WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role

WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role
Also known as: Exciting Pro Wrestling 2 (JP), WWE SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role (box art, re-releases after May 2002) Developer: Yuke's Publishers: THQ (US/EU), Yuke's (JP) Platform: PlayStation Released in JP: January 25, 2001 Released in US: November 21, 2000 Released in EU: December 1, 2000 This game has unused playable characters. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused cinematics. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has regional differences. This game has unusual dummy files. This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article This game has a notes page

To do: Add info about the unused music. There are unused icons for the Boiler Room and Shower Room backstage arenas, which are not selectable from arena selection screen. Create A PPV mode has mentions of some C++ files, used for the error handler.

The most electrifying game in all of entertainment!

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Prerelease Info

Notes

Unused Text A car! The car has attacked [UN] suddenly!

Unused Audio Every town is his hometown!

Unused Cinematic

Present in the DMY (dummy) file on the disc is, of all things, a tutorial video straight out of Evil Zone, a fighting game developed by Yuke's prior to their work on the SmackDown! series. Given the filename, it was likely included just to fill the leftover disk space. This video also appears in the previous game, as well on the two Simple 1500 games based on the SmackDown! engine.

The video itself specifically came from the TUTO_C.STR file from the English release of Evil Zone.

Unused Cutscenes

Raw is Jericho

Cutscene IDs 0814 and 0815 are unused cutscenes of Y2J Chris Jericho's most famous catchphrase. The cutscenes both have Jericho saying "Welcome to RAW is Jericho" hardcoded into the cutscene.

Undertaker on a Motorcycle

Eight cutscenes (each with variant for weekly show stages and for use in the PPV arena) are present involving The Undertaker entering the arena in a motorcycle. This might be intended for build-up to the Judgment Day pay-per-view, as The Undertaker returned from injury in the month building up to that PPV in 2000.

The IDs are (for SmackDown! and Raw is War stages; subtract them by one for the PPV arena versions):

• 0789: Generic The Rock promo
• 078B: The Rock "If You Smell..." promo (the voice line is hardcoded into the cutscene)
• 078D: The Rock talking smack
• 078F: Generic wrestler victory celebration
• 0791: Generic wrestler promo
• 0793: Male face promo
• 0795: Female face promo
• 0797: Male heel promo
• 0799: Female heel promo

(Source: jakeypearce (cutscene IDs))

Unused Characters

To do: More extensive video footage.

Big Show & Ken Shamrock

It's rather common knowledge to those who have extensively played Know Your Role that prominent wrestlers Ken Shamrock and the Big Show, both present in the first SmackDown! game, were intended to return in the sequel as playable fighters but were dummied out. There is a substantial amount of evidence supporting this: Their designs received minor updates to more closely resemble their appearance later in their WWF careers (Big Show has short hair and Shamrock's blue attire became green), and the themes for both characters still exist on the disc (though their Titantrons do not):

...So why were they removed in the sequel? The main reason appears to be their irrelevance at the time: Shamrock had long since cut ties with the company to focus on his MMA career, whereas Big Show was sent into development to improve his fitness and didn't appear at shows or on television for most of 2000 (he was also removed from WWF No Mercy for this reason, although Shamrock was playable there).

Despite their apparent removal, both characters still remain in the game's disc, and using a loophole with the game's Royal Rumble mode, you can actually fight against them or even as them, along with updated movesets, without any cheat device. For the uninitiated, the Royal Rumble picks 30 randomized combatants out of the game's pool of fighters. However, it appears that the game tracks who is chosen via their internal order as opposed to whether they are actually in the game, and as it turns out, both dummied out characters are sandwiched in between playable character IDs. When they come to the ring however, the game treats them as if they were one of unknown wrestlers randomly faced in Season mode: their names are shown as "Unknown" (during the match), and although their themes are played if either superstar runs in during the Royal Rumble or win the match, the game will crash if Big Show is one of the four starting wrestlers (recognized by their use of default male portrait, see below, and lack of name beneath it) in the Royal Rumble match and the match is started with entrances left on (Shamrock uses the game intro's as his TitanTron, normally used by Michael Cole).

Note that these appearances rely on an "unlock all superstars" GameShark code; there must be a nameless entry between Billy Gunn and Bradshaw (for Big Show) or between Kane and Kurt Angle (for Ken Shamrock) in Create-A-Stable or Create-A-Manager wrestler list for either wrestler to appear in a Royal Rumble match.

Removed/Hidden Create-A-Wrestler Heads

Using a GameShark or similar cheating device it is possible to replace a few of the heads in the "original" section of create a wrestler mode with older WWF Superstars/Legends:

• 

  André the Giant

• 

  The Big Show

• 

  Ken Shamrock

• 

  Sgt. Slaughter

• 

  Bob Backlund

• 

  Jerry "The King" Lawler

GameShark Code (NA):

50000404 0001
80097964 1120
80097724 1520
50000404 0001
80097234 1130
800976D4 13F0
50000404 0001
80097914 1140
80097744 0340
50000404 0001
80097604 1210
80097834 1490
50000404 0001
80097614 1220
80097844 1500
50000404 0001
80097624 1290
80097864 1510
D00A1220 6100
800A1220 6143
D010D84C 6100
8010D84C 614D

Upper and lower body parts for most of these wrestlers are unlockable in the actual game itself... so why did they render the heads unusable? To be noted, these parts would end up as Bob Backlund's only appearance in a WWE game so far.

(Source: acvo2981 (GameShark code))

Generic Characters

Data for six generic characters (three police officers, three backstage members) exists on the disc, immediately following four masked Right to Censor thugs (each holding movesets of the four scrapped legends), duplicates of Stone Cold for the five template movesets (average, powerful, speedy, technical, rough neck) and the pre-created CAWs encountered in Season Mode. They were probably intended for cutscenes, and were at no point intended to be playable.

Amusingly, their internal names can be seen in brackets to be "who30-35".

Alternate Costumes

Three costumes for Stone Cold, Vince McMahon, and The Undertaker respectively are unusually hidden on the disc as completely separate character IDs.

• Vince's is the same "suit" from the first WWF SmackDown!.
• Stone Cold's is the open jacket and jeans combination he invaded Backlash in during Season Mode.
• Undertaker's is immensely similar to his in-game outfit, but with sunglasses and a navy-blue bandanna.

Austin and Vince's are both used in Season cinematics, whereas Undertaker's accessories are never seen in-game. The parts necessary to recreate them are available in Create-A-Superstar as Standard, Original parts. The cutscene Stone Cold, if played, uses Vince McMahon's TitanTron. It is possible that Undertaker's accessories are intended for cutscenes involving him on a motorcycle.

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 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, two duplicates of the "generic male" portrait are inter-spliced into the Superstar images seemingly at random. However, looking at the internal character order, the exact positions of these duplicates coincide perfectly with where Big Show and Ken Shamrock are located in the game's memory! Indeed, this is one of factors why both has a possibility of showing up in the Royal Rumble, despite not being accessible normally and clearly not being complete characters. This is further backed up by the August prototype.

If either Shamrock or the Big Show are randomly selected as one of the four initial participants in a Royal Rumble match, they will show up with the placeholder portrait shown below (normally used for male CAWs), lacking their own individual ones.

Unused Mat

GameShark code 30096346 0011 will load a "neutral" ring consisting of a plain white mat and "WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION" apron, normally inaccessible since the ID 0x11 is also used to tell the game that the mat will be randomly selected by the game.

Unused Entrance Videos

When creating a superstar or stable with all create-a-superstar parts unlocked GameShark cheat, there are five seemingly unused options for entrance music/video that appear with the code enabled:

• Bull Buchanan (STR0/04): Uses Big Boss Man's TitanTron from the first game with an incorrect fade-out effect (Big Boss Man's STR in this game is STR0/03) and the Right to Censor theme song. (Buchanan was Big Boss Man's stablemate in early 2000 before he joined RTC; his SWAT suit is available as a CAW standard part).
• Hardcore Holly & Crash (STR0/24): Uses a combined Holly cousins tag entrance TitanTron and Hardcore Holly's theme song. The video is basically Hardcore Holly's SD1 TitanTron, before the cousins were each assigned individual theme songs and entrance videos (in case of Crash's, he uses the theme from this Tron).
• RAW IS WAR (STR1/41): Uses X-Pac's TitanTron from the first game (STR number 41; X-Pac's TitanTron in this game is STR number 56), and the SmackDown! theme song. The name string indicates that opening footage of the flagship show's intro was once planned to be available as an entrance video, similarly to the SmackDown! intro used for Michael Cole and Unknown wrestlers from Season Mode.

GameShark Code (NA):

80093D28 FFFF
80093D2A FFFF
80093D2C FFFF
80093D2E FFFF

(Source: RussJericho23 (GameShark code))

When entering this code, this enables the three previously mentioned options available for selection, along with options for NONE and Ending:

• NONE (STR1/OP): Uses the full SmackDown! video from the opening of the game, but the CAW enters without a nameplate and will disappear upon the completion of their entrance animation, as the video continues to keep playing. The Rock's theme song is used as their winning music.
• Ending (STR1/ED): Uses the end credits from upon completion of playing through a year of Season Mode. The CAW once again enters without a nameplate and will disappear upon the completion of their entrance animation. Selecting this option also uses The Rock's theme song as their winning music.

Error Handler

If the game ever crashes in the Create A PPV mode, it will display this message. This can occur if one creates too much custom PPVs in one sitting. Notably, it uses the font used in the first game's menus, and reveals that the game was coded in C++.

Regional Differences

A large portion of the assets were unchanged between the American and European versions, with one notable exception: the red car that drives in front of the arena in the Plaza backstage area was remodeled from a boxy vehicle to a more rounded sports car, although the black car wasn't changed to match.

US	Europe

Unused Images

Loaded with the in-match HUD graphics are a strip of controller icons, likely intended to display alongside an "available moves" list. A similar strip is used during the move edit portion of Create A Superstar, with two differences: the highlights are yellow instead of orange, and it includes two extra pictures – left, down, and right and left, up, and right.

Create A Superstar HUD
Match HUD

Unused Music

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There are two unused SEQ music tracks that are found within the C2.PAC file.