The Miz, co-holder of the WWE Tag Team Championship, stabbed his foot into his bloody opponent’s shin. As his foe clutched his newest wound, Miz pulled him into a headlock and slowly, methodically twisted his adversary around until he stared helplessly at the arena’s rafters. Then, adding insult to injury, Miz swiveled his hips for five humiliating seconds before dropping straight down — and driving his rival’s head into the mat.
Miz’s new finishing move wasn’t broadcast through the ECW, but shown in the latest demo of WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2009’s new Createa- Finisher mode being played by the former Real World star himself. Simple to use, yet devastating to observe, Create-a-Finisher allows up to 10 moves to be chained together. Certain moves marked with “F,” for Finish, are used to wrap up the created finisher. If your finisher consists of only one move or four, that’s fine. Each individual move can be sped up, slowed down, rotated, and so on. The staggering amount of customization should enable fans to create moves they’ve dreamed about for years.
Once saved, custom finishers can be applied to created wrestlers or WWE Superstars. Dubbing his the “What-What,” Miz saved his finisher and, partnering with SmackDown 2009 creative director Cory Ledesma, challenged us to a Tag Team match. Sadly, Miz wouldn’t put his championship belt on the line. Regardless, the match was on: The OXM Slobber-Knockers — playing as Randy Orton and Rey Mysterio — against The Miz and Ledesma, playing as Matt and Jeff Hardy.
Tag teams now have a single momentum bar that, once filled, allows them to execute double-team finishing moves. A number of authentic tag strategies have been implemented to gain said momentum: as Orton whipped Matt Hardy toward Mysterio, we pressed B to pull down on the ropes. Hardy hurtled over the side and tumbled onto the floor, granting Mysterio plenty of free shots before rolling him back into the ring.
Turnabout, of course, is fair play. When Orton wandered too close to our opponents’ corner, Hardy reached out and grabbed his arms, allowing Matt to bludgeon his exposed torso. Sensing Orton’s distress, we held the D-pad’s down arrow, which caused Mysterio to clap his hands over his head, slowly at first, then faster as the crowd joined in. The crowd’s fervor boosted our momentum bar until it exploded in flames. Orton climbed to his feet, dodged Matt’s wild punch, lurched over to Mysterio, and slapped his outstretched hand (by pressing A), which triggered the new Hot Tag mini-game.
As Mysterio vaulted into the ring and ran toward Matt, a giant “X” appeared on-screen. Pressing it made Mysterio knock Matt to the canvas before dashing over to Jeff. Orton/ Mysterio received a large “A” prompt, and after another swift button-press, Jeff joined his brother on the ground. A few high-impact moves later, the Slobber-Knockers emerged victorious. Still bruised from his defeat, Ledesma challenged us to SmackDown 2009’s brandnew one-on-one Inferno match. We chose Triple H, he chose Undertaker, and moments later, we squared off in a ring lined with fire. As we exchanged attacks, a temperature meter in the bottom left rose from its starting point of 85 degrees. When it reached 175 Fahrenheit, the flames roared and doubled in size, blanketing the screen with a red haze.
Eager to embrace our inner pyromaniac, we commanded Triple H to grab Undertaker with a strong grapple. As we dragged him toward the fire-coated ropes, a diagram of the Xbox 360 controller’s four face buttons appeared near Cory’s momentum bar. As different buttons lit up, Ledesma hastily pressed them to slow his move toward searing, burning pain — but he wasn’t fast enough. Undertaker caught fire after touching the rope, and Triple H strutted around the ring as paramedics doused the howling Deadman with fire extinguishers.
Singed from another defeat, Cory revealed that this year’s SmackDown would feature downloadable content. He remained tightlipped on whether that might (finally) include downloadable WWE Superstars, but we certainly hope so.
After all, the more people to set on fire, the better, right?
