I've Fallen, and I Can't Get Up!

Teufel lied to me.

So did Good Ol' Plumber.

And Darth Frost, and the list goes on and on.

I wanted to write a review of my own, but I was too late. Too many other people had already drank the kool-aid. Too many people had fallen in love.

With what, you ask?

With Smackdown Vs. Raw 2007 for the Xbox 360.

I mean, let's be completely honest. The game is beautiful. The fact that you can't make custom soundtracks part of your entrance does suck, but the ohter parts of customization is robust.  Everything points towards this being THE wrestling game to beat all wrestling games... until you create your player and jump into the season mode.

So I have been playing the game for about 2 days now, and like I said, the season mode is great. I have my created character, named, of course, The Blackhearted, and I have been steadily rising to the top of the ranks.

But my guide button is also getting a healthy workout, as well as the Y button to bring me back to the 360 dashboard.

Why?

Because if I fall down in the game, I can't get up.

It says to hit ANY button repeatedly to get up, right? Well, I have tried hitting all the buttons repeatedly, and I don't move. Now it isn't that I don't hit the buttons fast enough, because I was the House Champion for Track N Field for 4 years running. I have an extremely itchy trigger finger. Any button mashers that require rapid hitting of the button get dealt with quickly with me, you dig? I don't even need a real weapon on Contra. Just give me the rapid fire (not the machine gun) upgrade, and me and my fingers will set the night to music.

So I am fighting, and I get to the point where RVD has left me high and dry in the ring, and Murdoch and Cade are fighting me in a Handicapped match. I have it set to easy, because I don't wanna get my ass kicked in half. So I go into the match, and I am on FIRE. For 30 seconds, I am giving them both all they could handle.

Then I got knocked down.

And while I am pounding any button to get up, Cade and Murdoch are each taking turns giving me figure 4 leg locks and noogies and indian burns and everything else. Sometimes, because it is set to easy, the two will stand there and wait like 40 seconds for me to get up. 40 seconds of rapidly pounding the B button. I don't get up.

I lost the match to a submission, because I could get the aggravatingly quick little bar to land in the blue Escape field. Hit A, my ass.

So I move on to the next match, and it is Trish Stratus and myself against Lita and Kurt Angle. Kurt Angle gives me a shoulder bump at the beginning of the match, and I don't get up for the rest of the freaking match. Lita pinned me, after Kurt left me in front of my own corner and walked to tag her in. My wife was watching. I was so embarrassed.

So today I made it to the championship match against Kurt again. This time, I had my wife watch the whole thing. I did a running move at Kurt, missed, and he dropped a knee on me. He then proceeded to do literally 5 straight minutes of submission moves, grapples, and off the rope moves. Without me getting one single move in in return. I couldn't get up. I pounded every button. I am scared of breaking my controller because I pound it too hard.

What button do you want me to press? The A button, or the off button? The fact that I can do two moves before the stamina runs out, leaving me gasping for air so long that the other guy that I just beat the hell out of gets up before me isn't not right?

I saw my brother in law get his ass whooped by Carlito, while he was the Rock, before he could get back up. We can't be the only two people that this is happening to.

I hate feeling like a 93 year old lady with a life alert necklace. Not when I should feel like a 27 year old bad ass called "The Villian."

I would give this game a 4 out of 5, but since I never got a chance to get up to try moves, I give it an incomplete.