I absolutely refuse to start this preview with a Rockism. It would be so darn easy to do, especially with a game titled WWF SmackDown!, but I've seen way too many wrestling game previews asking if you smell it, so there will be no Rockisms. At least in this paragraph, anyway.

At any rate, the WWF is back on the PlayStation with SmackDown! Considering the commercial and critical success that was WWF Wrestlemania 2000 on the Nintendo 64, THQ has some large expectations to live up to with their first PlayStation WWF game, and some bad memories to erase from their much-maligned WCW Nitro and Thunder games.

Right off the bat, SmackDown! is impressive with its large number of features. The game offers a season mode, a custom pay-per-view mode, a character editor, and a ton of exhibition matches including singles, tag team, handicap, cage, battle royale, Royal Rumble and many more. The character roster is pretty decent also, with virtually all the WWF's key names, from Austin, Mankind and Rocky Maivia right down to the Dudley Boyz and Shane McMahon. Some of the lower-card stars that made it in Wrestlemania 2000 are absent though, such as Prince Albert, Meat and Mideon (sorry, Phineas Godwinn fans).

The game looks pretty good. Faces and textures are nice, and there's no break-up, although they have a fairly small stature (no bulging muscles or such). The sound is good also, with perfect renditions of character theme songs. However, there's no commentary or wrestler voice clips, which is a huge oversight on a PlayStation game. Wrestler entrances are a tad weak too. As each wrestler's full-screen Titantron video plays, the wrestler comes out in front of it and poses, then walks off-screen. There's no walking down the aisle or in-ring showboating.

As far as how it plays, well, let's say that SmackDown! doesn't quite match up to the fun or playability of Wrestlemania 2000, but it's not bad either. There's no grapple button, but instead an action button that will execute a move or hold as long as your opponent is in range. It kind of reminds me of WWF Wrestlemania Challenge on the NES in that regard. The moves vary depending on what direction you're pressing and what position you are relative to your opponent, resulting in a lot of moves to perform. The punch/kick button functions the same way. So the controls are simple enough, but it's not easy to remember how to pull off each move on command.

Customization has been one of the best things about wrestling games lately, so I was eager to try it in SmackDown!, but I found the character editor a bit disappointing. Characters' appearances can only be altered by their head, upper body, lower body, height and weight. On top of that, faces and outfits are mostly just those of the wrestlers in the game. If you liked making a character of your boss in Attitude and then suplexing him out of his boots, well, it ain't gonna happen here. Unless your boss looks just like a fat Triple H or something. However, SmackDown! does have a cool feature where your custom character gains access to new moves based on how well you succeed in season mode, so the edit mode does have its pluses.

So far we've only just touched on the game and experienced a handful of modes, so we'll spend some in-depth time with the game and deliver our verdict next week. For now you can check out our screenshots and the feature list below.

Characters:
Stone Cold Steve Austin
The Undertaker
The Rock
Triple H
Big Show
Mankind
X-Pac
Mr. Ass
Road Dogg
Kane
Chris Jericho
Val Venis
Godfather
D-Lo Brown
Mark Henry
Ken Shamrock
Big Bossman
Al Snow
Hardcore Holly
Steve Blackman
Test
Edge
Christian
Gangrel
Faarooq
Bradshaw
Matt Hardy
Jeff Hardy
Buh Buh Ray Dudley
D-Von Dudley
Vince McMahon
Shane McMahon
Chyna
Tori Debra
Paul Bearer

Exhibition Modes:
Single Match
Tag Match
Handicap (2-on-1) Match
Battle Royale
Royal Rumble
King of the Ring
Hardcore Match
Falls Count Anywhere
Cage Match
3-Way Dance
4-Way Dance
Special Referee
I Quit

Made it this far? Rev. Smith has a few cents to add.

I share Mr. Hoffman's distaste for catchphrase abuse, but freelance contributor Steve Thomason would be heartbroken if this preview didn't have at least one Rocky reference. So, riechen Sie, was der Geistliche kocht?

If that makes no sense, I'm sorry, Mom.

So, anyway, I like professional wrestling. Is there a problem?

Well, actually, there probably isn't. Given that the WWF's produced two best-selling books, a top-rated TV show, David Letterman appearances, and a stack of TV Guide covers, one can say that these days without fear of derisive Mushnickian reprisals. In the realm of videogames, at any rate, wrestling is certainly not a dirty word - it's become synonymous with big, big money. Acclaim's Warzone and Attitude dominated the sales charts, and THQ's first WWF-licensed game, Wrestlemania 2000, remains a massive hit.

THQ's PlayStation WWF game, the soon-to-be-released SmackDown!, has the potential to be an even bigger success, and based on my first go with it, it's not just hanging on the coat-tails of its license. I'm not completely happy with some of its features, but even if you're more of a gamer than a wrestling fan, it should be solid enough.

If you happen to be both a serious gamer and a serious wrestling fan, you might have run into Yuke's' Toukon Retsuden franchise before, the series of four New Japan-licensed games for the PlayStation and Dreamcast. SmackDown! is based on an upgraded version of the Toukon Retsuden 3 engine (having played TR3, I can say the graphics are a fair bit better), with a similar control system. If you haven't played TR, it's one of the better systems out there - I still prefer Fire Pro, but you take what you can get in the American market. Unlike Warzone or the Aki VPW engine used in WM2K, it's not built around a grappling system. You don't tie up and then execute a move. Instead, while standing or running or whatever, you use combinations of a single direction and button press to go for a move. Now that I think about it, it's rather like Fire Pro, but the key strategy is proper positioning, rather than precise timing. You have to judge your facing and distance properly, or else you'll miss your attack and be left wide open.

It's the actual wrestling action that Smackdown seems to do best. It has Toukon Retsuden's massive array of moves, plus the WWF superstars' signature moves, and they're all available in the creation system. The controls are easy to get the hang of, big finishing moves are a cinch to pull off, and the advantage in any given match swings back and forth enough that you don't get too frustrated. Here I'm referring to a two-player game, though - perhaps the difficulty level ramps up farther into the Season mode, but so far, the AI opponents are about as alert as Scott Hall on a Sunday morning. They frequently leave themselves wide open for attacks, even standing motionless with their backs to you for extended periods.

Wrestling games have always been built around multiplayer action, though, and in that respect SmackDown! has it a bit more together. The number of game modes is exceptional, and the long list of names seems to represent real variety, rather than an artificial set of permutations (like WWF Attitude). Some of them are a little strange, though - to me, an "I Quit" match means Magnum TA trying to gouge Tully Blanchard's eye out, while in SmackDown!'s context it seems to primarily involve whacking the other guy with a microphone. But then there's also three- and four-way dances, handicap matches, a special ref match (where you can be the referee, if you like), WWF-style cage matches, and that new-fangled favorite, the Hardcore match (read: hitting each other repeatedly with lengths of pipe).

I say it does the wrestling best, however, because there are aspects of SmackDown!'s presentation, its recreation of the WWF, that leave me a little disappointed. I had hoped for more realistic entrances - the FMV is lovely, but have it running on the TitanTron in a 3D set, so I can see the posing and the crowd and the pyro and all the rest of that good stuff (Chris Jericho's entrance has lost a lot of its impact). The lack of color commentary (on the PlayStation?) is a serious lapse. Furthermore, though I recognize that this will always be a problem, the roster is strangely lean and incomplete. There are over thirty wrestlers, yes, but many of my favorites are gone - no Headbangers, no HBK, no Kaientai, no Rikishi, no Too Cool, and not even Too Much. I reserve the right to amend my complaints pending discovery of possible hidden characters (Shawn Michaels has to be in there somewhere), but why are any of the above not immediately selectable, while Debra McMichael is?

Well, perhaps I shouldn't complain - after all, my heroes and saviors, the Hardy Boyz, are in full effect, and I can pit them against the Dudleys all weekend long. True, nobody goes through a flaming table, but I think that would be expecting a bit much from the game.