If you played one WWE game by THQ, you’ve played them all. Most of the controls have changed or evolved but only slightly. With more control with moves that can be changed to go in any directions and the implementation of the struggle submission system, these slight updates are a welcome addition to the WWE SvR series. What you essentially do in the struggle submission system is you instead of using buttons to mash and get out of a submission hold, you use the right analog stick. You are given a meter to fill, and if you fill the meter you escape. Though there are a few tweaks to the gameplay, it doesn’t help the overall experience from becoming the standard cut and past job.
The same goes for match types, rosters and even the storylines for the single player campaign all standard fanfare wrestling games. The only difference with WWE SvR 2011 to it’s past is the integration exhibition mode with something called the “WWE Universe”. It’s essentially a digital version of writing your own feuds and program cards as if you were a General Manager (or a booker) of the WWE matches. You choose who you promote (or push for those familiar with the pro wrestling lingo), who fights with who, and who is champ. If you so desire, the story editor from last year’s game has returned if you want to flesh out your creative side in the wrestling business. The problems with WWE SvR 2011 though make it hard for me to deem it, the best WWE game of all time. Most of the moves were taken out, some of the collision detection is off, and worst of all; some of the random cutscences programed for the WWE Universe are glichty and at times seem out of place. I know it’s suppose to at like WWE TV programming, but I don’t want one of my wrestlers turning heel with a cutscene without my approval. Nor do I like how certain ones kind of cause the game to be in a “block” or cause it from making it go to the next match. One scene in particular that does that is in a tag match (two on two or three on three), where your partner, or your opponent’s partner leaves the match permanently causing a handicap of one team, but when you pin them the match doesn’t end not unless you quit. Other concerns are if you have your wrestler in a custom show (since the roster is now divided into the two main WWE shows now), you can’t promote them in your title cards to become closer to challenge the champion. The list of contenders are all listed in the game, but you can’t do anything if the people you want to promote or push can’t show up on your list. This causes problems for a lot of creative people wanting their own organisations to co-exist with the roster already given. This even causes bigger problems for those of us who actually know a lot about wrestling and want to use other organizations on a WWE game.
The graphics aren’t any improvement over the last generation game, using the same character models as last game. Other annoyances are in Universe Mode the teams (for tag team warfare) you establish suffer from constant break-ups due to the game’s unwillingness to keep them together. The music is TERRIBLE, when about 80 % of the game uses wrestler’s theme songs in replacement for previous installment’s original music. This makes browsing the menu, creating a character, or any other menu task oriented action a chore. In regards to the Create-A-Wrestler mode, the highlight of the series, the developers at Yukes tried to make them blend in with the in-game character models to no avail. Again copy and paste. The only worth while addition that can be noted in this game is the newly found Create-a-Finisher or Superstar Threads. You can create your own finishing move, or create your own attire for in-game wrestlers. Again though, these modes are just as limited as everything else in this game. You can chose from preset actions for moves, and can only change colors to certain areas of wrestler’s attires.
So with only a few updates and a bit of gameplay polish, this game suffers from the mundane copy and past method plaguing the sports genre as a whole. It also doesn’t help that replay-ability has been hindered by bad choice in menu music, and an even very laggy online, which has difficulty finding local matches. The only thing that is holding this game up is the the shinning bits of playability with the WWE Universe, I strongly recommend this game to those of you who enjoy wrestling only.