May 12, 2025 • 48 mins
This week on The Game Marks Podcast we are playing WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011! We’ve also got an important podcast update and discuss pricing increases in the gaming world!
Please subscribe and leave a review for this podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify and follow us on all forms of social media @gamemarkspod.
Join George Feis & Johnny Clash each week as they do a #DeepDive into the good, the bad & the awesome of wrestling video games. Do your favorite games stand the test of time or are you playing them with nostalgia goggles? New episodes every other Monday!
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Please subscribe and leave a review for this podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify and follow us on all forms of social media @gamemarkspod.
Join George Feis & Johnny Clash each week as they do a #DeepDive into the good, the bad & the awesome of wrestling video games. Do your favorite games stand the test of time or are you playing them with nostalgia goggles? New episodes every other Monday!
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Tony Chimmel, and I'd like to introduce the
hosts of the game Marks Podcast, George Feast and Johnny Clash.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to the game Marks Podcast. We're each and every
week we take a deep dive to the good, the bad,
and the awesome of all things wrestling video games.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
My name is George Feast and I'm the man they
call Johnny Clash, and today we are playing WWE SmackDown
Verse Raw two thy eleven. We also have an important
podcast update and more, and there's always guys.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Please subscribe and leave a five star rating and a
review for this podcast, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever
you choose to listen and follow along on all forms
of social media at the game Marks Pod. John Another week,
another wrestling video game. But before we get in the
SmackDown vers Raw twenty eleven, let's talk about what we
(01:17):
played last episode, WWE two K eighteen. How are you
feeling two weeks out from that game?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I think it deserved the future endeavor. I had no
nostalgia towards it to even be blinded by that, and
it just eh, yeah, I just don't know, I don't know.
I mean, it's a technical play it forever because it's
still sitting next to me. But as soon as I
ship that back off the eBay or game stop, then
I could officially say future endeavor. But even compared to
(01:47):
what we're playing today and what we just played in
the playthrough, it's it's it's okay, it's just not my favorite.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, I'm right there with you. It was just one
of those games that was there out like a lot
of the other wrestling games that we're coming out from
WW at that time. And I think we even said
in our reviews, if we're gonna go back and play
one of the WWE games from this generation, it's probably
gonna be nineteen. It's probably not gonna be eighteen.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, And then of course we know what happened with
twenty and it's it's only up after that. So yes,
we uh, we're almost done with the two k's.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, there is one more official two K and then
there's one more just WWE year game that we have
to play.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, do we get into that now? Yeah, we can
the important podcast updates, So I don't think there's an
easy way to do it then to just flat out
say it. The next four episodes will be the last,
and that doesn't come from a place of maliciousness, sadness
(02:56):
being George still love each other. Yeah, I think life
just kind of got ahead of us, and this isn't
a podcast where you could just sit down, record, edit,
post it and be done. I don't think people actually
realize like how much work we put into this on
a weekly basis, which is why we bumped it to
(03:17):
bi weekly originally. Yeah, and you saw the last few
weeks we turned off the Patreon. Dylan turned off the Patreon.
That was, you know, kind of a burden. That not
even a burden. It was just something extra that we
were like, oh, okay, something we don't have to worry
about anymore. But there's still a lot that goes into this.
It's the playthroughs, it's getting the game going, it's the
(03:39):
social media aspect. It's writing twelve pages of notes, which
I know we don't have to do all that, but
we don't want to be shloves either.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So you know, for the better part of we'll call
it two hundred and seventy episodes, John has put together
all of the notes. There were some times in there
that I went and put in them together, but John
always handled the notes. I handled the episode artwork, and
we've split the emulating or obtaining or however was going
(04:09):
to figure out how to play those games. Yeah, but
you know you've definitely have come and clutch and figured
stuff out when I wasn't able to find the game,
whether you know we borrowed games from Phil Cardigan or otherwise,
we figure, you know, plan accordingly, hit the big games
that we wanted to cross off the list and go
(04:30):
out where the podcast was still up to our standards.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
So I the way I always saw this podcast was
a database of every wrestling game. We wanted to play
every wrestling game. There's so fricking many more than you
could ever imagine. I know some people are like, oh,
were there really that many? Yeah, there are really that many. Yeah.
The final four after tonight, I think, which we've had
this plan for quite a bit. We just feel like
(04:55):
this is the final few episodes we need to in
order to wrap it up. We could have ended this
a little while ago to make our lives a little easier,
but we want to complete it so this way it
will live forever. It's not going to go anywhere. The
episodes are gonna be there on YouTube, on Spotify wherever
you want to listen. As George says at the end
of our episode, they're going to live. It's gonna be
(05:18):
like a database of any wrestling game you want to
figure out. I mean, Justin Lieper commented on our YouTube
video the other day. I don't know if you saw
Baigs WrestleMania on nes He was describing to someone what
Bam Bam Biggel looked like, and he used our video
to show him. That's what I want this to be.
And I think that's what it's going to be. It's
going to live forever. If you want to go back
and listen to a Fire Pro Wrestling search it, it'll
be there. So the final four before we put a
(05:40):
bow on this obviously today SmackDown versus around twenty eleven,
two weeks, we're going to play w W two K fifteen,
then Fire Pro Wrestling Combination Tag, then WWE thirteen, and
the final episode. We said said from day one, we
said it was either the final episode or we were
(06:02):
never gonna do it. But we'll be playing WWF No Mercy,
so that takes us to July. So we're not going
anywhere just yet. I know it sounds like, oh, four
more episodes. That's kind of scary. How that's only eight
weeks away July already.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
But yeah, yes, but I will say this and this
will be a cheap, cheap plug for john when the
podcast ends. Still plenty of Johnny Clash content out there.
Could go and check out his his YouTube channel, YouTube
dot com Slash Johnny, is it Johnny f and Clash,
Johnny Clash, just Johnny.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
When I was able to claim, oh, that's.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Great, he just started his own w w E two
K twenty five universe mode called Monday Monday melt Down.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Then they melt Down Clash too Wrestling and listen if
you were a fan of GMP twenty four. I use
the same music. It's it's kind of the clone in
my own little world. So it's gonna keep going.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Maybe we'll get be a theme that he used, and
it was. It may be the one of the best
AI generated theme songs I've heard. It's that's up there
with the Orton theme.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I think I'm gonna post them too, like on the YouTube.
I have completely switched my YouTube over to be primarily
WW two K content, so check it out. I'll be
on twitch we're gonna try to get George backstreaming at
some point and hanging and whatever. So this is not
gonna be the last you see of him either. And hey,
you guys know where to find It's the discord is
going to stay forever. If you want in, just send
(07:34):
us a message. We'll drop you the link. We keep
it private because we have a tight knit group there.
We all love each other and we just want to
keep it to the people we know and love. But
if we know and love you and you want to
get in there, get on in there. Let us know.
We'll put you in there. We're not gonna get into
the sappy ship.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
We're not gonna be Thanks.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
To all the sponsors, Thank everybody.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Thank you, Matt Cardona, thank you.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
We'll save all that for the for the No Mercy episode.
We'll say that for then, if even, and we're gonna
no business as usual until then. We're gonna have fun.
We're gonna make this the best it is. I mean,
you've probably already seen. Our social media presence has been
less and less as of late because it just takes
so much time to do that stuff, and other stuff
takes priority. But here we are SmackDown versus twenty eleven.
(08:21):
I think without further ado, we're gonna get into. We're
gonna we're gonna keep the ball rolling here.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Let's do it. You ready to put on those nostalgia
goggles and take the deep dive? Doown?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah, I'm gonna need a new pair soon. I'll sign
them for you.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
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(09:42):
wwe SmackDown Versus Raw twenty eleven, released October twenty six,
twenty ten. It is available on the PlayStation two, the
PlayStation three, the PSP, the Xbox three sixty, and the
Nintendo DS. Developed by Yukes, published by THQ, and other
wrestling games in twenty ten, You've Got Tna Impact, Crossed
(10:05):
the Line and Luca Lebra Triple A Worldwide. Now something
to note about WWE SmackDown Versus Raw twenty eleven. This
is the seventh and final game to be released under
the SmackDown Verse Raw series, and this game was first
announced alongside WWE All Stars, which is available in the
(10:29):
archives one of the earlier episodes of this podcast at
E three in June of twenty ten, the announced what
was made by THHQ, and a playable demo was featured
at E three with Randy Orton, The Undertaker, Chris Jericho,
and the Mizz as the playable characters.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I think I'm actually looking at the DS version now
and oh my goodness, it looks god awful and I
know there are people out there that'll be like, what
it was?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Great?
Speaker 3 (10:56):
We love it, but yeah it's a little rough around
the but I'm glad we got it. Just like the
TNA game that came out that is one of my
absolute favorites when it probably shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Well, we touched on the PSP versions, and I guess
we can say the same thing about the the DS versions.
It's they're under the same title, but they're their own,
Like they're in the same title, but they have extra
or different game types or features or rosters, like there's
something that makes each of those games unique for the
(11:29):
consoles that they were on, apart from the main Gen consoles.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah, I'm actually looking here. Apparently with that announcement, everyone
kind of got hype that there's gonna be some new upgrades,
new features, new physics, a lot of new physics in
this version compared to the rest. But the previous Gen
like the PS two, the WEE three sixty and the
PSP version, didn't get that. And I think people feel
kind of like cheated and jipped because they never actually
(11:55):
said that that was a thing that they weren't going
to get it. But let's, uh, let's get into those.
Because there are new physics, it makes the matches a
little more realistic. I had kind of noticed that there's
less flopping around in these.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah, I mean, obviously the animations for like when you
fall off the cell are still big and over the top.
But the one that stood out to me and the
one that I was looking for, was that, right. It
was like that spiky pedigree animation.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Yeah, and then it's like later on, I think, where
you just get like a million pedigree animations. It was
pretty cool though that there was some stuff even in
the hell to cell off the cage like it. They
just made it a little more realistic rather than as arcadie,
and I think that led to where we're going today
because meaning today today, because once you get twelve and thirteen,
(12:42):
they get a little even more realistic where they still
have those tones of SmackDown, but by the time two
K fifteen comes out, you are full on simulation pretty much.
There's none of that hokiness of flopping off the cell
and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I'm just thinking now, remember remember that the old stunner
animation were regardless of who did it, everyone did the
rock like backflip.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah. Sometimes you know headstains who can't do that. You
need a Scott Hall once in a while. Tables now
break differently based on impact, which is cool because sometimes
you would just kind of grip the edge and you
would get slammed through right down the middle, and that
doesn't always work. Ladders can rest on ring ropes and
break in half. I loved this feature for the money
(13:23):
in the Bank matches. I think they took this from
when Shelton Benjamin did it in a real life match yep.
But the best part of it was you could whip
your opponent into the ladder and they would just run
off and flop out of the ring.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Do you know I find myself still trying to do
that in my current gas. I'm like, how come I
can't do that. I'm like, oh yeah, because that was
like fifteen years ago that that did. You were able
to do that in a game yep.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Chairs can be thrown at your opponents, which is something
that came back this year too, So that's kind of
cool that it's back here and then it's back in
real life in two K twenty five. While we're talking
about that, there were some different animation also for the
chairs and the weapons, where instead of just kind of
slamming them on your opponent when they're on the ground,
you sit on them and RVD them. Everybody's RVD in this,
(14:09):
everyone's doing that. Everyone's RVD. Hell on the cell matches
where we vamped. You now have the bigger cell with
the expanded walls. Weapons are now under the ring. The
steel steps are near the poles on the opposite sides.
There's no cell door. You have to use your OMG
or it wasn't called OMG yet, it was just your signature.
It was just sell signature. Cell finisher. You have to
(14:32):
go to the bottom right. You bust out new ways
to exit, like smashing through the cage. Well, yeah, we
just talked about that. And of course climbing up is
the same as it's been where you just climb straight up.
Now you have to stop for some reason, you have
to go up again. It's like, can we just go
back to this where no one wants to stop in
the middle.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, I think they We've talked about this. I think
they do the stop in the middle in case you have,
like someone laid up on the table, you could do
the half elbow off the cage.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, I mean either way, I think it was still
pretty cool. And it's a match that we play a lot,
so yes, now there were a lot of guys I
remember being in here, but I'm thinking of I think
twenty ten. So as we were playing it, I was like, hmm,
I don't see Jeff Hardy. But then I realized he
was taken out of this one. I think he might
(15:23):
have returned to TNA this year and they pulled him
last second. Oh, let's talk about the game modes here,
because Universe Mode has replaced career mode finally from the
previous games. One thing we noticed when playing, and I
kind of remember this from back in the day, Universe
Mode is everywhere. Whether you're on the home screen, all
(15:44):
you have to do is press the right thumpstick. You're
going into your universe. If you're on a load screen,
it'll say like Backlash four weeks away. Everything is centered
around your universe, and rightfully so it was cool. It
was very uh, I guess crucial to some people playing
this game for the career mode rather than the road
to WrestleMania's and that's something still today that's very prevalent
(16:06):
in the world. I mean, I'm using it more than
anything right now. I'm doing Universe Mode more than Myra's
and whatnot. So there is a point to it. There's
the cut scenes you could do, it's your sandbox. You
can do anything you want. You guys kind of already
know that Road to WrestleMania. We talked about this with
Justin Leeper. We mentioned it two weeks ago twenty ten episode.
Go check out the Justin Leeper interview if you want
(16:28):
to catch up on what he did and his involvement
in these games. But Roads to WrestleMania has been modified.
There's now more backstage roaming, miniquests and further interactions with superstars.
Your storylines are Chris Jericho, Raymasterio, John Cena, Christian and
the Undertaker. Now you have to try to beat the
Undertaker's streak with Kofe, Morrison Ziggler or Our Truth. I
(16:53):
remember doing this with Kofe.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I definitely remember this as well, so maybe we're We
talked about this in the playthroom. We touched on it
last episode. One of the SmackDown Verse Raw games was
one of the games that brought us back. It may
be this one. It maybe twenty ten, it might even
be eight to Row nine. But the more that we
(17:17):
talked about this game, the more that we played the game,
I was just like, I do think that I may
have already been back by the time that this game
came out, so maybe it is one of the earlier games.
Maybe it is a way to Row nine.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I think ten was the one where I came back.
But I definitely remember playing this with Kofe because I
remember going to the Undertaker select screen and then it
brought you to a character select for Kofe, Marson, Ziggler, Truth,
and I was like, oh, I guess I have to
beat it with all of them. I didn't think that
it was just like a one and done and I
did it with Kofe and I was like, all right,
let me now do it with Morrison and it was
(17:53):
the same thing. I was like, damn it. Maybe I
wouldn't have pick Kofe the first time if that was
the case. And I remember planning to do it with
all of them and I did not, But I remember
these storylines being really cool. Road to WrestleMania was always
one of our favorites, always well put together. And I
guess we now have Showcase Mode, which is kind I
guess in the same realm, but it's kind of like both.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
It's like it's almost like the My Rise and if
you if you combined elements of My Rise and Showcase Mode.
That's kind of like what Road to WrestleMania was, because
there was certain elements of Roads WrestleMania storylines that were,
you know, accurate to the history of things that were
happening in WWE. But every now and then, or like
(18:36):
sprinkled throughout, you would get those like crazy backstage segments
where like you know, horn Swoggle is doing something backstage
or you're having like a crazy interaction with another restaurant.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Under the table. But yeah, they were pretty cool, very
well done. I would like to see them back maybe
one day, maybe even alongside Showcase Mode.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I don't know, you're interested in hearing all about our
buddy Hornswoggle in video games. There is a full going
pasta episode about Swaggle in video games, but recover all
of his Creation suite.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Let's talk about that. Create a Superstar now has preloaded
attributes for custom wrestlers, which is very helpful. There's a
Create a finisher which you can now use corner position,
but you can't use it in the Royal Rum because
some of them go out of the ring finish. Your
attributes like speed and trajectory can be fine tuned, so
they really put a lot into like the moves here
(19:32):
and stuff. I think this is the one where I
made like a crazy like outsider's edge flipping type X
factor thing. Oh yeah, it was pretty cool. And like
I said during the playthrough, I used a lot of
the like st os and like the quick moves because
everybody online were such little bitches that you needed either
that quick Goldberg sidekick or a spear or the STO
(19:54):
or something you had just like had to keep people down.
It was crazy. These games was nuts.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Talked about the crazy finishers that you were able to
make in these games, and it was just I feel
like you just got more baseline animations that just let
you do more sequences where it could be like you know,
you would start would like slowly ramp up and like
all right European uppercut into a kick to the gut
(20:21):
into a super kick into a superkick.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
And it was super kid into a four fifty and
it was always a motherfucker. We could cut that if
you want with like Goku hair and like flaming pants,
Like nobody knew how to create a real looking wrestler.
And that always bothered me because I think.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
If you're going for like the cheesiest move set you
want to have the most ridiculous looking character. Nope.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
It just always annoyed me. It always annoyed me that
nobody made like a wrestler in just like tights and
like a nice haircut. I don't know, maybe that's like
the designer. I mean that, No, I think that's the
wrestler in here, or that yeah, or that no, Shindy's here.
In smack Down Versus twenty eleven, story designer has been
improved with new cut scenes, usable sounds like the announcers
(21:05):
and entrance music, up to fifteen created superstars, branching storylines,
the ability to include championship belts and cutscenes, and event
triggers based on wrestler's state, like if they're injured or whatnot.
So they really revamped that. That was cool. Something we
mentioned in twenty ten. I put a lot of time
into before the game crash, and I was never able
to actually go on a date with Mickey James. But
(21:28):
who knows, maybe I continued it in twenty eleven. I
don't know. Let's talk about the match types here, they're
very very similar from twenty ten. I think it's just
kind of revamps here. Yeah, I feel like around these state.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Sometimes you're getting a lot of the same match types,
but there are, like you touched on earlier, there are
new revamps of sorts to all of these, or not
all to some of the match types, So you're getting
a revitalized hell in a cell. There's a different version
of the backstage areas you're getting. I mean, we've talked
(22:03):
about before. I don't think we've played many of them
on the podcast, but inferno matches sometimes it's in the game.
I feel like inferno and casket matches are either like
they almost are interchangeable. Like if you're getting one, you're
probably not getting the other. It's a rare occasion that
you get both. Yeah, what's your preference? If you could
put one in the game, would you pick infernal match?
We would you pick casket match?
Speaker 3 (22:25):
M I feel like we haven't had a good casket
match up until this year. I think I like SmackDown
twos and how bad it was, I think I would
go casket dir.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, we did one of those. We did did like
Mark Henry versus The Big Show or something.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Yeah, where it was up on the stage. Yeah, like
the one where Undertaker's hand comes out and all that. Yeah, yeah,
I would probably go casket match. That was never a
big Inferno match fan. We should bring it back though,
we need we needed back in modern television. But we
do have your normal Match, your Infernal Match, First Blood,
Hell in a Cell, Ironman Ladder, Last Man Standing, Steelcage, Submission,
(23:08):
Table Match, TLC, the new backstage areas, which include the
GM's office, two locker rooms, a larger locker room, an
interview area, catering, and the parking lot. Your Extreme Rules Match,
your Elimination Chamber, Money in the Bank Championship Scramble, which
was new in last year's game, and your Royal Rumble
with ten, twenty and thirty participants, and of course your
(23:29):
Match Creator, which is where you could find I think
a lot of the matches that aren't included you could
find in Match Creator some of the basics. So that's
pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
All right, Well, let's do this, John, Let's take a
quick break, and when we come back, we're going to
get into this roster. We got to read this roster.
We gotta get through this roster. It's a big roster.
(24:00):
But we've done fire Pro games in the past. Ye
double the amount of wrestlers, So I will kick us off.
Here with raw you have Battista, Chris Jarco, Davey Hart Smith, Edge,
Evan Born, Zekiel Jackson, gold Dust, John Cina, John Morrison, Mark, Henry,
the Miz, Primo, Randy Orton, Our truth Santino, Morella, Sewn, Michaels, Seamus,
(24:24):
Ted Dibiasi Junior, Triple h Tyson, Kid, Vladimir Koslov, Williamrigo,
Yoshi Tatsu, Zach Ryder, Alisha Fox, Briebella Eve, Gail Kim, Maurice, Malina,
Natalia and Nikki Bella bck down Ross.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
You have the Big Show, Chavo Guerrero, Christian Seampunk, Cody Rhoads,
Dolf Ziggler, Drew McIntyre, Jack Swagger, jtg Kin, Kofi Kingston,
Luke Gallows, Mike Knox, MVP Ray Mystereo, Shad Gaspard, Chonain,
Benjamin Undertaker, Vance Archer, Beth Phoenix, Kelly Kelly, Michelle McCool.
(24:59):
I'll just keep going here of your for miscellaneous, your
Druids Finley, Matt Hardy, mister McMahon, Rob Van Dam and
Mickey James, those all have no brand classification.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And then under Legends you have Jake Roberts, Jimmy Snook,
Ricky Steamboat, the rock Stone Cold, Steve Austin and Terry Funk.
Your managers are Hornswoggle and Paul Beher And then under
NPCs you've got the Hurricane, Jerry Lawler, Justin Roberts, Michael
Cole Referees, three different security guards, Stephanie McMahon, the Ebyone Long,
(25:34):
Tiffany Todd Grisham, Tony Chimmel and the WWE Doctor Who.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
And you have DLC here which is your Wave one
was Chris Masters. Your Wave two was the British Bulldog,
David O'tunga, Justin Gabriel Layla, Lex Luger and Wade Barrett.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
All right, you're ready to dive into this artwork because
there are multiple covers that we got to talk about.
Obviously a lot of them. The main cover, you've got
the SmackDown versus Raw Logo, You've got John Cena, the
Big Show and the Mizz This is uh an iconic
wrestling cover for sure. This is where we're in that generation,
(26:17):
that era of wrestling covers where all of them kind
of feel like they could be posters.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Oh yeah, and they're so like nicely done with like
the nice lighting and it's not just like the smackdowns
like I remember.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
For like some of the pre orders, you would see
them as posters and I remember, uh, like back in
the day you would see backstage segments and they would
have the poster on the wall, like in the background
of whatever the newest game was.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
I like the WrestleMania in the background. I think that's
pretty cool. Yeah, that is really cool. It's a good cover, man,
It's there's a lot. So do you wanna do you
want to talk about the other variations of the cover
before we talk about the back cover? Well, it's the
back cover's quick, so we could just kind of brushed
through it. It says what's included the game, the new
physics and all that. A big picture of John Cena
(27:06):
doing an attitude adjustment off of a ladder, the Undertaker
slamming Randy Orton through the top of the cell, and
I think that's another one of Orton with Jack Swagger
going through a table with an ARCAO.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Oh I thought it was un prettier. Oh yeah, you
might be right.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Yeah that is a bald man. Randy Orton was bald
back then. But yeah, these new covers there's a European,
there's a Mexican and Canadian cover, and they all are
within the same realm as the regular cover. They just
have different superstars. The European has Orton, Seamus and the Undertaker.
The Mexican one has Mysterial front and center, which is
(27:45):
I think this one might be my favorite. Actually it is. Yeah,
that's an Undertaker and Triple H. And the Canadian one
has Brett Hart with a big Canadian flag with edge
and Canadian legend the Undertaker. Okay, cool, but I think
these are my favorite. We talked about these early on
in the podcast, and that's the alternative versions, the Viper Edition,
(28:06):
Lord of Darkness Edition and the hit Man Edition where
there's variant covers of Randy Or and the Undertaker and
Brett Hart. These are only Pal regions, that's the only
place you can get it. They come with exclusive in
game content, an art book, and a DVD relating to
each wrestler, So you would get Bret Hart as a
(28:27):
playable character, which he is the DLC you get for
pre ordering anyway. In this game, the Undertaker's Ministry of
Darkness attire and three outfits for Orton and the Tribute
to the Troops arena, which is always one of my
favorite arenas. It was always kind of like, oh, we
can go outside, now, that's cool. I like it, we
can go outside.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I like any of the backstage areas that had I
guess you could say twenty five has it where there's
multiple backstage areas here. It's like the parking lot and
the archive and like the general normal backstage area that
(29:08):
we used to But I mean for a long time,
for a couple of years, you were just getting that
one main backstage area which had three different sections, but
it was you know, always that one long stretching piece
of like arena. But I also was a big fan
of these because you could do inside stuff, you could
do outside stuff. You have opportunities to fight. I mean
(29:30):
it's hard the top WWF New York and fighting at
all times square but.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Cars going by, I think you can get in cars too,
right and run people over.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, either. And then there was other other games where
you can like get in a forklift and like drive
on the forklift.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I don't think you could do much of it, but
you can get in it.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
No, it was just it was just one of those
things where it was just we could put it in
a game, So why don't we.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Put it in a game and let's do it. We
did it in Forza or whatever the hell THHQ did,
so let's just use it and do it. Yeah, let's
talk about these graphics here, because I think they were
pretty cool. Everything looked I mean, it looked pretty awesome.
Everything was very realistic. And the depth of the crowd,
you know, it had the dark lighting over there, and
we say when that happens, usually it's a pretty good
(30:14):
looking crowd. And now our play, fortunately was on PS two,
so things weren't spectacular, but even not bad, it was
still not bad. Now fortunately the PSP and the DS
they kind of got done a little dirty. It wasn't
that great.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
It's a different it's a different kind of experience on
those consoles.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
But I think it's cool because, like it hasn't been
that long at this point that WW is just throwing
LEDs on absolutely everything possible that they can. But even
like the giant WW logo that was randomly on the
stage with the big lights, like everything just looks bright
and it looks realistic. I think the wrestlers look decent
(30:57):
for the time.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah, everyone kind of has that like waxy plastic. Everyone
kind of has like the body of an action figure. Yeah,
they're not like hyper realistic, but you know who they are.
Like we're not twenty five yet. Yeah, the likeness is
really good. But textures and some shading, we'll see it
(31:22):
in a manner of like a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
How we're also in the era where belts just wrapped
around the person whoever they were and like stretched, where
I kind of prefer compared to now where they're just
like hovering massively over the person.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, where they clip from jackets and stuff.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yeah, how is that something we've never fixed? How is
that still? You get a modified HUD this game, which
is just a meter underneath you. You don't have the
body meter or anything. It's just a meter that when
you hit a certain point you get your special. The
meter can go down too, which is kind of crazy,
and you could lose special that way. Once you hit
(32:01):
the special, you have a certain amount of time to
hit your finisher. When the HUD is flashing, it's just
a little bar underneath you. That's it turns from blue,
turns the red and flashes when you have a finisher.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
It goes away during the cut scenes. You don't have
to bother with it, you don't see it. There is
some weird targeting stuff we turned off, like it says
you're the target's name above your head on default, which
is kind of stupid, and I think that I.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
May have turned that on that maybe, Uh well, either way,
turn me on things. So I thought it was going
to be the Remember back in the day, you'd walk around,
you'd have like the little circle ondo you with you. Oh,
that's what I thought it was going to be. And
it's said it's just the name of I get that
too focused on.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Yeah, well, either way, it's designed, eh, kind of poorly,
but I think everything else looked really good. The animations
of the moves are really good. We said it in
twenty ten. A lot of some of the animations are
still being used today, which is kind of crazy that
that's the thing. Yeah, very long time later, fifteen years later.
But yeah, I mean, the.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
One thing that we did say was the huge tel
on the on the PlayStation two. I mean, obviously everything
on the on the PS three and the Xbox V
sixty looks super crisp and super clean, and for the
most part, presentation on the PS two is not bad.
The one big tell was the crowd. Yeah, you can
tell a huge difference. But like the wrestler models are
(33:18):
not bad, They're not terrible.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
No, man, no, it was only up from here. But
did you know? Did you know this is the only
game in the SmackDown vers Arrow series that does not
have a licensed soundtrack and would be the last WWB
game not to have one until two K fifteen.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Did you know this is the last game to feature
Batista and Sean Michaels as non legends or unlockables until
much later titles. Did you know?
Speaker 3 (33:54):
This game is on eBay from twelve dollars to twenty
three dollars US. I could not fine a brand new copy.
I don't think many would have a graded copy of this,
So that's pretty much what we're working with here. Twelve
to twenty three dollars. Not bad, not bad. Now. We
said before the pre order was Bret Hart DLC. Now,
(34:20):
pre orders in DLC was rough back then. It's not
like how it is now. Like you get the.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
World now, yeah it was.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
You don't get physical stuff now, like the scene Enough
edition we talked about, but you get a lot in
the game. Like even the other day, I was playing
twenty five and I was like, oh, do I have
a version of Sean Michaels unlocked? And then I realized
I bought the dead Man Edition and I had four
and I was like, Okay, yeah, everybody's unlocked. We're good.
But not only do you get Brett Hart DLC, but
(34:47):
if you pre order, you get a twenty dollars voucher
for Survivor Series TLC. Yeah, Survivor series or the TLC
pay per view, which we're in November and December, the
two months after this game comes out. So if you
get this game for Christmas, well, I guess it's pre order,
so that doesn't matter. But I don't know. You still
(35:08):
have to pay like forty bucks for the pay per view.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yeah, I mean that it's just like an extra little thing,
I guess, But I mean back save money where you
can try to get there. I mean, if you're buying
one every month.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I guess I'd rather catch out or something.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
This is this is pre pre network, pre Netflix, pre Peacock,
whatever you're streaming it on. So this is you know,
you're actively buying a pay per view every single month.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
This might be like DVD Netflix. I don't remember when
that came out. Huh yeah, I don't know. But with that,
let's go to the scores. Let's time, let's time. Yeah,
that's that makes sense, Johnny. Let's sit back, let's relax.
Some R and R, some ratings and reviews. I'm not
going to read. I'm only going to read the next gin.
(35:59):
How about that?
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Sure we're gonna read.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
PS three and three sixty. Yeah, that's fine, okay. Game
Informer gives the PS three an eight out of ten
and the three sixty and eight out of ten Game
Revolution with a B plus for both. Game Spot with
a seven out of ten for both. Game Trailers only
rated three sixty with a seven out of ten. Game
Zone with a four and a half out of ten.
Game Zone is always the wackest one, and I still
(36:23):
don't know exactly what it is. Giant Bomb gives a
two out of five stars for the three sixty IGN
with an eight out of ten for both. They still
give eight out of tens to all WWN. When is
it gonna ever go up? Did they set the bar
at eight here and they're like, oh, well, we can't
go up from here ever? Like if you're gonna give
(36:45):
last year's two K twenty four and eight and this
year's an improvement, wouldn't it be a nine or at
least an eight and a half. Whatever, that's a rant
for another day. Nintendo Power I'll read this one gives
the wei version a seven point five out of ten,
Xbox Magazine with a six and a half out of ten,
PlayStation Magazine with a six out of ten, the Daily
(37:06):
Telegraph seven out of ten, and finally The Guardian with
a four out of five stars for the three sixty.
So it ranges from pretty damn good to pretty damn mediocre,
depends on who you want to believe.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
But hey, yeah, this wasn't a situation of John not
wanting to read more reviews for the review scores anything
that wasn't an aggregate score. Most of the publications did not,
aside from one rated the PS two version, and no
(37:38):
one rated the PSP version.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
So but it does have a sixty two percent on Metacritics.
Song Yeah so no DS on here either.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah, not a The other versions, aside from the PS
three and the Xbox three sixty were not widely reviewed.
I mean there's only five, including the aggregate scores for
the wee. Yeah, very very interesting, but hey, that's everyone
else's ratings, john And is now time for the very
(38:07):
special segment of the podcast where we offer up our ratings.
It is time to rate the game, all right, Johnny,
Clash SmackDown verses are all twenty eleven. Will you play
(38:32):
it forever or future endeavor?
Speaker 3 (38:45):
This is a tough one because I didn't remember it
coming in, but I remembered more as we were playing
through it. I remembered the really cool character select screen
that was old school Mortal Kombat style. I remember playing
a Seaham Punk a lot with the big Beard like.
There was stuff that definitely came back to me. I
do think it's a good upgrade from twenty ten, and
(39:09):
I'm just trying to think if, like it's something I
would ever go back to. Like, if you say, do
you want to play a SmackDown versus Raw, I'm probably
gonna go six or seven or ten. I don't know
if this is the one that would make the cut.
The roster is kind of lackluster. It's nothing crazy. I
don't think the roster at this time was anything too great.
(39:29):
I think I was a little bit one foot out
the door and wrestling here at the time. So I'm
gonna say future endeavor. I had fun playing it today,
but I don't think it's something I'm really gonna care about.
To be honest, all right, good game.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
But I'm like kind of right there with you. Man.
It's like on the line for me of is it
is it great? And I want to go back and
keep playing it, or like you said, is it good?
But there's other versions of SmackDown versus Raw that I
would go and play. I don't know. I think I'm,
(40:09):
I think, i'm, I think i'm. We're gonna split the
difference here. You're gonna give it the future endeavor. I'll
give it to play it forever. And because it's not
a bad game. No, it's a tough future endeavor. It's
just it's there's there's features that are here that we
then will see, you know, the changes that they make
here will continue out throughout the series and influence other
(40:31):
generations of the game. So for that, I will give
it a play it forever.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
If you ask me tomorrow, I might even say future
I mean play So who knows, Well, this one's a.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Tough one maybe and follow up next week or the
next episode. We could we could figure that out, all right,
So as always, guys, let us know on social media
at Game Marx Pod what you thought of WWE SmackDown
versus Raw twenty eleven. But with that genre, you.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Ready to get into this weeks soft Let's do it
all right?
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Soft Luck is a segment where one of our mega
marks in our discord gives us a question to answer
a topic to debate. It is a question of the
week with a fancy name. This week question comes from.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
Soups Little Soups for Cats.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Soups would like to know games are going up to
one hundred dollars again. Do you think that we will
see the bubble burst or will this just be the
new norm?
Speaker 3 (41:47):
I have thoughts. I think we're seeing more and more
of games be sold at the price, at different prices. Yeah,
and I think gonna be the new normal. I think,
like GTA, it's gonna last for the next ten to
fifteen years. Probably it could be more than one hundred
(42:08):
bucks and people are gonna pay it. But then there's
gonna be like the smaller games on Steam that might
be like twenty thirty bucks, forty fifty bucks. So I
think there's gonna be be a place for a price
for every game, But I don't think there's gonna be
a normal everything's gonna be one hundred dollars. Maybe when
it comes to like I think the yearly releases, the
(42:31):
Maddens and all that are gonna stay consistent and all
the same, whereas maybe Death Stranding too is gonna be
ninety bucks compared to sixty for the first game, because
that's what went into it, and it's gonna be the
game you're gonna play for a couple of years.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
So it's it's always hard. When you answered the soft
lock question and then I basically have the same answer,
which but I agree with you. It's you you hit
the nail on the head. It is. We are in
an generation of gaming where there is arrange, there are
so many different outlets to get video games. Do I
(43:11):
love the fact that video games, certain games are going
to be one hundred dollars, No, that's it's a lot
of money for a game, but.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
It's gotta be worth it.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah, I agree. But at the same time, there are
still games like John said, and I agree that there's
gonna be games on Steam that you can go and
play that will be less than that. I'm sure certain titles.
You know, maybe maybe it's not the new norm for
every title, but I'm I'm optimistic that it may not
(43:44):
be every title, and this may may come back to
bite to bite us. Maybe this is the new norm,
but I'm I'm curious to see what the future holds
and what will what will happened with high ticketed games,
because it just seems like it may not be something
(44:05):
that's super sustainable.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Yeah, Like I'm not paying one hundred bucks for Powerwash
Stimulator too, whereas Split Fiction was fifty bucks and two
people can play it on one account, and I feel
like that's one hundred That game's worth a hundred bucks
and great.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Certain titles you got should play it with certain titles.
I mean, we've done it a lot on the podcast.
It's basically how we did all of GMP twenty four.
You do have the option for certain titles on Steam
to do remote play, so that's true too. You could
do a situation. Do I think that every title offer that, No,
but it is an option. There are certain situations where
(44:42):
you could do stuff like that, and that's always a
worthwhile experience in the sense of it allows you to
do stuff that you may otherwise not if if you
don't want to play online versus modes, but you want
to play a wrestling game or another game. It allows
you to do it locally with someone remote play on Steam.
(45:02):
Is he's worth it?
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yeah, we have other ways if you want to hit
us up.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
I mean I think by now we've talked about Parsaki
several times on the show.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
I use it every single day in my life. Yeah,
thanks a little soups.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Thank you soups for that question, and of course let
us know in all forms of social media at game
Marks Pod, what do you think about the current state
of video game prices and what the future may hold.
But John, we talked about it a little earlier in
the episode. Give the folks a reminder what we are playing.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Next episode of the podcast will be playing WW two
K fifteen, the first two K game, So well, wait
fourteen was the first one. Never mind the second two
K game. Don't mind me that one's going to be fun.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
John Cena is on the cover.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Oh you know what, I forgot to freakin mention in
the beginning of the episode when we were when we
were gloating about Johnny Clash over here. I'm an official
WWE Shop partner now, oh yeah, dude, So if you
use my link go find it on social media to
buy anything in the WWE Shop, it has to be
my link. I'll I'll get a little kickback. So I'm
officially partnered by WWE. So go check it out, Go
(46:17):
buy your Penta mask and your cmpunk shirts and think
about go to old Johnny over here.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
There you go, all right, guys. As always, you can
watch all of the video content that John and I
are making over on our YouTube channel YouTube, dot Com,
Slash Game, Marx Pod. We have a little merchandise store.
It is pod Exchange PO d X C H A
n g E dot shop. It is exclusive merchandise for
this podcast, coming postal and all things pod Exchange, Pro Wrestling,
(46:46):
Teas dot Com, Slash Game, Marx Pod for our shirt
designs and of course at game marks Pod on all
forms of social media, and as always helps this out,
please make sure to like, comment, subscribe ring that notification
bell that was that was a loud one and it
was crisp and clear and super close to the mic.
(47:07):
That was that maybe one of the best ones, Top
five that You've ever done? Top five but hey, as
always Johnny Clash, another week, another episode, another game, Whenever
you're ready served do that thing.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Game over Marx.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
Game Marks Podcast, put them on the radar, play a
rare game, Second Saturn, No game Shot. Johnny and George
work hard and they play hard future endevo games and
put them in the graveyard from the deep dives in
the clash in the face. I cannot give more to
ask questions of the week, follow one Twitch. There's nothing
(47:47):
that they won't play game Marks Podcast every single Monday.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
The Bali coupl
This is Tony Chimmel, and I'd like to introduce the
hosts of the game Marks Podcast, George Feast and Johnny Clash.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to the game Marks Podcast. We're each and every
week we take a deep dive to the good, the bad,
and the awesome of all things wrestling video games.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
My name is George Feast and I'm the man they
call Johnny Clash, and today we are playing WWE SmackDown
Verse Raw two thy eleven. We also have an important
podcast update and more, and there's always guys.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Please subscribe and leave a five star rating and a
review for this podcast, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever
you choose to listen and follow along on all forms
of social media at the game Marks Pod. John Another week,
another wrestling video game. But before we get in the
SmackDown vers Raw twenty eleven, let's talk about what we
(01:17):
played last episode, WWE two K eighteen. How are you
feeling two weeks out from that game?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I think it deserved the future endeavor. I had no
nostalgia towards it to even be blinded by that, and
it just eh, yeah, I just don't know, I don't know.
I mean, it's a technical play it forever because it's
still sitting next to me. But as soon as I
ship that back off the eBay or game stop, then
I could officially say future endeavor. But even compared to
(01:47):
what we're playing today and what we just played in
the playthrough, it's it's it's okay, it's just not my favorite.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, I'm right there with you. It was just one
of those games that was there out like a lot
of the other wrestling games that we're coming out from
WW at that time. And I think we even said
in our reviews, if we're gonna go back and play
one of the WWE games from this generation, it's probably
gonna be nineteen. It's probably not gonna be eighteen.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, And then of course we know what happened with
twenty and it's it's only up after that. So yes,
we uh, we're almost done with the two k's.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, there is one more official two K and then
there's one more just WWE year game that we have
to play.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, do we get into that now? Yeah, we can
the important podcast updates, So I don't think there's an
easy way to do it then to just flat out
say it. The next four episodes will be the last,
and that doesn't come from a place of maliciousness, sadness
(02:56):
being George still love each other. Yeah, I think life
just kind of got ahead of us, and this isn't
a podcast where you could just sit down, record, edit,
post it and be done. I don't think people actually
realize like how much work we put into this on
a weekly basis, which is why we bumped it to
(03:17):
bi weekly originally. Yeah, and you saw the last few
weeks we turned off the Patreon. Dylan turned off the Patreon.
That was, you know, kind of a burden. That not
even a burden. It was just something extra that we
were like, oh, okay, something we don't have to worry
about anymore. But there's still a lot that goes into this.
It's the playthroughs, it's getting the game going, it's the
(03:39):
social media aspect. It's writing twelve pages of notes, which
I know we don't have to do all that, but
we don't want to be shloves either.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So you know, for the better part of we'll call
it two hundred and seventy episodes, John has put together
all of the notes. There were some times in there
that I went and put in them together, but John
always handled the notes. I handled the episode artwork, and
we've split the emulating or obtaining or however was going
(04:09):
to figure out how to play those games. Yeah, but
you know you've definitely have come and clutch and figured
stuff out when I wasn't able to find the game,
whether you know we borrowed games from Phil Cardigan or otherwise,
we figure, you know, plan accordingly, hit the big games
that we wanted to cross off the list and go
(04:30):
out where the podcast was still up to our standards.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
So I the way I always saw this podcast was
a database of every wrestling game. We wanted to play
every wrestling game. There's so fricking many more than you
could ever imagine. I know some people are like, oh,
were there really that many? Yeah, there are really that many. Yeah.
The final four after tonight, I think, which we've had
this plan for quite a bit. We just feel like
(04:55):
this is the final few episodes we need to in
order to wrap it up. We could have ended this
a little while ago to make our lives a little easier,
but we want to complete it so this way it
will live forever. It's not going to go anywhere. The
episodes are gonna be there on YouTube, on Spotify wherever
you want to listen. As George says at the end
of our episode, they're going to live. It's gonna be
(05:18):
like a database of any wrestling game you want to
figure out. I mean, Justin Lieper commented on our YouTube
video the other day. I don't know if you saw
Baigs WrestleMania on nes He was describing to someone what
Bam Bam Biggel looked like, and he used our video
to show him. That's what I want this to be.
And I think that's what it's going to be. It's
going to live forever. If you want to go back
and listen to a Fire Pro Wrestling search it, it'll
be there. So the final four before we put a
(05:40):
bow on this obviously today SmackDown versus around twenty eleven,
two weeks, we're going to play w W two K fifteen,
then Fire Pro Wrestling Combination Tag, then WWE thirteen, and
the final episode. We said said from day one, we
said it was either the final episode or we were
(06:02):
never gonna do it. But we'll be playing WWF No Mercy,
so that takes us to July. So we're not going
anywhere just yet. I know it sounds like, oh, four
more episodes. That's kind of scary. How that's only eight
weeks away July already.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
But yeah, yes, but I will say this and this
will be a cheap, cheap plug for john when the
podcast ends. Still plenty of Johnny Clash content out there.
Could go and check out his his YouTube channel, YouTube
dot com Slash Johnny, is it Johnny f and Clash,
Johnny Clash, just Johnny.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
When I was able to claim, oh, that's.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Great, he just started his own w w E two
K twenty five universe mode called Monday Monday melt Down.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Then they melt Down Clash too Wrestling and listen if
you were a fan of GMP twenty four. I use
the same music. It's it's kind of the clone in
my own little world. So it's gonna keep going.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Maybe we'll get be a theme that he used, and
it was. It may be the one of the best
AI generated theme songs I've heard. It's that's up there
with the Orton theme.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I think I'm gonna post them too, like on the YouTube.
I have completely switched my YouTube over to be primarily
WW two K content, so check it out. I'll be
on twitch we're gonna try to get George backstreaming at
some point and hanging and whatever. So this is not
gonna be the last you see of him either. And hey,
you guys know where to find It's the discord is
going to stay forever. If you want in, just send
(07:34):
us a message. We'll drop you the link. We keep
it private because we have a tight knit group there.
We all love each other and we just want to
keep it to the people we know and love. But
if we know and love you and you want to
get in there, get on in there. Let us know.
We'll put you in there. We're not gonna get into
the sappy ship.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
We're not gonna be Thanks.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
To all the sponsors, Thank everybody.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Thank you, Matt Cardona, thank you.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
We'll save all that for the for the No Mercy episode.
We'll say that for then, if even, and we're gonna
no business as usual until then. We're gonna have fun.
We're gonna make this the best it is. I mean,
you've probably already seen. Our social media presence has been
less and less as of late because it just takes
so much time to do that stuff, and other stuff
takes priority. But here we are SmackDown versus twenty eleven.
(08:21):
I think without further ado, we're gonna get into. We're
gonna we're gonna keep the ball rolling here.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Let's do it. You ready to put on those nostalgia
goggles and take the deep dive? Doown?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah, I'm gonna need a new pair soon. I'll sign
them for you.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
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Mad Cat makes a happy beard. All right. Here we go,
(09:42):
wwe SmackDown Versus Raw twenty eleven, released October twenty six,
twenty ten. It is available on the PlayStation two, the
PlayStation three, the PSP, the Xbox three sixty, and the
Nintendo DS. Developed by Yukes, published by THQ, and other
wrestling games in twenty ten, You've Got Tna Impact, Crossed
(10:05):
the Line and Luca Lebra Triple A Worldwide. Now something
to note about WWE SmackDown Versus Raw twenty eleven. This
is the seventh and final game to be released under
the SmackDown Verse Raw series, and this game was first
announced alongside WWE All Stars, which is available in the
(10:29):
archives one of the earlier episodes of this podcast at
E three in June of twenty ten, the announced what
was made by THHQ, and a playable demo was featured
at E three with Randy Orton, The Undertaker, Chris Jericho,
and the Mizz as the playable characters.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I think I'm actually looking at the DS version now
and oh my goodness, it looks god awful and I
know there are people out there that'll be like, what
it was?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Great?
Speaker 3 (10:56):
We love it, but yeah it's a little rough around
the but I'm glad we got it. Just like the
TNA game that came out that is one of my
absolute favorites when it probably shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Well, we touched on the PSP versions, and I guess
we can say the same thing about the the DS versions.
It's they're under the same title, but they're their own,
Like they're in the same title, but they have extra
or different game types or features or rosters, like there's
something that makes each of those games unique for the
(11:29):
consoles that they were on, apart from the main Gen consoles.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah, I'm actually looking here. Apparently with that announcement, everyone
kind of got hype that there's gonna be some new upgrades,
new features, new physics, a lot of new physics in
this version compared to the rest. But the previous Gen
like the PS two, the WEE three sixty and the
PSP version, didn't get that. And I think people feel
kind of like cheated and jipped because they never actually
(11:55):
said that that was a thing that they weren't going
to get it. But let's, uh, let's get into those.
Because there are new physics, it makes the matches a
little more realistic. I had kind of noticed that there's
less flopping around in these.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah, I mean, obviously the animations for like when you
fall off the cell are still big and over the top.
But the one that stood out to me and the
one that I was looking for, was that, right. It
was like that spiky pedigree animation.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Yeah, and then it's like later on, I think, where
you just get like a million pedigree animations. It was
pretty cool though that there was some stuff even in
the hell to cell off the cage like it. They
just made it a little more realistic rather than as arcadie,
and I think that led to where we're going today
because meaning today today, because once you get twelve and thirteen,
(12:42):
they get a little even more realistic where they still
have those tones of SmackDown, but by the time two
K fifteen comes out, you are full on simulation pretty much.
There's none of that hokiness of flopping off the cell
and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I'm just thinking now, remember remember that the old stunner
animation were regardless of who did it, everyone did the
rock like backflip.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah. Sometimes you know headstains who can't do that. You
need a Scott Hall once in a while. Tables now
break differently based on impact, which is cool because sometimes
you would just kind of grip the edge and you
would get slammed through right down the middle, and that
doesn't always work. Ladders can rest on ring ropes and
break in half. I loved this feature for the money
(13:23):
in the Bank matches. I think they took this from
when Shelton Benjamin did it in a real life match yep.
But the best part of it was you could whip
your opponent into the ladder and they would just run
off and flop out of the ring.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Do you know I find myself still trying to do
that in my current gas. I'm like, how come I
can't do that. I'm like, oh yeah, because that was
like fifteen years ago that that did. You were able
to do that in a game yep.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Chairs can be thrown at your opponents, which is something
that came back this year too, So that's kind of
cool that it's back here and then it's back in
real life in two K twenty five. While we're talking
about that, there were some different animation also for the
chairs and the weapons, where instead of just kind of
slamming them on your opponent when they're on the ground,
you sit on them and RVD them. Everybody's RVD in this,
(14:09):
everyone's doing that. Everyone's RVD. Hell on the cell matches
where we vamped. You now have the bigger cell with
the expanded walls. Weapons are now under the ring. The
steel steps are near the poles on the opposite sides.
There's no cell door. You have to use your OMG
or it wasn't called OMG yet, it was just your signature.
It was just sell signature. Cell finisher. You have to
(14:32):
go to the bottom right. You bust out new ways
to exit, like smashing through the cage. Well, yeah, we
just talked about that. And of course climbing up is
the same as it's been where you just climb straight up.
Now you have to stop for some reason, you have
to go up again. It's like, can we just go
back to this where no one wants to stop in
the middle.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, I think they We've talked about this. I think
they do the stop in the middle in case you have,
like someone laid up on the table, you could do
the half elbow off the cage.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, I mean either way, I think it was still
pretty cool. And it's a match that we play a lot,
so yes, now there were a lot of guys I
remember being in here, but I'm thinking of I think
twenty ten. So as we were playing it, I was like, hmm,
I don't see Jeff Hardy. But then I realized he
was taken out of this one. I think he might
(15:23):
have returned to TNA this year and they pulled him
last second. Oh, let's talk about the game modes here,
because Universe Mode has replaced career mode finally from the
previous games. One thing we noticed when playing, and I
kind of remember this from back in the day, Universe
Mode is everywhere. Whether you're on the home screen, all
(15:44):
you have to do is press the right thumpstick. You're
going into your universe. If you're on a load screen,
it'll say like Backlash four weeks away. Everything is centered
around your universe, and rightfully so it was cool. It
was very uh, I guess crucial to some people playing
this game for the career mode rather than the road
to WrestleMania's and that's something still today that's very prevalent
(16:06):
in the world. I mean, I'm using it more than
anything right now. I'm doing Universe Mode more than Myra's
and whatnot. So there is a point to it. There's
the cut scenes you could do, it's your sandbox. You
can do anything you want. You guys kind of already
know that Road to WrestleMania. We talked about this with
Justin Leeper. We mentioned it two weeks ago twenty ten episode.
Go check out the Justin Leeper interview if you want
(16:28):
to catch up on what he did and his involvement
in these games. But Roads to WrestleMania has been modified.
There's now more backstage roaming, miniquests and further interactions with superstars.
Your storylines are Chris Jericho, Raymasterio, John Cena, Christian and
the Undertaker. Now you have to try to beat the
Undertaker's streak with Kofe, Morrison Ziggler or Our Truth. I
(16:53):
remember doing this with Kofe.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I definitely remember this as well, so maybe we're We
talked about this in the playthroom. We touched on it
last episode. One of the SmackDown Verse Raw games was
one of the games that brought us back. It may
be this one. It maybe twenty ten, it might even
be eight to Row nine. But the more that we
(17:17):
talked about this game, the more that we played the game,
I was just like, I do think that I may
have already been back by the time that this game
came out, so maybe it is one of the earlier games.
Maybe it is a way to Row nine.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I think ten was the one where I came back.
But I definitely remember playing this with Kofe because I
remember going to the Undertaker select screen and then it
brought you to a character select for Kofe, Marson, Ziggler, Truth,
and I was like, oh, I guess I have to
beat it with all of them. I didn't think that
it was just like a one and done and I
did it with Kofe and I was like, all right,
let me now do it with Morrison and it was
(17:53):
the same thing. I was like, damn it. Maybe I
wouldn't have pick Kofe the first time if that was
the case. And I remember planning to do it with
all of them and I did not, But I remember
these storylines being really cool. Road to WrestleMania was always
one of our favorites, always well put together. And I
guess we now have Showcase Mode, which is kind I
guess in the same realm, but it's kind of like both.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
It's like it's almost like the My Rise and if
you if you combined elements of My Rise and Showcase Mode.
That's kind of like what Road to WrestleMania was, because
there was certain elements of Roads WrestleMania storylines that were,
you know, accurate to the history of things that were
happening in WWE. But every now and then, or like
(18:36):
sprinkled throughout, you would get those like crazy backstage segments
where like you know, horn Swoggle is doing something backstage
or you're having like a crazy interaction with another restaurant.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Under the table. But yeah, they were pretty cool, very
well done. I would like to see them back maybe
one day, maybe even alongside Showcase Mode.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I don't know, you're interested in hearing all about our
buddy Hornswoggle in video games. There is a full going
pasta episode about Swaggle in video games, but recover all
of his Creation suite.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Let's talk about that. Create a Superstar now has preloaded
attributes for custom wrestlers, which is very helpful. There's a
Create a finisher which you can now use corner position,
but you can't use it in the Royal Rum because
some of them go out of the ring finish. Your
attributes like speed and trajectory can be fine tuned, so
they really put a lot into like the moves here
(19:32):
and stuff. I think this is the one where I
made like a crazy like outsider's edge flipping type X
factor thing. Oh yeah, it was pretty cool. And like
I said during the playthrough, I used a lot of
the like st os and like the quick moves because
everybody online were such little bitches that you needed either
that quick Goldberg sidekick or a spear or the STO
(19:54):
or something you had just like had to keep people down.
It was crazy. These games was nuts.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Talked about the crazy finishers that you were able to
make in these games, and it was just I feel
like you just got more baseline animations that just let
you do more sequences where it could be like you know,
you would start would like slowly ramp up and like
all right European uppercut into a kick to the gut
(20:21):
into a super kick into a superkick.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
And it was super kid into a four fifty and
it was always a motherfucker. We could cut that if
you want with like Goku hair and like flaming pants,
Like nobody knew how to create a real looking wrestler.
And that always bothered me because I think.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
If you're going for like the cheesiest move set you
want to have the most ridiculous looking character. Nope.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
It just always annoyed me. It always annoyed me that
nobody made like a wrestler in just like tights and
like a nice haircut. I don't know, maybe that's like
the designer. I mean that, No, I think that's the
wrestler in here, or that yeah, or that no, Shindy's here.
In smack Down Versus twenty eleven, story designer has been
improved with new cut scenes, usable sounds like the announcers
(21:05):
and entrance music, up to fifteen created superstars, branching storylines,
the ability to include championship belts and cutscenes, and event
triggers based on wrestler's state, like if they're injured or whatnot.
So they really revamped that. That was cool. Something we
mentioned in twenty ten. I put a lot of time
into before the game crash, and I was never able
to actually go on a date with Mickey James. But
(21:28):
who knows, maybe I continued it in twenty eleven. I
don't know. Let's talk about the match types here, they're
very very similar from twenty ten. I think it's just
kind of revamps here. Yeah, I feel like around these state.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Sometimes you're getting a lot of the same match types,
but there are, like you touched on earlier, there are
new revamps of sorts to all of these, or not
all to some of the match types, So you're getting
a revitalized hell in a cell. There's a different version
of the backstage areas you're getting. I mean, we've talked
(22:03):
about before. I don't think we've played many of them
on the podcast, but inferno matches sometimes it's in the game.
I feel like inferno and casket matches are either like
they almost are interchangeable. Like if you're getting one, you're
probably not getting the other. It's a rare occasion that
you get both. Yeah, what's your preference? If you could
put one in the game, would you pick infernal match?
We would you pick casket match?
Speaker 3 (22:25):
M I feel like we haven't had a good casket
match up until this year. I think I like SmackDown
twos and how bad it was, I think I would
go casket dir.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, we did one of those. We did did like
Mark Henry versus The Big Show or something.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Yeah, where it was up on the stage. Yeah, like
the one where Undertaker's hand comes out and all that. Yeah, yeah,
I would probably go casket match. That was never a
big Inferno match fan. We should bring it back though,
we need we needed back in modern television. But we
do have your normal Match, your Infernal Match, First Blood,
Hell in a Cell, Ironman Ladder, Last Man Standing, Steelcage, Submission,
(23:08):
Table Match, TLC, the new backstage areas, which include the
GM's office, two locker rooms, a larger locker room, an
interview area, catering, and the parking lot. Your Extreme Rules Match,
your Elimination Chamber, Money in the Bank Championship Scramble, which
was new in last year's game, and your Royal Rumble
with ten, twenty and thirty participants, and of course your
(23:29):
Match Creator, which is where you could find I think
a lot of the matches that aren't included you could
find in Match Creator some of the basics. So that's
pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
All right, Well, let's do this, John, Let's take a
quick break, and when we come back, we're going to
get into this roster. We got to read this roster.
We gotta get through this roster. It's a big roster.
(24:00):
But we've done fire Pro games in the past. Ye
double the amount of wrestlers, So I will kick us off.
Here with raw you have Battista, Chris Jarco, Davey Hart Smith, Edge,
Evan Born, Zekiel Jackson, gold Dust, John Cina, John Morrison, Mark, Henry,
the Miz, Primo, Randy Orton, Our truth Santino, Morella, Sewn, Michaels, Seamus,
(24:24):
Ted Dibiasi Junior, Triple h Tyson, Kid, Vladimir Koslov, Williamrigo,
Yoshi Tatsu, Zach Ryder, Alisha Fox, Briebella Eve, Gail Kim, Maurice, Malina,
Natalia and Nikki Bella bck down Ross.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
You have the Big Show, Chavo Guerrero, Christian Seampunk, Cody Rhoads,
Dolf Ziggler, Drew McIntyre, Jack Swagger, jtg Kin, Kofi Kingston,
Luke Gallows, Mike Knox, MVP Ray Mystereo, Shad Gaspard, Chonain,
Benjamin Undertaker, Vance Archer, Beth Phoenix, Kelly Kelly, Michelle McCool.
(24:59):
I'll just keep going here of your for miscellaneous, your
Druids Finley, Matt Hardy, mister McMahon, Rob Van Dam and
Mickey James, those all have no brand classification.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And then under Legends you have Jake Roberts, Jimmy Snook,
Ricky Steamboat, the rock Stone Cold, Steve Austin and Terry Funk.
Your managers are Hornswoggle and Paul Beher And then under
NPCs you've got the Hurricane, Jerry Lawler, Justin Roberts, Michael
Cole Referees, three different security guards, Stephanie McMahon, the Ebyone Long,
(25:34):
Tiffany Todd Grisham, Tony Chimmel and the WWE Doctor Who.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
And you have DLC here which is your Wave one
was Chris Masters. Your Wave two was the British Bulldog,
David O'tunga, Justin Gabriel Layla, Lex Luger and Wade Barrett.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
All right, you're ready to dive into this artwork because
there are multiple covers that we got to talk about.
Obviously a lot of them. The main cover, you've got
the SmackDown versus Raw Logo, You've got John Cena, the
Big Show and the Mizz This is uh an iconic
wrestling cover for sure. This is where we're in that generation,
(26:17):
that era of wrestling covers where all of them kind
of feel like they could be posters.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Oh yeah, and they're so like nicely done with like
the nice lighting and it's not just like the smackdowns
like I remember.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
For like some of the pre orders, you would see
them as posters and I remember, uh, like back in
the day you would see backstage segments and they would
have the poster on the wall, like in the background
of whatever the newest game was.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
I like the WrestleMania in the background. I think that's
pretty cool. Yeah, that is really cool. It's a good cover, man,
It's there's a lot. So do you wanna do you
want to talk about the other variations of the cover
before we talk about the back cover? Well, it's the
back cover's quick, so we could just kind of brushed
through it. It says what's included the game, the new
physics and all that. A big picture of John Cena
(27:06):
doing an attitude adjustment off of a ladder, the Undertaker
slamming Randy Orton through the top of the cell, and
I think that's another one of Orton with Jack Swagger
going through a table with an ARCAO.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Oh I thought it was un prettier. Oh yeah, you
might be right.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Yeah that is a bald man. Randy Orton was bald
back then. But yeah, these new covers there's a European,
there's a Mexican and Canadian cover, and they all are
within the same realm as the regular cover. They just
have different superstars. The European has Orton, Seamus and the Undertaker.
The Mexican one has Mysterial front and center, which is
(27:45):
I think this one might be my favorite. Actually it is. Yeah,
that's an Undertaker and Triple H. And the Canadian one
has Brett Hart with a big Canadian flag with edge
and Canadian legend the Undertaker. Okay, cool, but I think
these are my favorite. We talked about these early on
in the podcast, and that's the alternative versions, the Viper Edition,
(28:06):
Lord of Darkness Edition and the hit Man Edition where
there's variant covers of Randy Or and the Undertaker and
Brett Hart. These are only Pal regions, that's the only
place you can get it. They come with exclusive in
game content, an art book, and a DVD relating to
each wrestler, So you would get Bret Hart as a
(28:27):
playable character, which he is the DLC you get for
pre ordering anyway. In this game, the Undertaker's Ministry of
Darkness attire and three outfits for Orton and the Tribute
to the Troops arena, which is always one of my
favorite arenas. It was always kind of like, oh, we
can go outside, now, that's cool. I like it, we
can go outside.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I like any of the backstage areas that had I
guess you could say twenty five has it where there's
multiple backstage areas here. It's like the parking lot and
the archive and like the general normal backstage area that
(29:08):
we used to But I mean for a long time,
for a couple of years, you were just getting that
one main backstage area which had three different sections, but
it was you know, always that one long stretching piece
of like arena. But I also was a big fan
of these because you could do inside stuff, you could
do outside stuff. You have opportunities to fight. I mean
(29:30):
it's hard the top WWF New York and fighting at
all times square but.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Cars going by, I think you can get in cars too,
right and run people over.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, either. And then there was other other games where
you can like get in a forklift and like drive
on the forklift.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I don't think you could do much of it, but
you can get in it.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
No, it was just it was just one of those
things where it was just we could put it in
a game, So why don't we.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Put it in a game and let's do it. We
did it in Forza or whatever the hell THHQ did,
so let's just use it and do it. Yeah, let's
talk about these graphics here, because I think they were
pretty cool. Everything looked I mean, it looked pretty awesome.
Everything was very realistic. And the depth of the crowd,
you know, it had the dark lighting over there, and
we say when that happens, usually it's a pretty good
(30:14):
looking crowd. And now our play, fortunately was on PS two,
so things weren't spectacular, but even not bad, it was
still not bad. Now fortunately the PSP and the DS
they kind of got done a little dirty. It wasn't
that great.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
It's a different it's a different kind of experience on
those consoles.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
But I think it's cool because, like it hasn't been
that long at this point that WW is just throwing
LEDs on absolutely everything possible that they can. But even
like the giant WW logo that was randomly on the
stage with the big lights, like everything just looks bright
and it looks realistic. I think the wrestlers look decent
(30:57):
for the time.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah, everyone kind of has that like waxy plastic. Everyone
kind of has like the body of an action figure. Yeah,
they're not like hyper realistic, but you know who they are.
Like we're not twenty five yet. Yeah, the likeness is
really good. But textures and some shading, we'll see it
(31:22):
in a manner of like a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
How we're also in the era where belts just wrapped
around the person whoever they were and like stretched, where
I kind of prefer compared to now where they're just
like hovering massively over the person.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, where they clip from jackets and stuff.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yeah, how is that something we've never fixed? How is
that still? You get a modified HUD this game, which
is just a meter underneath you. You don't have the
body meter or anything. It's just a meter that when
you hit a certain point you get your special. The
meter can go down too, which is kind of crazy,
and you could lose special that way. Once you hit
(32:01):
the special, you have a certain amount of time to
hit your finisher. When the HUD is flashing, it's just
a little bar underneath you. That's it turns from blue,
turns the red and flashes when you have a finisher.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
It goes away during the cut scenes. You don't have
to bother with it, you don't see it. There is
some weird targeting stuff we turned off, like it says
you're the target's name above your head on default, which
is kind of stupid, and I think that I.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
May have turned that on that maybe, Uh well, either way,
turn me on things. So I thought it was going
to be the Remember back in the day, you'd walk around,
you'd have like the little circle ondo you with you. Oh,
that's what I thought it was going to be. And
it's said it's just the name of I get that
too focused on.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Yeah, well, either way, it's designed, eh, kind of poorly,
but I think everything else looked really good. The animations
of the moves are really good. We said it in
twenty ten. A lot of some of the animations are
still being used today, which is kind of crazy that
that's the thing. Yeah, very long time later, fifteen years later.
But yeah, I mean, the.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
One thing that we did say was the huge tel
on the on the PlayStation two. I mean, obviously everything
on the on the PS three and the Xbox V
sixty looks super crisp and super clean, and for the
most part, presentation on the PS two is not bad.
The one big tell was the crowd. Yeah, you can
tell a huge difference. But like the wrestler models are
(33:18):
not bad, They're not terrible.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
No, man, no, it was only up from here. But
did you know? Did you know this is the only
game in the SmackDown vers Arrow series that does not
have a licensed soundtrack and would be the last WWB
game not to have one until two K fifteen.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Did you know this is the last game to feature
Batista and Sean Michaels as non legends or unlockables until
much later titles. Did you know?
Speaker 3 (33:54):
This game is on eBay from twelve dollars to twenty
three dollars US. I could not fine a brand new copy.
I don't think many would have a graded copy of this,
So that's pretty much what we're working with here. Twelve
to twenty three dollars. Not bad, not bad. Now. We
said before the pre order was Bret Hart DLC. Now,
(34:20):
pre orders in DLC was rough back then. It's not
like how it is now. Like you get the.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
World now, yeah it was.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
You don't get physical stuff now, like the scene Enough
edition we talked about, but you get a lot in
the game. Like even the other day, I was playing
twenty five and I was like, oh, do I have
a version of Sean Michaels unlocked? And then I realized
I bought the dead Man Edition and I had four
and I was like, Okay, yeah, everybody's unlocked. We're good.
But not only do you get Brett Hart DLC, but
(34:47):
if you pre order, you get a twenty dollars voucher
for Survivor Series TLC. Yeah, Survivor series or the TLC
pay per view, which we're in November and December, the
two months after this game comes out. So if you
get this game for Christmas, well, I guess it's pre order,
so that doesn't matter. But I don't know. You still
(35:08):
have to pay like forty bucks for the pay per view.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yeah, I mean that it's just like an extra little thing,
I guess, But I mean back save money where you
can try to get there. I mean, if you're buying
one every month.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I guess I'd rather catch out or something.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
This is this is pre pre network, pre Netflix, pre Peacock,
whatever you're streaming it on. So this is you know,
you're actively buying a pay per view every single month.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
This might be like DVD Netflix. I don't remember when
that came out. Huh yeah, I don't know. But with that,
let's go to the scores. Let's time, let's time. Yeah,
that's that makes sense, Johnny. Let's sit back, let's relax.
Some R and R, some ratings and reviews. I'm not
going to read. I'm only going to read the next gin.
(35:59):
How about that?
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Sure we're gonna read.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
PS three and three sixty. Yeah, that's fine, okay. Game
Informer gives the PS three an eight out of ten
and the three sixty and eight out of ten Game
Revolution with a B plus for both. Game Spot with
a seven out of ten for both. Game Trailers only
rated three sixty with a seven out of ten. Game
Zone with a four and a half out of ten.
Game Zone is always the wackest one, and I still
(36:23):
don't know exactly what it is. Giant Bomb gives a
two out of five stars for the three sixty IGN
with an eight out of ten for both. They still
give eight out of tens to all WWN. When is
it gonna ever go up? Did they set the bar
at eight here and they're like, oh, well, we can't
go up from here ever? Like if you're gonna give
(36:45):
last year's two K twenty four and eight and this
year's an improvement, wouldn't it be a nine or at
least an eight and a half. Whatever, that's a rant
for another day. Nintendo Power I'll read this one gives
the wei version a seven point five out of ten,
Xbox Magazine with a six and a half out of ten,
PlayStation Magazine with a six out of ten, the Daily
(37:06):
Telegraph seven out of ten, and finally The Guardian with
a four out of five stars for the three sixty.
So it ranges from pretty damn good to pretty damn mediocre,
depends on who you want to believe.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
But hey, yeah, this wasn't a situation of John not
wanting to read more reviews for the review scores anything
that wasn't an aggregate score. Most of the publications did not,
aside from one rated the PS two version, and no
(37:38):
one rated the PSP version.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
So but it does have a sixty two percent on Metacritics.
Song Yeah so no DS on here either.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah, not a The other versions, aside from the PS
three and the Xbox three sixty were not widely reviewed.
I mean there's only five, including the aggregate scores for
the wee. Yeah, very very interesting, but hey, that's everyone
else's ratings, john And is now time for the very
(38:07):
special segment of the podcast where we offer up our ratings.
It is time to rate the game, all right, Johnny,
Clash SmackDown verses are all twenty eleven. Will you play
(38:32):
it forever or future endeavor?
Speaker 3 (38:45):
This is a tough one because I didn't remember it
coming in, but I remembered more as we were playing
through it. I remembered the really cool character select screen
that was old school Mortal Kombat style. I remember playing
a Seaham Punk a lot with the big Beard like.
There was stuff that definitely came back to me. I
do think it's a good upgrade from twenty ten, and
(39:09):
I'm just trying to think if, like it's something I
would ever go back to. Like, if you say, do
you want to play a SmackDown versus Raw, I'm probably
gonna go six or seven or ten. I don't know
if this is the one that would make the cut.
The roster is kind of lackluster. It's nothing crazy. I
don't think the roster at this time was anything too great.
(39:29):
I think I was a little bit one foot out
the door and wrestling here at the time. So I'm
gonna say future endeavor. I had fun playing it today,
but I don't think it's something I'm really gonna care about.
To be honest, all right, good game.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
But I'm like kind of right there with you. Man.
It's like on the line for me of is it
is it great? And I want to go back and
keep playing it, or like you said, is it good?
But there's other versions of SmackDown versus Raw that I
would go and play. I don't know. I think I'm,
(40:09):
I think, i'm, I think i'm. We're gonna split the
difference here. You're gonna give it the future endeavor. I'll
give it to play it forever. And because it's not
a bad game. No, it's a tough future endeavor. It's
just it's there's there's features that are here that we
then will see, you know, the changes that they make
here will continue out throughout the series and influence other
(40:31):
generations of the game. So for that, I will give
it a play it forever.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
If you ask me tomorrow, I might even say future
I mean play So who knows, Well, this one's a.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Tough one maybe and follow up next week or the
next episode. We could we could figure that out, all right,
So as always, guys, let us know on social media
at Game Marx Pod what you thought of WWE SmackDown
versus Raw twenty eleven. But with that genre, you.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Ready to get into this weeks soft Let's do it
all right?
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Soft Luck is a segment where one of our mega
marks in our discord gives us a question to answer
a topic to debate. It is a question of the
week with a fancy name. This week question comes from.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
Soups Little Soups for Cats.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Soups would like to know games are going up to
one hundred dollars again. Do you think that we will
see the bubble burst or will this just be the
new norm?
Speaker 3 (41:47):
I have thoughts. I think we're seeing more and more
of games be sold at the price, at different prices. Yeah,
and I think gonna be the new normal. I think,
like GTA, it's gonna last for the next ten to
fifteen years. Probably it could be more than one hundred
(42:08):
bucks and people are gonna pay it. But then there's
gonna be like the smaller games on Steam that might
be like twenty thirty bucks, forty fifty bucks. So I
think there's gonna be be a place for a price
for every game, But I don't think there's gonna be
a normal everything's gonna be one hundred dollars. Maybe when
it comes to like I think the yearly releases, the
(42:31):
Maddens and all that are gonna stay consistent and all
the same, whereas maybe Death Stranding too is gonna be
ninety bucks compared to sixty for the first game, because
that's what went into it, and it's gonna be the
game you're gonna play for a couple of years.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
So it's it's always hard. When you answered the soft
lock question and then I basically have the same answer,
which but I agree with you. It's you you hit
the nail on the head. It is. We are in
an generation of gaming where there is arrange, there are
so many different outlets to get video games. Do I
(43:11):
love the fact that video games, certain games are going
to be one hundred dollars, No, that's it's a lot
of money for a game, but.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
It's gotta be worth it.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah, I agree. But at the same time, there are
still games like John said, and I agree that there's
gonna be games on Steam that you can go and
play that will be less than that. I'm sure certain titles.
You know, maybe maybe it's not the new norm for
every title, but I'm I'm optimistic that it may not
(43:44):
be every title, and this may may come back to
bite to bite us. Maybe this is the new norm,
but I'm I'm curious to see what the future holds
and what will what will happened with high ticketed games,
because it just seems like it may not be something
(44:05):
that's super sustainable.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Yeah, Like I'm not paying one hundred bucks for Powerwash
Stimulator too, whereas Split Fiction was fifty bucks and two
people can play it on one account, and I feel
like that's one hundred That game's worth a hundred bucks
and great.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Certain titles you got should play it with certain titles.
I mean, we've done it a lot on the podcast.
It's basically how we did all of GMP twenty four.
You do have the option for certain titles on Steam
to do remote play, so that's true too. You could
do a situation. Do I think that every title offer that, No,
but it is an option. There are certain situations where
(44:42):
you could do stuff like that, and that's always a
worthwhile experience in the sense of it allows you to
do stuff that you may otherwise not if if you
don't want to play online versus modes, but you want
to play a wrestling game or another game. It allows
you to do it locally with someone remote play on Steam.
(45:02):
Is he's worth it?
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yeah, we have other ways if you want to hit
us up.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
I mean I think by now we've talked about Parsaki
several times on the show.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
I use it every single day in my life. Yeah,
thanks a little soups.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Thank you soups for that question, and of course let
us know in all forms of social media at game
Marks Pod, what do you think about the current state
of video game prices and what the future may hold.
But John, we talked about it a little earlier in
the episode. Give the folks a reminder what we are playing.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Next episode of the podcast will be playing WW two
K fifteen, the first two K game, So well, wait
fourteen was the first one. Never mind the second two
K game. Don't mind me that one's going to be fun.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
John Cena is on the cover.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Oh you know what, I forgot to freakin mention in
the beginning of the episode when we were when we
were gloating about Johnny Clash over here. I'm an official
WWE Shop partner now, oh yeah, dude, So if you
use my link go find it on social media to
buy anything in the WWE Shop, it has to be
my link. I'll I'll get a little kickback. So I'm
officially partnered by WWE. So go check it out, Go
(46:17):
buy your Penta mask and your cmpunk shirts and think
about go to old Johnny over here.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
There you go, all right, guys. As always, you can
watch all of the video content that John and I
are making over on our YouTube channel YouTube, dot Com,
Slash Game, Marx Pod. We have a little merchandise store.
It is pod Exchange PO d X C H A
n g E dot shop. It is exclusive merchandise for
this podcast, coming postal and all things pod Exchange, Pro Wrestling,
(46:46):
Teas dot Com, Slash Game, Marx Pod for our shirt
designs and of course at game marks Pod on all
forms of social media, and as always helps this out,
please make sure to like, comment, subscribe ring that notification
bell that was that was a loud one and it
was crisp and clear and super close to the mic.
(47:07):
That was that maybe one of the best ones, Top
five that You've ever done? Top five but hey, as
always Johnny Clash, another week, another episode, another game, Whenever
you're ready served do that thing.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Game over Marx.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
Game Marks Podcast, put them on the radar, play a
rare game, Second Saturn, No game Shot. Johnny and George
work hard and they play hard future endevo games and
put them in the graveyard from the deep dives in
the clash in the face. I cannot give more to
ask questions of the week, follow one Twitch. There's nothing
(47:47):
that they won't play game Marks Podcast every single Monday.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
The Bali coupl
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