Professional wrestling has gone through a steady decline in recent years, with the popularity and ratings success of the Attitude era now a distant memory. This decline has flowed onto the WWE Smackdown video games, which have also suffered a pronounced reduction in quality and popularity over the last five years. This year things are a little different, as THQ and Yuke’s have approached Smackdown vs Raw 2010 with renewed vigour – and the end result is surprisingly good, despite a few annoying limitations.

This year’s game focuses on beefing up user created content. Die-hard wrestling fans are some of the most demanding gamers around, so THQ has embraced the community by allowing them to run wild making their own stuff. The headlining creation feature is the WWE Story Designer, which lets players piece together their own angles and plotlines. You choose the wrestlers, write the script (get a USB keyboard for this, trust me), pick locations and decide on match stipulations. The really surprising thing is that your story content is not as tame as you’d expect – if it happens on TV, you can do it in the game. Want to run over good ol’ JR with a car? Go for it. There is one major caveat – you can only have created wrestlers appear ten times. Given that stories can run for up to 500 segments (50 scenarios and 450 matches), it’s really restrictive.

Other creation features have received a boost. A new paint tool allows players to make designs for tattoos and logos for their creations. Alternate outfits for entrances and doubled up players are also available – not just for created superstars, but the WWE ones too. Outfits are now three dimensional for created wrestlers, but you are really restricted in the amount of clothes you can assign to your guy. Created wrestler attributes are also boosted through all play modes now, not just the career mode, rendering that mode rather redundant. Finishing move creation has been expanded to include top rope moves, which should please fans of the cruiserweight division.

Hold still, there's a mozzie on your cheek

Perhaps the best feature to come alongside these creation modes is the ability to share your creations online with other players – particularly good if you’re too lazy or unimaginative to make your own. Created wrestlers, finishers and stories can all be downloaded from a centralised repository (highlights on the PS3 version can also be uploaded directly to YouTube). Content can also be rated by other users. There’s no word as to the degree of moderation that will be taking place – there are communities dedicated to creating real-life superstars who didn’t make it into the game or work for other wrestling companies, and I’m sure they’d be irate if creations start getting removed due to copyright issues, which they almost certainly will. Another silly thing is that you can’t make any changes to downloaded content, but apparently that’s due to the way Microsoft rolls.

The core wrestling gameplay in the game has seen a whole lot of attention for the 2010 iteration. Yuke’s has delivered a one-two punch of increased move types and more accessible controls. The grapple system has reverted to its pre-Smackdown 2007 form, with players now having access to four different positions for strong grapples, providing 16 different strong attacks. Reversals have been overhauled, now only relying on a single button for all counters. Players can also execute grapple attacks from the ring apron. Smackdown icons have effectively been replaced; when the momentum bar is filled, players can execute their signature move. Once the signature move is successful, then a finisher can be done. This works really well, and better simulates the flow of a wrestling match.

Xtreme Heimlich Action!

There are a couple of new match types this year, most notably the Championship Scramble and mixed tag modes. Championship Scramble is a variation of the classic Iron Man match, but with multiple wrestlers entering the ring. The winner of the match at the end of the time limit is the wrestler who scored the last pinfall or submission. It’s the kind of thing that is more exciting on the TV shows than in video game form, unfortunately.

A number of existing match types received tweaking, but it’s the Royal Rumble which commanded the most attention. In recent years, the Royal Rumble mode has flat out sucked - THQ and Yuke’s have finally caught on and overhauled the event. Eliminations are now handled in one of three ways; at the ring corners, the middle rope and lower rope. Each situation has its own mini-game, like button smashing or a quick draw, but if players have a finisher stored, they can execute an instant elimination (or instantly re-enter the ring). It introduces some much needed strategy and variety into the event and gives players a chance at avoiding elimination, making the mode worth playing for the first time in ages.

The clunky interface of Smackdowns past has been ditched for a slimmer, sexier model. Momentum bars and Smackdown icons which once proudly sat atop the screen have been retooled into a small circular meter that hangs around the players’ feet. Hints and instructions during the match are given by button icons appearing over the characters, rather than through invasive screen hogging prompts. Load times have been dramatically reduced overall, though where they do exist, the team has used legitimate WWE standbys to keep the experience immersive and authentic.

Smackdown 2010 still has a number of annoyances and issues that need to be sorted out. The AI is still poorly balanced, with increases in difficulty still only really affecting the AI’s proficiency with counters and giving them higher priority when moves are executed simultaneously. The Road to Wrestlemania mode still feels like a chore with poorly defined objectives and half-assed storylines that just aren’t interesting. Clipping between wrestlers remains a major issue, even after Yuke’s has implemented a more realistic physics engine.

Despite these nagging annoyances, Yuke’s and THQ have done well to pull the Smackdown series back on track with the 2010 iteration, thanks to the addition of some long-demanded creation features and major improvements to the core gameplay and interface. There are still many lingering issues to be fixed, and some of the restrictions to the creation aspects are baffling to say the least. WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010 is a big improvement, but there is still a lot of work to be done.