What they need to do is bring back the story mode from the very first Smackdown game, where there would be a "story" that would run it's course between different wrestlers mirroring their real life antics, and after that, the game would simply run on and create it's own story, using whomever and whatever available. You could set up championship matches by having jobbers win, thus propelling them to awesomeness due to the way the engine worked (scrubs sucked, until they started winning, then their ai would become better and they would win more. On the reverse, even superstars could become scrubs by losing too often).
It was so random and totally open to be worked by the player it was brilliant, and it never happened again, of course.

JUSTIN, READ THIS AND DO IT, AND MAYBE YOU WILL GET AN OLD FAN BACK IN THE SADDLE

Justin- you have to see the movie Heckler. It's probably Jamie Kennedy's best movie: mostly because I really can't tell if he's serious or not.

There's nothing wrong with tearing apart a game, especially if you're trying to warn readers off a vastly overrated/overhyped title. It is good to be specific on what should be changed.

I played Smackdown at a friends house. It's good. I'm not about to run out and get it, but for a wrestling game, I didn't completely lose interest.

Well-written article. I enjoyed it very much.

And, uh, well, yeah.

An excellent article, and sentiments I totally agree with. As journalists we do need to realise we're essentially on the same side.

That was a very good and interesting article, it's nice to know that not all developers are like Cliffy B.

Interesting article; well-written. It certainly lets you know that not ALL game developers are lifeless cyborgs attempting to brain-wash us with mediocre games. ;D

And congratulations and your successful game! :)

This is one of the most interesting perspectives I've gleaned from the pages of the escapist. Kudos!

Ha, very interesting story! Especially since right yesterday, on this very site, I saw a reviewer who shall go unnamed say that a game's story was "so disjointed, that by the end I didn't know anything about any of the characters, other than I wanted them all to die". But, of course, those caustic reviewers aren't unaware of the many conflicting forces in creating a videogame. It's just that large, shizofrenic teams are hard to visualize, so we tend to metally create a single developer persona who has single-handed decided and made everything on the game. And then, it's fun to tear that stupid developer apart.

The only game I cared enough about to follow a developer blog and stuff was Saint's Row 2, and maybe I'm being naively manipulated by skillful PR artists, but I felt like they were really in love with their game, in the way described in the article. Considering what a toll crunch time is on the developers, you must end up falling in love with the games you make... or hating them, if they didn't came out as you had envisoned, I guess.

In a way, a scathing review doesn't complain about the bad game itself, but the bad system that churns it out. The execs who want nothing but a blank disk that somehow sells and doesn't offend anyone are the main figurehead of this system.

Would it really be unadvisable to accept a proposition made by a girl coming out from a clinic?

Presumebly that would indicate that she just gor a cleen bill of health.

Thank you for the read. This article was very informative and I think will help me review games better. Thank you for that.

Good read. Only thing I really hated about SvR '09 was that I couldn't bring my created character through the story mode. All they had was some lame excuse for char stat building which was the most boring thing I have ever played.

Interesting hearing from the developer side for once. I've also always wondered what its like for those working on movie games. Do they KNOW they're making something bad and unfinished, or do they hold on hope that they might still get good reviews?