Editor’s Note: When our WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 review ran in the December 2009 issue of Official Xbox Magazine, Mitch mistakenly confused how much button-mashing was actually in the new Championship Scramble mode — there isn’t any, no matter what he tells you. He also generalized the button-bashing in Royal Rumble in a way that didn't clearly convey how the mode worked. This modified review clarifies the factual error and cleans up any Royal Rumble confusion. The initial score awarded is unaffected, since Mitch’s mix-up doesn’t change his feelings about the game’s quality. Mitch told us he’s deeply sorry for the slip, especially after we gave him 2,010 lashes so he’ll never forget WWE 2010.

As a sport, World Wrestling Entertainment hasn’t changed a lot in the last 10 years. The spectacle has grown, but the format and the competitors have remained largely the same. WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 follows suit by leaving intact the core of what makes it a great fighting franchise...well, mostly.

SmackDown 2010 feels freakishly similar to its predecessor. Right down to the graphical hitches — animations not quite lining up, characters teleporting across the ring after a big jump, and tons of bothersome clipping — the gameplay feels almost untouched. That familiarity is great for the already-awesome, buttery-smooth grappling system, but this messy tech is unforgivable after four years of identical issues.

Where SmackDown 2010 treads new ground is with its story modes. Road to WrestleMania returns with six uniquely entertaining narrative arcs that act as an abbreviated career. At five hours apiece, that’s a pretty solid chunk of content to sink into. We particularly enjoyed the self-aware hilarity of our created superstar’s revenge story, as well as the catfight-tastic Diva campaign.

You can also cook up your own tale in the new Story Designer if you want to get your creative juices flowing. By stringing together different animations, editing chunks of video, adding text, and working with imaginative camera angles, we created an original arc that we could share with our pals. We’re stoked to see what crafty things fans come up with, especially since the editor is essentially an avenue for non-stop DLC.

Not that SmackDown 2010 needs the extra content. Even if it is too similar to earlier releases, this is still an impressively extensive game, both online and off. The roster is huge, and the list of match types and game modes is frighteningly colossal. But it’s here where it becomes most apparent that the game is struggling to come up with cool new stuff. We enjoyed the new Championship Scramble, a cool timed-based tug-of-war bout for the belt, but the “improved” Royal Rumble bummed us out. Button prompts (pop-ups for corner takedowns, button-mashing to chuck chumps over the ropes, and hitting an oscillating-meter’s hotspot for below-the-rope shoves) arbitrarily intrude on the great combat, and make the matches disappointingly easy. We grabbed each contender the second they hopped in the ring, mashed or timed our button presses, and patiently waited until the next sorry sap made his way down the aisle. And when the next big feature is the ability to change the color of Batista’s speedo, you’ve gotta wonder if Yuke’s is running out of ideas.

But if you haven’t played a SmackDown game before, now is about the perfect time to climb in the ring. It’s fairly clear that this game is trying to cater to a new audience instead of its old one, highlighted by the helpful new training mode, which runs behind the main menu as an on-the-fly sparring session. And because the combat is so unabashedly entertaining, it’s hard not to get sucked in. Even WWE haters can turn SmackDown 2010 into a guilty pleasure.

Regardless of the game’s other disappointments, the 30-ish hours of fresh stories and the fancy designer aren’t anything to scoff at. Yeah, SmackDown 2010 feels a bit like an expansion pack. But it’s a big expansion pack that you can completely vanish into and emerge a couple weekends later feeling like you got your money’s worth.

On Xbox 360

+ Road to WrestleMania stories!

+ Create your own story; silly amount of content for newbies.

- Disappointing new stuff; glitchy graphics; bland mini-games.

? UFC Undisputed doesn’t have visual hiccups; why does WWE?

7.5