A playthrough of THQ's 2000 wrestling game for the Sony PlayStation, WWF Smackdown!

Played through the season mode with the Godfather on the default difficulty settings. I play until I win the world championship belt.

For how amazing WWF War Zone was on release, and how much the sequel (WWF Attitude) amped things up even further, nothing could prepare us for the WWF game that would be released once the license passed to THQ with Yuke's handling development. To say eye-opening would be an understatement.

WWF Smackdown! is the very first game in the series that we now know as WWE 2k, and it really made an impression. A massive roster of 36 characters included most of the relevant stars at the time (including the ladies, and in a telling sign of where the WWF was headed, Vince and Shane McMahon are selectable in this one), with all of them including full FMV introductions with music. Using the incredible create-a-wrestler mode, you could also create several otherwise unplayable characters once they've been unlocked during the season mode.

The amount of match types and options here was unprecedented at the time: using PPV events as window-dressing for the fights (including Raw is War, Smackdown, Survivor series, Wrestlemania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam, and the House Show), you can partake in matches of: 1-on-1, tag, handicap, the Battle Royale, Royal Rumble, King of the Ring, hardcore, anywhere fall, steel cage, survival, "I Quit!", and ones with special guest referees that are, of course, welcome to interfere if they see fit. I was a huge fan of the backstage matches - little else could beat smacking someone down with Head in the parking garage.

The controls were completely overhauled and are much easier to handle this time (all though I felt they made the game a bit easy in certain match types - the Royal Rumble is so easy to cheese through quickly!), the move sets have been greatly expanded, and the whole thing is much more better rounded and more fun than earlier titles.

And the presentation! Wow! It's super flashy and loaded with TV set-pieces and graphics, and everything looks fantastic (for a PS1 game). The characters are all reasonably well-detailed, are usually very recognizable, and animate pretty smoothly, usually without clipping or any other weird issues PS1 games often were afflicted with. The sound was pretty good too, though the lack of wrestlers' voices and the really odd omission of running commentary do detract from it a bit. The crowd sounds helped add a lot of atmosphere, though.

Overall, this was a rock solid start to a legendary game series, and one that a lot of PS1 era fans have fond memories of. While 17 iterations have obviously seen the games leap well beyond anything seen here, there's no doubt that it left a lasting impact.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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