WWE SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain is 20 years old(!!!)

I haven’t posted any new material here for YEARS and I’m sorry about that. today however is significant in that it’s 20 years since the release of the PlayStation 2 game WWE SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain (HCTP) and I would like to tell my story about my gameplay experiences with it. WWE SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain was developed by Yuke’s and released by THQ on October 27, 2003. It’s the 5th release in the SmackDown! series. (The information contained within are exclusively from the way how I remember it, so it may not be 100% accurate.)

WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth (SYM) was prominently shown in TV commercials during Monday Night RAW back in 2002, but by 2003 I’d largely tuned out of watching the TVs, so I’m uncertain what kind of advertising campaign existed for HCTP. I got this game for my 21st birthday, and getting back to my dorm room my only goal was to perform the Tombstone Piledriver finisher with Undertaker (the biker one). Except that wasn’t his finisher, and I had no prior experience with any of these games at all. I was unaware of the gameplay changes that were made since SYM, and all the other features that were added or removed. Reality was, I needed to learn how to actually play the game. Talking with other people and reading many FAQs I was able to get a better handle on how things worked. One of the notable improvements in HCTP was the new grapple system, pressing the Circle button while holding one of the 4 directions on the D-pad will trigger an opener to one of 4 grapple styles, followed by the Circle button and a direction on the D-pad will perform one of 4 moves attached to that grapple style. Circle and Up are Power moves, Circle and Left are Signature Moves, Circle and Right are Quick Moves, and Circle and bottom are Submission moves. You can alter movesets accordingly with the Create-A-Wrestler (CAW) mode in the game which enables you to create your character, modify movesets, and choose how you want your entrance to look and sound.

The game has a vast collection of Unlockables that you can purchase in the WWE Shop Zone (a tie-in to the actual Shop Zone where you could buy merch) using dollar currency that you earn from payoffs in matches during Season mode. You also earn SmackDown Points by winning matches for eligibility to challenge for various titles and are rewarded more based on the difficulty you set the game to. The Season mode is the single player campaign of the game, simulating 4 weeks of RAW or SmackDown, capped off by a Pay-Per-View (PPV) event at the end. The goal of course is to win championship gold: RAW titles being World Heavyweight Title, Intercontinental Title, Womens Title, and World Tag Team Titles or SmackDown WWE Heavyweight Title, United States Title, Cruiserweight Title, and WWE Tag Team Titles. Throughout Season mode there’s various storylines your Superstar plays through and they’re dependent on if you’re chasing the gold, in a tag team, or an actual champion. There’s a variety of playthrough options here, some of which I’m still discovering new ones even today. There’s also the ability to talk to RAW GM Eric Bischoff or SmackDown GM Stephanie McMahon to request show transfers, but if you’re holding titles you’ll have to get jobbed out (see: lose them) in order to actually make the move!

The game has a multitude of different modes (which I won’t list all of them) for Singles, Tag Team, Hardcore, and other specialty matches like Steel Cage, Hell In A Cell, or Last Man Standing. Lest we forget, Slobber Knocker, the WWE equivalent to a boss rush where you fight to survive against dozens of Superstars. You can disable Disqualifications (DQs) in the game settings, but traditionally you can’t use weapons legally unless it’s Hardcore or what’s considered a Main Event or Title match. There’s selectable arenas for RAW, SmackDown, Heat, Velocity, and all PPVs and depending on game mode (eg. Hardcore) there are also Backstage Areas you can fight in as well.

So back to my experiences, I learned that Old School Undertaker (the purple gloves design from 1994-1996) was one of the unlockables in the game. This required a lot of money to buy, so I chose to just make a CAW similar in style to Undertaker. I named the character Sin, it’s effectively Lord of Darkness Undertaker but with white skin. It was here I learned of how fun it was to just create your own Superstars, I made my own stable of my college roommates years ago. I famously wrestled in an Elimination Chamber match with a meager level 40 CAW and won. Each Superstar has ratings based on their Strength (damage infliction), Submission (how long to inflict/hold submissions), Endurance (energy level), Technique (ability to reverse moves or basically combo breaker opponent ability to reverse moves), and Speed (how fast you can move). Brock Lesnar has an overall rating of 91, he’s very powerful, can take a lot of damage, and can effectively run roughshod on opponents with grapples as opposed to Rodney Mack with a 65 rating, Lesnar would put Mack away with ease. As you gain more SmackDown Points you can upgrade your Superstar’s Attributes so that you can play with a 100 rating CAW like me eventually. As you get better at the game you can step up the difficulty to SmackDown like I once did so you can achieve 24 SmackDown Points after a victory instead of 6 on the easiest difficulty, generating faster results in upgrading.

The game was highly regarded for the upgraded grapple system, but it had its share of critiques. Unlike previous games, there’s no announcer voices, so you won’t hear Jim Ross saying “BOOMER SOONER!” or Jerry The King Lawler talking about puppies, or that jabroni Michael Cole with his silly canned talking points. (I personally find it refreshing.) There were a few Superstars cut from the final game due to real life issues. Notably among them were Jeff Hardy, Ultimate Warrior, and Hulk Hogan, which while they would’ve made the game even cooler, really isn’t a total dealbreaker in my opinion. Some of the moves are glitchy, but with like thousands of them to choose from I also find this to not be a dealbreaker, but can be a little awkward in match situations obviously. In addition to active roster Superstars, the game was the first to include WWE Legends, which the aforementioned Old School Undertaker I mentioned previously is part of, and also the likes of Iron Sheik, Roddy Piper, and Ted DiBiase. Oh, and how could I forget the Legion of Doom, Roadwarrior Hawk and Roadwarrior Animal?

In all HCTP is a pretty complete game that offered literally decades of replay value for me and is still one of my favorite PS2 games ever. It helped also that the Ruthless Aggression era of WWE was a little more grounded in reality (compared to the Attitude Era) and contained some of the best wrestling ever, all of these elements being featured prominently in this game.

My life mission is to stream entire Season modes on both RAW and SmackDown someday. Anyone up for that?

[thank you for reading]