Portable Gaming Revolution

A tear comes to my eye, when I sit back and realize how well THQ and Yuke’s Media Creations ported WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2006. Not only have these teams delivered a wrestling experience like never before, but its made it’s way onto the PSP with minimal content sacrifice. The question is… will you have what it takes to fight your way to the top of the chain in either Smackdown or Raw?

This installment of the popular WWE wrestling franchise is a major leap over what was once acceptable as a wrestling game. For example, the introduction of two gameplay mechanics that revives the lost art of “a whoopin’ dat ass.” What am I talking about? Stamina and Momentum. These two aspects alone shift the game’s feel from an arcade fighter to more of a simulation. In past installments of the WWE franchise you would be able to slew together a mess of powerful moves in order to keep your opponent firmly glued to the floor. This isn’t the case anymore. Each move you perform decreases your stamina. No longer can you keep performing the same power moves over and over and over again. Now you have to use your stamina wisely, otherwise when you run out of stamina, your WWE superstar becomes a sluggish target. Thus steps in the strategy. Can you regenerate your stamina? Why yes my little friend. There’s one of two ways, hold down the select button and you’ll begin to regenerate your used stamina or it’ll happen slowly by just standing still. Obviously the more powerful moves drain your stamina quicker, as well as being on the receiving side of them. Momentum is where the “crowd pleasing” nature that is the WWE business comes into play. If you make a more interesting fight by changing up your moves and taunting your opponent then your momentum will increase, thus giving you your finisher. If you decide to do the same old thing over and over again, the crowd will grow tired and your momentum will go down. If the stamina is a little too much for you, you can always just turn it off in the options and go back to the old ways things were. I personally, can’t imagine going back to the old way. It spices things up a bit.

Think you can make it to the top of Smackdown or Raw? Then go ahead and find out! The vastly improved, Season Mode puts you through one year of the WWE business. You can use one of the WWE superstars or use one of your created characters. This time around, the season mode has been nicely modified. The voice acting has been very nicely done. The story is filled with nice plots, twists, and turns that are all presented in a way that makes you feel like you’re watching the actual show. The story doesn’t branch off as much as I would have liked it to, nonetheless, it’s still better than what we were giving in past installments. A new mode that was added in SVR2006 is the General Manager Mode. Your goal is to basically choose either to be the GM of Raw or Smackdown or beat your rival GM by ways of getting the GM of the Year award. This accomplished by arranging shows in a way that keeps fans watching your show, not your rival’s. Spark rivalries between your superstars to keep the show exciting, Put together extraordinary matches, talk trash about your rival’s show. You have to do whatever it takes to make your show better. You can simulate, play, or watch all the matches you put together. Yet keep in mind your roster of superstar’s needs too. Some might become whiny when they haven’t got a title shot in a while. Their fatigue goes up when you constantly put them in strenuous matches. Even the occasional injury becomes a factor. The GM mode feels like a nice start to something that could be even better if the developers put sometime into it. Its a great idea, but they don’t have it down just yet. The next mode is a PSP exclusive, Arcade Mode. Arcade Mode is most likely a sad attempt to add some “quick play” in the game. It has Texas Hold’em Poker, Eugene’s Airplane Challenge, and WWE Trivia. Like I sad before Exhibition is where you would go to fight a match, outside of season mode. You have a SHITE-LOAD of different matches you can fight in. Classics such as Hell in a Cell, Ironman Match, Royal Rumble, etc. The list goes on.

The “Create Modes” have been nicely worked on. A new feature is the “Create an Entrance.” Now instead of using the entrances of the other superstars, your created character can have his/her own entrance, or you can alter a WWE superstar’s entrance. Create A Stable has also been revised. Your teams actually have teamwork stats. The better their stable stats are, the better they will dominate as a team. You can also use Create a Move-set. A feature that lets you customize the moves of the already available WWE superstars or of the soon-to-be superstars you created. To add to the mingle of things; you can also create a WWE Championship. In this feature you can make your own title that you can fight for. Last, but definitely not least, there’s Create a WWE superstar. My favorite part of the customization aspect of this game. This should be nothing new for people that have played a wrestling game before. In general the menus have been streamlined to an extent. Caution: Patience is required when using any of the customization features. Load times are horrible.

What’s that you say? Are you asking about the Multiplayer? Yes, we have some multiplayer, Ad-hoc. That’s all, no online play. Nothing would have been better than to take your created superstar and dominate the online arena. You can play up to four players in Exhibition, Title Match, and Party Modes. Party Modes lets you play the PSP exclusive Arcade mode with your friends. If you would like, you can trade your created superstars.

Graphically the game is beautiful. Even more so when you take the capabilities of the PSP into consideration. Every once in a while the game will hiccup, but that’s not that disturbing as you would think. The load times are horrendous, that’s probably due to the detailed graphics. Believe me, the load times are a small price to pay for the sheer beauty of the graphics. The sound is great. Voice work is just like the TV show, which adds to the immersive gaming experience. Granted, there is no ring side commentary, but it’s usually nothing but corny remarks and puns. For some reason or another, the music just works really well with the whole ‘butt-thrashing” theme. It includes an assortment of rock, heavy metal, rap, etc. You get the point.

As I said before, the best part of this game is that the gameplay is left nearly intact. You get to carry the whole WWE experience in your pocket, what more can you ask for? The PSP version of WWE Smackdown versus Raw 2006 is so far the best wrestling game in the handheld arena. GO GET IT!!!