The first WWF game on the PlayStation to be published by THQ, SmackDown! marked the start of a long running series of WWE video games from THQ, then continued by 2K Sports and rebranded as WWE 2K. The game was also re-released under the Greatest Hits budget range.
The game's main story mode contains three main parts, first with the Pre-Season (for created wrestlers), but after ten in-game years of playing the Pre-Season, players are allowed to skip it. By playing and advancing in the season modes players gain rewards such as unlockables or attires, but instead of unlocking new characters, players unlock new body parts to put on new creations, to play as that "unlocked" character. Once players build a creation, they must fight in a Pre-Season year to build their skills and make their alliances. The story mode contains no voice-overs, instead the characters meet each other backstage with mouths that move to no voice and on-screen cutscene text. The game also lacks play-by-play color commentary.
WWF SmackDown! has many match types including Single, Tag Team, Hardcore, Steel Cage and many more.[3] The game features the late 1999 WWF roster following SmackDown!'s premiere, including the then-newcomers The Dudley Boyz.
Yuke's, the developer of SmackDown! had previously created the Toukon Retsuden series of wrestling games in Japan for New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Despite this, the game engine used in SmackDown! is not based on contemporary Toukon Retsuden titles, but rather The Pro Wrestling, a title developed by Yuke's as part of D3 Publisher's Simple series and released several months in Japan beforehand.[4]
WWF SmackDown! received favorable reviews according to video game review aggregatorGameRankings.[5] Daniel Erickson of NextGen was positive to the controls, graphics, and game modes such as Season and Referee mode, but criticized its "shallow" arcade-like quality and create-a-wrestler mode.[15] In Japan, however, Famitsu gave it a score of 27 out of 40.[10]
Lamchop of GamePro called SmackDown better than Acclaim's WWF Attitude in terms of graphics and "speedier" gameplay, but thought that Attitude has its full commentary and character voices than the former.[17][b] In another review, The D-Pad Destroyer praised the Season mode and called the title "one of the best wrestling games in the history".[18][c]
^Hsu, Dan "Shoe"; Hager, Dean; Boyer, Crispin; Smith, Shawn (April 2000). "WWF SmackDown!"(PDF). Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 129. Ziff Davis. p. 166. Archived(PDF) from the original on 5 November 2022. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
^Lamchop (April 2000). "WWF SmackDown!"(PDF). GamePro. No. 139. IDG. p. 86. Archived(PDF) from the original on 25 September 2023. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
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