User:Crashandcortex/WWF Smackdown 2: Know Your Role!

The most electrifying game in all of entertainment!

Unused Cinematic
5qIiSFcLtEg Buried deep within the DMY file on the disc, the sole contents inside of said file are a cinematic and nothing more. However, the contents of this clip are highly unusual - it's a tutorial video straight out of Evil Zone, a fighting game which was developed by Yuke's prior to their work on the Smackdown series! As files labelled "dummy" tend to merely be placeholders to fill up necessary disc space, the presence of this video there of all places is rather bizarre, although it is likely a leftover from the files within Evil Zone, imported into Smackdown 2 unknowingly.

Corrupted Character Portrait


A significantly corrupted duplicate of Rikishi's portrait is grouped with a number of miscellaneous graphics, occurring much later within the internal order than the rest of the character portraits. The heavy corruption of the image makes it impossible to determine whether this was an unrefined graphic removed and replaced by a newer variant, a placeholder of some sort or whether it may have intended to house a new character altogether.

Internal Order Oddities
The order of the character portraits is rather well-defined in the games' C2 file, scrolling from Superstars in a consistent internal order up to player-created wrestlers. However, 2 duplicates of the "generic male" portrait are interspliced into the Superstar images seemingly at random. However, looking at the internal character order (present on the Notes page), the exact positions of these duplicates coincide perfectly with where Big Show and Ken Shamrock are located in the game's memory! Indeed, if either Shamrock or the Big Show are randomly selected as 1 of the 4 initial participants in a Royal Rumble match, they will show up with the placeholder portrait shown below, lacking their own individual ones.



Commentary
Starting with WWF Smackdown: Just Bring It, play-by-play commentary would accompany matches akin to their real life equivilents, but unused audio files found in the XA file reveal that this idea was initially planned for Know Your Role and was scrapped midway in development! Multiple exclamations by Jim "JR" Ross and Jerry "The King" Lawler exist in this file, few of them serving as character-specific references (minus a few obviously intended for The Rock). In the final game, only a few samples of this audio are used in out of context situations, such as in cutscenes during the Season mode and on the copyright screen.

Jerry Lawler
The snarky bugger that everybody loves to hate, Lawler's in-game commentary is a faithful (albeit understandably toned down) translation of his trashy real-world persona, containing a relatively diverse mix of straight match commentary, insults, personal opinions and other assorted audio.

Clearly directed at The Rock, this fleeting comment would have immediately followed Rocky's typical "Finally" catchphrase (itself documented below) wherever it was going to be used. Unfortunately, neither clip survived to make it past the XA file.

Again, these clips would appear to refer to The Rock, with a few of them presumably intending to collaborate with comments made by JR.

Appears to be generic commentary which would follow the flow of the match. Surprisingly little of Lawler's commentary pertains to this though, much of the theoretical in-match clips belonging to JR. This makes sense, as Ross is notably more focussed on the flow of matches than Lawler when the two provided commentary.

While it's unknown who these clips explicitly refer to as multiple wrestlers in the game are "former WWF Champions", the second among these is rather interesting, as no voice clip exists to compare it to, and it is very clearly meant to be a reply to JR on the Tag Team successes of a certain wrestler. It's also unknown as to where they might have been used.

The collection of audio here is clearly in reference to a particularly intimidating Superstar (possibly Kane?), although no explicit reference is made as to whom they would apply to.

Contrasting rather considerably from King's predominant objectification of female wrestlers is this rather complimentary clip, although as is the norm for the game's audio, the script's deliberate ambiguity makes it impossible to determine who it may have been intended for.

As going backstage in matches is indeed possible in the Smackdown series, the clip may have been used when both wrestlers take the fight outside the ring for a sizable amount of time.

Jim Ross
True to the real JR, Ross has less to say when compared to Lawler, but his commentary is played straight and generally is more focussed on the matches and the events surrounding them.

These 2 clips are the only ones which are character specific, and, as expected, they refer to The Rock without directly mentioning his name.

An assortment of rather generic match commentary which would likely flow in accordance with attacks and grapples used in the match.

Unknown what the context of this clip might've been.

While this voice clip is indeed used in-game on the copyright screen, this variant of it is not, as 2 versions of the same audio clip exist in the XA file with different filters. While this unused variant is edited in the same fashion as the rest of JR's unused commentary, the one actually used in-game has a somewhat muffled effect imposed onto it, making it sound much more like JR is using a microphone, as in real life.

May have accompanied cutscenes where Superstars are attacked by an unknown assiliant, although no evidence of this exists.

Both of these quotes would probably accompany the winning wrestler's victory celebration after winning a match, or possibly in the conclusion of a monthly event in Season Mode.

The Rock
All of the following audio samples are trademarks of the WWF's breakout star, which he has a tendency of using almost every time he dons the mic. The only place they conceivably could have been used is during cutscenes in the game's Season Mode, where occasional snippets of dialogue make their way into the pre-rendered cutscenes, and The Rock, being the namesake of this game (and numerous other entries in the series), commonly appears cutting promos. Only one of these phrases ("If you smell what The Rock is cookin!") ends up used in-game, rendering the quotes below unused at any point in Season Mode.

Notable amongst these audio samples in that it is commented on by King in the unused commentary documented above! While Rocky normally starts his diatribes addressing the people of the state where the show in question is located, evidently, recording audio for all 50 states (and potentially other areas of the world) would be a ludicrously lengthy and unnecessary affair, so the comparatively generic "home away from home" is used instead.

Seeing as this last quote isn't accompanied by the equally famous "shut your mouth!" as is typical Rock practice, it's likely this may have served as a title drop.

Other Superstars
The Rock isn't the only superstar with unused dialogue, as quite a variety of superstars are given lines they never end up using at any point within the game. Like the audio above, the only place they really could've been used in is during Season Mode.

An unusual case of audio truncation in which Stone Cold is cut off mid-sentence, with "Same Stone Cold" comprising what little can be made out. "Hell Yeah!" is a traditional buzzword used by Stone Cold, which may have been intended for a cutscene during his Backlash reappearance. Mick Foley thanking somebody (presumably the audience and his fans). May have been intended for a scenario re-enacting when Foley "leaves" the WWF, perhaps after Mankind's "I Quit" match with The Rock, an angle which was played for dramatic effect in 2000. A stock audio clip of Mankind saying his trademark "Have a nice day!" catchphrase, which was also used in Acclaim's WWF Attitude released 2 years earlier. Likely intended for a promo cutscene. Presumably has the same purpose as the quote above. These were Chris Jericho's first words upon the ending of the much-hyped Y2J Millennium Countdown and his spectacular introductory appearance on Raw. This may well have been intended for another in-game re-enactment. 2 unused audio samples by contemporary WWF Champion Triple H, with a very identifiable lisp-uh. Where they might have been used in unclear.

Unused Superstar Themes


Tying in with the above information, the themes for Big Show and Ken Shamrock exist on-disc, grouped in with all of the other Superstar's themes. As both were selectable wrestlers in WWF Smackdown 1 who were dummied out of the game (although not entirely removed, as shown below), it is likely that these are leftovers from the prequel, albeit without their accompanying titantrons. If they are randomly selected during a Royal Rumble, these themes will indeed play as they run to the ring, but seeing as their inclusion in the Royal Rumble mode appears to be a developer oversight, their themes playing may also be a mistake. Furthermore, if they are amongst the first 4 participants, the game will treat them as if they are a default user-created fighter and they will use the generic Smackdown theme and titantron instead.