November 7, 2002 - The SmackDown! series has settled into its groove at this point. Yuke's has gradually been reducing its various aspects to a simple formula, which can then be refined and updated on a yearly basis. The goal, I think, is to wind up with something like the Madden NFL games, which don't change a great deal on a fundamental basis each year, but nevertheless sell through the roof on the strength of an updated roster and presentation.

With the latest iteration, Shut Your Mouth, more or less all of the pieces are in place. This is a hell of a long way from the perfect wrestling game, but it's the first game in the series to nail down all the major flaws and genuinely deliver on all of THQ's promises. It's taken them four games, for example, but the Season Mode concept first talked about before the series began is finally worth the effort. The many fans who object on a fundamental level to the simplified SmackDown! grappling system won't have their minds changed, but at least the issues from Just Bring It have been nailed down.

The next generation of Anchor's RAW series promises a great deal, and it'll certainly look a hell of a lot better than Shut Your Mouth, but for those who've grown accustomed to it over the years, this is the best wrestling game available for the American PlayStation 2. If nothing else, it's almost entirely free of Michael Cole.

Gameplay
We are familiar with the SmackDown! grappling system, yes? To run things down for those who've been living in bomb shelters for the last five years, it relies more on positioning than timing, at least as compared to heavily timing-based systems like Fire Pro and the old Aki engine. One button executes strikes and another executes grappling maneuvers, which are in turn modified by motions on the D-pad and the opponent's state of grogginess. The single grapple button remains a limitation on the wrestlers' movesets, and I remain a partisan of Yuke's' old Toukon Retsuden system, which employed two separate buttons (one for power moves and another for submissions), but it appears that no amount of complaint will ever convince THQ to change that aspect of the game.

The most substantial change to the engine in Shut Your Mouth is the addition of more complex reversals. In Just Bring It, a move could be countered with a simple tap of the square button, which soon resulted in Dead or Alive-esque stalemates between players who had a good handle on the reversal timing. Shut Your Mouth switches over to a system similar to RAW or Wrestlemania X8, where a similar D-pad motion is required to reverse moves that use one. Thus, it's easy to reverse simple moves, but reversing more involved attacks demands an understanding of the wrestlers' movesets and an opponent's tendencies.

One problem that clearly remains from Just Bring It is the random nature of the "groggy" state. In theory, after you beat on an opponent for long enough, he'll be consistently dizzy and out of it, which makes it possible to hit him with more powerful moves and finishers. In practice, however, grogginess only seems to be triggered by certain key reversals and strikes, which makes the execution of power moves inconsistent and gives wrestlers with certain types of finishers a substantial advantage. Grappling finishers that require a groggy opponent are hard to perform reliably, while top-rope and ground submission finishers are easy as pie. Finishing moves are a fair bit more powerful in Shut Your Mouth than before, although submissions are still somewhat unreliable, so this clearly unbalances the game in versus play.

The addition of more complex object grapples is a nice touch, though, especially as it's accompanied by more intelligent foreign object physics. The tables and ladders still bounce around in somewhat unpredictable fashion, and putting an opponent through a table remains an inconsistent affair, but at least it works better than in Just Bring It. The new object grapples take care of the setup phase of the maneuver perfectly -- you can set up a table and put an opponent on top in one smooth movement.

Season Mode, fabled in myth, legend, and promotional materials for years now, is a hybrid of the Know Your Role and Just Bring It systems. This is undoubtedly the proper way to go. Know Your Role had the basic structure more or less right -- it just had titanic load times and a couple of boneheaded decisions regarding the interface design holding it back. Shut Your Mouth tidies up those problems, with fast loads, streamlined introduction for your primary wrestler into the title chase, and logical progression from match to match and feud to feud. The cinematic flash of Just Bring It is there, but it's the icing on the cake rather than the primary ingredient.