Much like Madden and NBA Live, THQ's WWE SmackDown vs. Raw franchise has become a yearly tradition, thanks to millions of fans waiting to pile drive spandex wearing superstars. When it comes to options, SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 overflows with tons of popular wrestlers, arenas and match types. But once we hit the ring, we couldn't look past the audio miscues, awkward cut scenes and been there/done that wrestling.

As always, THQ deserves an A plus for presentation. SmackDown's menu screen explodes in red, white and a whole lot of rock music. In addition, we found tons of WWE superstars including John Cena, Shawn Michaels, Triple H, The Undertaker, Matt and Jeff Hardy, Kane, Batista, JBL and other sweaty grapplers. No matter your tastes, there's a wrestler for you, even if it means picking one of the sexy WWE Divas. We also love this year's match types. Old favorites, such as TLC (Tables, Ladders and Chairs), Steel Cage and First Blood return, but now we've got Inferno matches, where the ring is on fire and you push your opponent into the flames. It sometimes takes a while to drag your weary adversary to his doom (thanks to resistant artificial intelligence), but watching them roll around in agony as people put them out with fire extinguishers is well worth the effort.

Tag team matches received an overhaul so that they resemble real life matches. Not only are there more double team maneuvers, but you and your partner can regain momentum with a Hot Tag, a situation where, after one of you takes a beating, you can tag in the other player, who comes in with fists of fury.

If that doesn't suit you, there's Career (where you attempt to capture every belt) and Road to WrestleMania, a story mode that features six different storylines based on the following characters: Triple H, CM Punk, Undertaker, John Cena, Chris Jericho and a special tag team campaign with Rey Mysterio and Batista. Each career begins 83 days before WrestleMania, and you must reach the big event while feuding with various wrestlers and fulfilling objectives (pin a specific person, for example) to unlock new arenas, additional pieces for Create-A-Superstar and other secret items.

Of all the new features, however, Create-A-Finisher will be the most popular. Instead of assigning a pre-made finishing maneuver, like the RKO, Pedigree or Sweet Chin Music, you'll create your own with the possibility of linking up to 10 moves. We began with an Eye Poke, added a Back of the Head Slap, transitioned to a Back Kick to the Groin and then proceeded to Gut Kick, Knee Thrust, Poison Fog (where the wrestler spits mist into the other's face) and Stunner our helpless training dummy into oblivion. Then we assigned it to our created superstar (as well as pre-existing wrestlers) and terrorized the wrestling world.

At this point, SmackDown vs. Raw sounds amazing, but we regret to inform you that the game is at times frustrating and boring. Although faster load times allow you to hit the ring quicker than in previous games, audio glitches mar the presentation, as one wrestler's entrance music plays over his opponent's. Then there was the time someone got hit with a sledgehammer, but we heard the contact before it occurred.

Wrestlers look pumped up and sweaty, but you'll still see arms and clothes clip through each other. In addition, the crowd's a pixilated and unenthused mess that never cheers loudly enough. We'd like to think that by now, THQ would have included better chanting, loud booing and that adrenaline-fueled roar bestowed upon the most popular superstars. Most of the time, everyone sounds like they had better things to do than watch the match. It'd make sense if two no name dudes were head locking each other, but it's weird during the main event.

Combat also feels too similar to last year's game. Wrestlers still move like robots and THQ reused animations, so expect to see familiar looking knee drops and clotheslines. That's not a huge flaw, as wrestling holds rarely change over time, but seeing a new and more exciting move would have been nice. All of this combines to form a bland and stiff fighting experience.

The game's artificial intelligence is best described as borderline incompetent depending on the difficulty. On the hardest, it'll reverse the majority of your moves and kick your butt. On Normal, it'll fail to capitalize on specific match types and rules, like the time it failed to grab a weapon during a 25-minute TLC match.

The camera is another issue, and sometimes we wrestled with it more than we did with our opponents. In a six-man match (which runs noticeably slower on PS3 than Xbox 360), it pulls too far out. Outside the ring, it zooms in too close and forces us to run into the screen and at times off camera to hit our opponents.

Create-A-Finisher is cool, but despite having up to 10 moves with a single finisher, you'll often run into dead ends, where choosing one move in slot four will force you to conclude the entire chain in slot five. That means you won't be able to complete the move you dreamed up. Instead, you'll have to make adjustments.

Then there's Road to WrestleMania. It's a great concept and we love the idea of hiring the WWE's writers to work on it, but we're not talking Stephen King quality plot twists. It's mostly the same stuff wrestling fans have seen for years, and not all of it's fun. During the Triple H storyline, we had matches with Edge or Mr. Kennedy (or both) five times in a row. Hey, we enjoy a good feud, but not one this bland and unoriginal.

Awkward cut scenes and voice acting don't help. THQ tried to make everything look like a WWE program, right down to the copyright logo that appears at a show's conclusion, but the wrestler animations (especially how they interact with each other) look borderline creepy, and some of their voice acting (we're looking at you Shawn Michaels) is shockingly bad for wrestling veterans that act for a living.

We also have a love/hate relationship with creating highlight reels. On the one hand, it lets you immortalize your favorite moments and share them with friends. On the other, how many times can you watch Triple H Pedigree John Cena? The move always looks the same. That runs contrary to a football or basketball video game, which features significantly more variety. However, although we're not sold on highlight reels, we enjoy customizing ring entrances. Being able to set off fireworks, alter video and other stuff hijacked our attention for at least an hour.

Create-A-Superstar is back, but it, like the wrestling, feels too similar to previous games. You can still make the ugliest wrestler ever (and a beautiful Diva to match), but there aren't enough pieces to work with. Seeing as how THQ intends to release downloadable content, this will probably change.

SmackDown's online mode gives you the opportunity to wrestle your friends, this time with voice support, but you still can't play Royal Rumble. Other than that, most of the options from single player are available here.

All of these problems make SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 unworthy of the championship. Fans will likely call us out for nitpicking, but for those of us that bought last year's edition, we need a great reason to drop another 60 bones and we can't find one. Road to WrestleMania and Create-A-Finisher (two modes that will get better in future games) are neat ideas, but the actual wrestling failed to inspire us. Of course, if you eat, sleep and breathe WWE, you'll find a decent game loaded with options, wrestlers and weapons to hit them with.

Related Links

WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 PS3 Game Guide

WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 Xbox 360 Game Guide