Author notes

Smackatar (Part 6)

KDog

on Feb. 18, 2011

The WWF/WWE Smackdown games used to let you create pretty much any character you wanted using the very detailed and expansive Create-A-Wrestler (CAW) system. They still do, but over time limitations were put in place, such as which size classes could use which moves, etc. One change they made quietly was disallowing female wrestlers to fight anyone but each other or in most match types (leaving only basic tag and single matches, pretty much). I fully understand why they did this - to make the games more realistic and probably out of P.C. concerns. I'm sure the last thing creators THQ/Yukes wanted was to be accused of encouraging violence toward women, which is a ridiculous claim you know SOMEONE would have made eventually, and of course the media would have run with it.

But as a gamer who doesn't care that much about realism and prefers being able to make anyone I want and place them in any match I desire, it was very frustrating. Especially since there were a handful of female characters I created in each game and used regularly right alongside the boys. The most enjoyable part of the game for me is creating these characters each year and seeing them develop as wrestlers. It's mostly in my imagination, but that's the beauty of what the CAW system allows. You can tailor the game quite a bit and make it your own. Hell, there's enough slots for created wrestlers that you can use JUST them if you choose. Thankfully, the GameShark allows one to get around restrictions like this, at least in the PS2 versions of the Smackdown series. The fact that you can't tinker with games in that manner on the PS3 or other current systems is one of the reasons I haven't upgraded.

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