SmackDown vs. Raw 2008 Interview with Bryan Williams (PS3)

At last week's Wrestlemania 23 press event, THQ officially unveiled WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008. This year's addition will hit seven platforms including the Nintendo Wii and DS. It also marks the first time the critically acclaimed franchise makes its way to PlayStation 3. We sat down with SmackDown's Creative Manager, Bryan Williams, to discuss this exciting video game.

What's been fixed this year in SmackDown vs. Raw 2008?

That's a great question. We've fixed a lot of things that were nagging or just bad issues as far as artificial intelligence and game play elements. I can't really go into specifics right now, but rest assured that we are cleaning and polishing.

What were your personal issues from last year's game?

Well the one thing that I've always had issues with are the turnbuckle attacks. The hit detection has not been as good as it could be which actually ties into our new fighting styles, such as the high flyer's ability to do springboard attacks on opponents. Because you can do all these cool attacks, we had to improve the hit detection.

When wrestlers come down to the ring, one guy comes down and there's a loading pause, and the other guy comes down and there's more loading. Is it possible to eliminate the loading to make the entrances one seamless experience?

You know what, that's one of the things I read in the SmackDown vs. Raw 2007 review and I thought, this is a pretty good idea. The load times in general are something that we're definitely looking to shorten by a great deal. We're taking great pains to reduce the amount of time people sit in front of a load screen.

Last year's game introduced interactive hot spots. Are you guys going to have more of them this year?

We are definitely going to expand the environmental grapples, the hot spots. That was a big feature last year that I was very happy about. Fan reaction was positive as well, so that's one thing that we're definitely expanding.

The last game featured a lot of polygonal people in the crowd. Are you adding more fans to this year's game?

As far as the crowd and their appearance, last year they all looked the same and that's one thing we're addressing this year. Actually, we took snapshots of testers in our office at THQ and some of the guys in product development, so you'll see a lot more variation of crowd members this year.

Who is doing the motion capture this year?

Idol Stevens and Casey James as well as Nick and Mike from the Spirit Squad helped us out a great deal. We also get a lot of help from WWE developmental talent.

What about MVP?

MVP contributed a lot of motions to the 2007 product, which is cool, and now look at him. He has a match this year at Wrestlemania against Chris Benoit, so he's come a long way.

[Editor's Note: MVP lost.]

How are you improving wrestler animations?

Improving animations this year is very key for this product, and it's not something we're trying to hype up by saying, look at how good these animations look. We're already in next-gen territory. It should be understood that animations look and control as our fans expect. We shouldn't have to tout that. It should be known.

How is commentary being improved?

We're adding ECW commentators, but we're also fixing a lot of bugs and glitches. I can't get into specifics but our commentary system has received a lot of attention.

Being that you're the creative manager of SmackDown across all systems, how is it balancing all of them? Is it stressful, since the Wii and DS versions are so drastically different?

It can get a little unwieldy at times, but it's a group effort. It can get stressful but it's a good kind of stress. No matter how stressed you get, you take a step back and say, I make video games for a living. Making sure each game plays to a system's strength is of paramount importance, especially the DS product, which is so different. The game play revolves around the stylus, and the Wii... the range of motion and using the Wii remote and nunchuk is of high priority.

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