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Everything you wanted to know about THQ's monster but were afraid to ask.by Greg Miller March 27, 2008 - Cory Ledesma is the Vince McMahon of THQ's SmackDown vs. Raw franchise. No -- to our knowledge -- he doesn't make a public spectacle out of firing his underlings, fighting his coworkers in steel cages or having a bizarre relationship with Hornswoggle, but if you wanted to know exactly what was happening with the WWE, you'd ask Vince, and if you wanted to know exactly what's up with THQ's annual grappler, you'd ask Cory, the title's senior creative manager.
With today's announcement that WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 is storming your videogame console of choice, we decided to go one-on-one with Ledesma and try to pin him down with questions about downloadable content, the DS RPG approach and about a billion other burning WWE questions.
He didn't hit us with a chair. Somehow we doubt Vince would be as nice.  Mr. Kennedy cares not for your rules (Xbox 360).
Cory Ledesma: What did we take away from the reaction? Well, you know we're always looking to improve each year. We're very humble. We don't have a big ego. We definitely always see room for improvement in the franchise, so we've always welcomed criticism. We always welcome feedback on areas that fans really like so that we can continue to figure out what areas to develop and what areas need some improvement. So really we started pre-production this year quite early. We started a couple months before SmackDown vs. Raw '08 even came out, so we've had a big head start on our new game. We've had a long lead time to go ahead and develop some new features and to get our kind of wish list together of new features that want to add to the game, so we really feel really comfortable that going into SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 we think we're going to deliver an awesome feature set that the fans have been asking for as well as some new surprises that they probably won't see coming.
IGN: Well talking about '09, you're always a very outspoken person, we love that. Tell us, what is the new feature for '09 that knocks your socks off personally.
Ledesma: There are two big features that we're talking about at the announcement. We actually have a lot of the other features we're going to wait to reveal a little later on. I just want to stress that we're definitely going to have some cool surprises later on, but the two big features we're talking about now -- that I'm really excited about both -- is the first one is Create-A-Finisher. So now players are going to be able to create their own finishing move, put it on either Create-A-Superstars or existing WWE Superstars. We have a brand new creation interface that lets users piece together over 500 animations.
IGN: Wow.
Ledesma: They can piece together their move to mix in different kinds of holds, different taunts, different moves. If you want to have a pin on it, do you want to speed up the animation, do you want to slow it down? We have a lot of different options in there for you to really customize the finishing move that you really want, so this is a big, big feature. A lot of fans have been asking for a creation mode like this and we're really happy to deliver it this year, and we also think it gives players another way to customize their experience. They already have Create-A-Superstar, they already have Create-An-Entrance, and now, they're going to be able to go in further and create their own finishing moves. So you know, Greg, if you want to go ahead and create your Create-A-Superstar -- the "Greg Master" or "Greg the Destroyer" -- you're also going to be able to create your entrance and you're also going to be able to customize the way you're going to devastate opponents through this finishing move.
 Save me (PS3)!
Ledesma: Yeah, we spent a lot of time thinking about exactly how we wanted this feature to be laid out and we were first talking about, "What should be the goal for Create-A-Finisher? For the player, what does he want to create?" And really we were thinking, "OK, well, he either wants to create moves that no one has ever seen before or he wants to create moves that other wrestlers outside this organization do or maybe past wrestlers do." So really, we didn't want to focus on just recreating or adjusting existing moves, we thought, "Hey, that's not really fun. We want to create brand new moves that no one's ever seen before, or moves that other Superstars do that they don't have access to." Really that was the vision for the design of Create-A-Finisher, so with that in mind, we wanted to motion capture animations that were unique, different than what you typically see in the WWE.
IGN: I know you want to keep so much of it behind closed doors and keep people exited for it and not give it all away, but does it break down into pieces? Do you have to pick A, B and C from a pool of 500 motions to get it down to one solid move?
Ledesma: Yeah, what it's going to be is you're actually going to have an allotment as far as how much memory you have to work with and it works up to about ten pieces you can piece together. That's your maximum. So you can go ahead to chain together a big, long ten piece. So, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the former Superstar Eddie Guerrero's "Three Amigos?"
IGN: OK.
Ledesma: He did the three suplexes?
IGN: Yeah, yeah.
Ledesma: If you really wanted to go all out, you could add eight suplexes in there, and just go crazy. Or you could add eight powerbombs. You have the eight steps to work with, so you can add in as much as you want. It can be additional taunts, if you want to transition to different holds, if you want to add spins in there, you can have the guy rotate. You have a lot of different options for what you can do.
IGN: Wow, awesome. Well, you said there are two main parts that get you going. What's the other one as far as new features?
Ledesma: The other big feature is that we're overhauling our tag team match. What's really exciting about this is that we've pretty much had the same tag team match in there for a while, and it really plays like a single match with a legal partner waiting on the side.
IGN: Yeah, that's one of the things that -- looking at it ahead of time -- that's going to be a hard sell I know for me personally because I've been playing for years, and it's like whenever I'm doing my single-player career, you get to that one point where you have to do the tag match. So, you tag out immediately and then drag the other guy out and just get the count out so you can move on.
Ledesma: Right.
IGN: How do you change that?
Ledesma: So basically we've added a bunch of new abilities and we've added some big changes to the tag team match itself. I'll highlight a couple of those big changes so you can kind of get a taste of how the new tag team approach will play like. First, one big change is that both members will function under the same momentum meter now. Instead of having separate meters, you work as a team. So this encouragement is used for you to work as a team and you are using the same exact momentum. So that's one big change. We're also adding attributes as a team, so you can continue to get better and earn new abilities with your team. That means you can earn the ability to do special tag team abilities that we're going to have in gameplay that you can -- as you get better as a team, the more you play with that team, that partner -- you'll start to gain these abilities, and I'll start talking about some of these abilities as well. IGN: OK, sounds great. Is it working in that RPG realm that you guys kind of touched on with 24/7 Mode, or is this something that can be -- you're earning attributes even when you're doing exhibition stuff with a friend?
Ledesma: This is actually starting to work a little more like fighting style abilities, where you earn these and they become fighting style abilities where you have these abilities. Another big change we're doing is that double team moves will actually -- you know, in past tag team matches they seemed like a single match because you're also doing single finishers. This year, we want to do double team finishers.
IGN: How does that work? You were talking about looking at other organizations or old wrestlers, are we going to see stuff like the 3D or the Steiner Brothers out there?
Ledesma: I can't comment on those in particular. We definitely want to have a lot of, we're definitely adding a lot of double team moves this year. We definitely want to have a wide variety for you to choose from, but really since you're working with the same momentum meter for both players, when you get that build and you do finishers, you have to do a double team finisher. That's the way it really works.
IGN: OK.
Ledesma: Also, I was talking about some of the underlying changes with tag match, but really what we're doing is, we want to make it fun to be the illegal partner. The past is not fun; you sit on the side and wait for the guy to tag you in. There's no fun in that whatsoever. Now what we're doing is we're giving the illegal partner a lot more abilities. Now he can do stuff like he can clutch the opponent when he's close by and hold him back so that your partner can go ahead and beat on them, so you're going to be able to do that. He's also going to be able to distract the referees. The referee's close by -- he can grab the referee and distract him. We're also going to have [with] the illegal partner the ability to grab the top rope and bring it down if a guy's Irish Whipping so that he flies right over the top rope. You know the move I'm talking about?
IGN: Yeah, yeah, nice.
Ledesma: We're also going to have taunting abilities that let you hit the turnbuckle or clap to get the crowd involved and boost up your momentum. We're going to have a lot of abilities like that that really encourage the teamwork side of it where there's some strategy. Like I said, you go ahead and Irish Whip the opponent and I go ahead and drop the ropes so he goes flying out. That encourages teamwork, but also gives the illegal partner something to do. In the past he just sort of sits there, and it's not fun to play that aspect of the tag team match. We want to change that, give them a lot more abilities. IGN: I know it's early, so it's always hard to pin you down on a question like this, but what does this mean in terms of the roster? In a very general sense, because I know one of the major criticisms of last year was that there weren't a lot of tag teams on it. So are you going to see a thing like more of a focus as far as having people like Jessie or Festus or having the people together, or is going to be like you're teaming 'Taker and Cena and doing this tag team and stable thing together.
Ledesma: That's a great question, and we thought about that quite a bit and really a lot of our features this year are supporting tag teams and we really want to push that. I can't name any specific Superstars, but I can say that we did focus on trying to get tag teams in the game because we realize how important that is. Greg, you know as a fan that tag teams isn't a huge thing in the WWE right now. There are not a lot of huge, big name tag teams, but there are quite a few tag teams in there. We wanted to make sure they're well represented in the game, and that this feature is supported well with tag teams on the roster, so that is definitely something we consider. I can't tell you who's in the game, but I can tell you that you're right on with that question because we asked ourselves that same question and factor that into the roster decision.
IGN: Definitely. And I understand, of course, so don't worry about not being able to tell me. I'm sure one day I'll find out, but beyond that even, what does this mean as far as AI? I'm going to get to it in a second that obviously that this -- from what I've seen overall -- this game appears to be really, really into co-op and really into having that other player, but if I was alone, is the AI better? Is the tag team, my partner, going know to pull down the rope and stuff like that?
Ledesma: Love the question, and I'm sure that's probably something that's on everyone's mind. We are actually rewriting our entire AI engine this year. Our whole AI system is being rewritten and we are taking drastic steps and measures to make sure that the AI is not only extremely intelligent, but is well supported in all these new features that were added.
IGN: Wow, well that's quite the undertaking. I mean, from everything you guys have had in the past ...
Ledesma: Absolutely and the you know the big thing about it is that we're also looking at a bunch of new AI features as well. It's not just making sure that the AI is competent, that he's intelligent, but it's also toying around with doing some cool stuff like making each individual Superstar act like their real life selves.
IGN: Wow.
Ledesma: So that means that Undertaker is not doing diving attacks when it's not appropriate. It means that Undertaker is doing moves that set up his Old School, and he knows that he has the Old School and he knows that it's one of his best moves. So he has a sequence that sets up those types of moves. So what you'll see is you'll see the actual real life Superstars start to use their actual strategies, their actual moves to set up a lot of their personality, a lot of the actual moves that they do in real life programming. That's another cool thing that we're offering with our new AI engine.
IGN: Now, I've noticed that what I've read so far from you guys about '09 there wasn't talk of fighting styles. Is that's still in there, was that something that worked for you guys last year?
Ledesma: Fighting styles will still be a part of the game. We're not disclosing exactly what we're doing with the feature yet. We will in the near future, but I can definitely say that fighting styles are still a part of the game.
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