Laying the Smack Down
Here’s a bit of video game inside baseball for those who have any interest in such things: For as long as I can remember, a certain website has always had the exclusive first look at THQ’s WWE SmackDown vs. Raw series of wrestling games. That franchise is particularly near and dear to my heart, since I wrote the storylines and dialogue for it for five years, and I’ve written or co-written almost every WWE strategy guide that’s come out in the past decade. Plus, several good friends of mine continue to work on the series, and now that I’m no longer mucking up the game design process, they’re accomplishing some fantastic results.
image © THQ, GameSpot
Whether you’re a fan of the WWE product or not, there’s no denying that there’s an enormous fan base out there who will hungrily devour every scrap of information about it, especially when it comes to the games. So I was more than a little miffed when the aforementioned website, after enjoying months of page-view-padding exclusive looks at WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009, crapped all over it with a C+ review that complained of a general “been there, done that” feel to the game—but never once considered that that might be due to the fact that they’d been playing it for nearly six months by the time the review came out. It seemed like a classic case of familiarity breeding contempt, and it was especially frustrating, because I truly believed that SvR09 was a big leap forward from the previous year’s installment, and I’d like to think that I was in a pretty good position to judge such things.
So it was with no small amount of amusement that I saw today that Gamespot.com had been given the exclusive first look at SmackDown vs. Raw 2010, while that other website has to content itself with posting the box art for the new game.
Game over? You’re damn right it’s over.
image © THQ, GameSpot
(Disclaimer: I have no dog in the race between GameSpot or its competitors. I also haven’t spoken with anyone involved in the production or marketing of the game, so I might be completely off-base with my observations here, which are solely my own opinions. Take ‘em with a grain of salt—or a chair to the head.)
He’s Endorsing the Brother, Brother
Last night, on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Hulk Hogan enthusiastically endorsed Barack Obama for president. The jokes practically write themselves, which is good news for Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post and snarky political bloggers everywhere.
A couple of things worth noting, though: Professional wrestling (and the wrestlers themselves) tend to skew conservative and Republican in a big way. The Rock spoke at the 2000 Republican National Convention, Ric Flair has been campaigning for Mike Huckabee, giant monster nerd Kane has endorsed Ron Paul’s presidential run, a number of former wrestlers have campaigned as Republican or Libertarian candidates for local offices, and during the recount fiasco of the 2000 election, announcer Jerry Lawler repeatedly asked “why won’t Al Gore just concede?” during live broadcasts of Monday Night Raw.
Also, the CNN broadcast of the South Carolina Democratic primary debate pulled in 5 million viewers, the largest television audience for a primary debate in history. That same night, the Hogan-hosted episode of American Gladiators pulled in twice as many viewers. Call it junk food for thought…
SDvR 2007 Is Out!
The last game I wrote the scripts and dialogue for, WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2007, has just been released, and it’s getting some pretty decent reviews, which is always good news for those of us who enjoy the prospect of continued employment.
FUN FACT 1: The most-discussed storyline in the game is the one I didn’t come up with. I lay the blame for the “Candice Michelle turns male wrestlers into women with her magic wand” story squarely at the feet of my former script supervisor, who was either having a moment of pure insanity or pure genius. In retrospect, some might see it as him leaving a metaphorical turd on the desk of the company he was getting ready to leave, although he’s far too much of a pro to do something like that intentionally. I think.
FUN FACT 2: One of the storylines in the game featured former WWE Superstar Christian in a major role. As soon as I finished my first draft of the script, Christian opted not to renew his WWE contract and instead jumped to TNA (new, upstart rasslin’ company). We replaced him in the script with Eddie Guerrero, who died shortly after the second draft of the script was finished. Johnny Nitro was our third choice for the story, so if something awful happens to him, you know why.
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