WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010

WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 PS2 is a professional wrestling game developed by Yuke's and published by THQ for Sony's PlayStation 2. Released in October 2009, it is the eleventh WWE game in the wider SmackDown series and follows WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009. Drawing on the Raw, SmackDown and ECW brands of the period, the game presents a large lineup of WWE Superstars and Divas, legends, championships and arenas as the foundation for exhibition bouts, longer single-player play and player-made programming.

Matches use the series' familiar blend of strikes, grapples, running attacks, aerial moves, submissions, weapons and pin attempts. Wrestlers build momentum during a contest, then spend it on signature techniques and finishing moves. WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 revises the reversal system into a timing challenge: rather than choosing between two reversal buttons, the defender must react at the right moment. Four strong-grapple choices return, while apron interactions, revised ground attacks and newly animated diving moves broaden the positions available around the ring. The compact display shifts much of the match information close to each wrestler, with visual damage cues helping communicate the physical toll of a bout.

The PlayStation 2 game offers a wide range of WWE-style stipulations, from standard one-on-one and tag matches to ladder-based contests, Royal Rumble battles and backstage fights. Championship Scramble and mixed tag team matches are among the additions for this entry. The Royal Rumble is given extra ways to remove opponents, including struggles around the ropes and turnbuckles, and finishers can be used in the fight to stay in the match or eliminate a rival. The THQ Training Facility supplies an approachable tutorial setting, explaining actions and match mechanics as players practice with selected wrestlers and rules.

Road to WrestleMania provides the principal scripted single-player attraction. Its six storylines follow WWE personalities including Edge, Shawn Michaels, Randy Orton and Mickie James, alongside a created-wrestler path and the cooperative Brand Warfare story featuring Triple H and John Cena. Interactive scenes and match objectives carry those routes toward WrestleMania 25, giving the player specific challenges instead of simply moving through a succession of exhibition matches. It captures the television-era identity of WWE in 2009, when Raw, SmackDown and ECW still formed the game's three contemporary brands.

Creation is a central part of WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 on PS2. Players can build wrestlers, tune move sets and attributes, and create finishing maneuvers; the finisher editor expands to include aerial attacks and lets players alter elements such as a move's jump trajectory and speed. WWE Story Designer lets players assemble their own shows and storylines using matches, scenes, preset animations, locations, subtitles and win conditions. The PS2 version supports stories of up to 55 segments, a scale suited to custom weekly episodes or a compact pay-per-view card rather than the much larger Story Designer limits of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 editions.

As the last SmackDown vs. Raw title to include WWE's ECW brand before the brand ended in 2010, the game is a useful snapshot of the promotion's late-2000s roster and presentation. It combines a rules-heavy wrestling engine with tools for recreating familiar rivalries or inventing new ones, whether played through Road to WrestleMania, a custom show or a quick local match. WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 PS2 was followed by WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011, making it an important late entry in the long-running PlayStation 2 branch of the series.