match commentary at this point, after it was botched to varying degrees in the past two games. As with the DOR games, matches are now just played with music and the very occasional exclamation from JR like “Rope Break.” On the audio front, the legends characters also do not have their music or any kind of entrance package for some reason, they just randomly ride down to the ring on one of those motorized people-movers from the old Wrestlemanias.
In terms of personal preference, I think I like SYM a little bit more overall. The severe unbalancing of the “top guys” in HCTP basically forces you to either cut them out of Story mode or deal with insanely unfair controller-hucking matches at some point, and I don’t care for the “glossy” look of the models in this one. I do wish the time-saving “creature comforts” from Story mode could be fused into SYM though. As to which one to get, it depends on what you’ll be spending the most time with. If it’s CAWs, you should evaluate the look of each one to see what suits you better, though HCTP is a tad more robust in its options. If you dig Story mode, just get both and it’ll give you potentially months of semi-random fun between the two games. For multiplayer you’ll probably need a “gentleman’s agreement” with HCTP to not abuse the highly abusable characters, SYM lets you be a little more free in who you pick with its better play balance. And SYM is still the only one with the King screaming about puppies.
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