WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006

THE BAD:
No 2player season.

SUMMARY:
Smackdown v.s Raw 2006 is the newest installment in the long running series of wrestling games. The series has had it's ups and downs over the years, but has managed to put out a quality game every time. 2006 is no different as the series takes one more step towards perfection.

Smackdown v.s Raw is chalked full of matches, like it's predecessors, and this year adds a buried alive and fulfill your fantasy match to the mix. Fulfill your fantasy is a pretty pointless spinoff of last years bra and panties match. Buried alive can bet a pretty fun match, and is a nice addition, though it can be pretty frustrating. This year Smackdown has added the ability to have title for title matches, and by creating titles and defending them, it can make for many wasted hours of fun with a few friends. Also new to Smackdown v.s Raw 2006 is GM Mode. A mode that allows you to take control of Raw or Smackdowns GM. You draft the roster, sign the contracts, give them title shots, and manage their morale, all that good stuff. The best part is that you are able to play the matches yourself or let the cpu sim them. You also have to win the war of fans with the other show, which can be quite a challenge over the year. Did I mention they have the draft for next year, and you can play for as many years as you'd like.

Smackdowns season mode has improved upon last year, but not much. There are only a few different ways you can go with it, which really kills any innovation. They still haven't allowed for a 2 player season, which in my eyes, still makes Smackdown 2, arguably the best Smackdown game to date. But oh well, maybe next year. The graphics look nice, and the game features a good number of superstars, with a few alternate outfits, and plenty of unlockables. Create a superstar is there, as usual, and continues to improve every year. All in all, Smackdown v.s Raw 2006 improves upon last year, but leaves some to be desired. The GM Mode is sure to be improved next year, and should be a valuable feature to the series for years to come, but for those of us still searching for 2 player season to come back, better luck next year.

THE BAD:
- 3 Hogans! Why 3??
- Extremely dull AI
- EC match in SVR was better. At least it had some sound effects in it
- Season is good at first but it gets repetitive (like the usual)
- Soundtracks in this game are horrible like the usual
- And most dissapointing thing is THQ/Yukes took out 3 Stages of Hell mode

SUMMARY:
WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2006 is not just another wrestling game. It actually defines the genre, thanks to lots of improvements and tons of options. It's not the perfect wrestling game but it's damn close. You don't have to be a wrestling fan to appreciate the challenges put forth in this excellent title.

There's no use slamming the old wrestling games. This is new territory. Where we try to caution you about annual sports titles and how little they improve year-to-year, suggesting you wait out a season or two until some major changes have been implemented, WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2006 is ripe for the picking. If there is a better wrestling game on the market I'll eat my…words. I hear digital text contains very few calories.

WWE SVR 2006 is a lot more challenging in many respects. The AI has been tweaked but it's still a bit of a disappointment as the characters tend to perform in too similar a style. The AI may be more difficult to dominate but you can change that by adjusting the slider options. The trouble is that all of the AI characters are affected by those changes. At least you have the various multi-player modes to look forward to.

Strategy must be exercised carefully in this game. There are a lot of decisions to make which requires a lot of forward thinking. Instead of being able to keep your opponent under control with a couple of your most powerful moves, you are now going to be forced to use a different technique. A Momentum and Stamina meter have been introduced to make the game play more realistic. You aren't going to have unlimited ammo anymore. Keep using all of your top-level moves and eventually you're going to be drained of energy thanks to the Stamina meter. If you continue to use the same moves repeatedly you will bore the audience and lose Momentum, making you more sluggish and vulnerable to hits. You've got to make a conscious effort to keep things fresh and interesting.

New moves will make you want to experiment with the game play. There is a new sleeper hold, the ability to play possum, the Irish Whip and grapple moves that are totally customizable for each character. The only grapple elements you'll have to share are submission holds and the dirty and clean grapples. Other grapple options include martial arts, power, speed and old-school. Remember the Hulk is a playable character and you've got to respect his old-school style. I wouldn't want to argue with those pipes.

The Season and GM mode let you see the world of professional wrestling from a different perspective than just watching it on TV but it does get repetitive like I said after a while. The GM mode is deep and contains a lot of text and menus but if you want to run a multi-million dollar business you're going to have to get used to doing a lot of paperwork. In the GM mode the bottom line is ratings. Get the ratings and you're earning big money. To do this you have to hire the best performers, er…I mean wrestlers that you can afford. You'll also have to script events and create rivalries to titillate your audience.

Character creation is much more comprehensive than it used to be. Not only can you customize each character's grapples but you have tons of physical options to choose from. You can even trade your creations with other players online.

Multi-player modes can be accessed both online and offline. Online you can play against five other players while you can only duke it out with three others online. From tag team to battle royal matches, the game doesn't miss a trick - or a match. It even includes the Buried Alive match where you have to wrestle your opponent out of the ring and into a waiting coffin whereupon you proceed to bury him with tons of dirt that just happens to by lying nearby. Hey, it's all about ratings.

Wrestling for the championship belt is the tour de force of the online matches. Stats are recorded and stored for all players so you can check out the history of the players that you're going up against. It can be intimidation to say the least if you're up against a multiple title holder. There are a few online omissions that would have really completed this game such as a buddy list and the ability to communicate during matches. I guess you can't have everything.

Closer and closer to graphical perfection, the characters are virtually photo-realistic. You won't have any problem recognizing any of the wrestlers unless they are fabricated. The animations are, (and I hate to use this word when referring to the movement of trucker-sized guys) graceful. Shots of the crowd make it appear as though you're watching the real event on TV. The voice overs are even better than some of the stuff that passes for acting on the actual WWE broadcast. The commentary leaves a lot to be desired. It tries too hard to emulate the excitement of the game rather than just being a component of it.

Graphics= 5.0
Controls= 4.5
Soundtracks= 1.5
Replay Value= 5.0
Life Span= 5.0
Fun Factor= 5.0

Overall= 4.5

If you're an SD/wrestling fan or liked the previous SD games then this game is a must buy. If you're unsure then rent it first and see for yourself. One thing for sure is that this SD game is the best out of all the SD games I have ever played!

THE BAD:
No improvement in Graphics
Lack of Storylines in Season Mode
Create A Wrestler Mode
Create A PPV is crap
Not very accurate superstar ratings
Jake Roberts to be traded through PSP

SUMMARY:
As a summary I'm gonna say this game is brilliant. Yes it may have a couple of bad things that let it down but still it is two times as good as the last game. Plus it has the best idea ever in a wrestling game... GM Mode. GM Mode is where you are the GM of either Raw or Smackdown! and you create the shows in short if you didn't already know. Along with GM Mode this game features a number of other good things like new belts in Hardcore and the Million Dollar, it features more and better legends and has an improved challenge mode. Along with having the belts, you can now defend them in Exhibition Mode.

Also on the menus if this game it features Music that will play. The songs on there are pretty good. I personally think that Pieces is the best song but thats just me. The music is good IMO because it features a mix of both rap and rock which makes most fans, including me, happy.

Nextly I'd like to talk about the graphics. In my opinion the graphics are pretty much the same as in the last game, Smackdown! vs Raw. I feel that in the next they will need a bit of an improvement.

To conclude my discussion about this game I'll say that this upcoming year WWE Smackdown! vs Raw 2007 will be available to buy for PS2, PS3 and XBox 360. The game will be buyable in November 06 so be sure to get it as soon as possible.

To end my summary, I give this game 4.5/5, a great game overall.

THE BAD:
The lack of story-lines.
The length of season was too short.
Glitches; too many I think.
Fufill your Fanstay match
CAW clothes
Outdated wrestlers

SUMMARY:
Smackdown! vs RAW 2006, was a very good game in my opinion. I really enjoyed playing it for the first couple of months and do pick it up and play it occasionally. Let's get into this shall we?

I will start off with the bad. Season Mode in depth was just way too short and boring. Basically after playing two seasons (Once on each brand) you run into the same story-lines. The same things happen, and you don't get very many choices to decide a different path. I was also let down on how short Season mode was. Only one year, I believe that was way too short. I was hoping for two or three years not just one.

Glitches... Just way, way too many of them. I was hoping for them to correct most of these but apparently they were too busying added wrestlers who were fired six months ago.

Fulfill Your Fanstay match was just dumb and boring. There was little point in adding this to the game, expect for it to waste up space. I rather have a better match like Inferno match, or Ambulance match. Something that's actually fun.

CAW's clothes. It look like they were pasted to their body, and it was just dumb. It looked weird most of the time, and always looked glitchy.

Now a big flaw was the Outdated roster. Instead of adding new talent like MNM, Mexicool's, Matt Hardy, Viscera or others they added people who were fired over six months ago. Really stupid in my opinion.

Now for some good things.

First of all I would like to point out the smooth game-play. It made the flow of the game run smoothly and I was very happy with the new button moves, and everything else included in the game-play.

The Buried Alive match was a huge plus. A match wanted in this game for quite some time now. This match was sweet and I think my friends and I played more then 50 times without getting bored of it. Very challenging and fun match. Definetly worth a try.

New modes like General Manager Mode. A whole new mode which allows you to take the job of the either brand's General Manager, and compete for the GM of the year award. While you battle it out for ratings by booking matches, and choosing the story-lines you must keep your fans and your wrestler's happy.

The Stamina meter was a nice feature to add to this game. It adds more realism, and makes the game more challenging. So your opponents can't always beat you down with out letting you get up or else they will lose their stamina. This also incorporates the Double Knockout feature. Where if you both run out of stamina or right after a big move like a finisher you both collapse, and must fight to catch your stamina and get up or else you lose. But for those who don't like this feature they also made it where you can turn it off in the options menu.

I also really liked the Playing Possum feature. This move is extremely hard to pull off and you need to have perfect timing, and a finisher, but when done it looks perfect and can get you a win with the sneaky pin.

All in all this game is good. With the flaws in the game you might not play it forever, but still it's quite fun. If you guys like competition invite some of the boys over and see who is the King of Kings.

THE BAD:
Unfortunately, there are quite a large number of easily visible flaws with this game. First of all, the roster is relatively out of date - superstars that were fired half a year before the game's release still made it onto the final cut, and a large number of superstars - most notably Triple H, Shawn Michaels and Batista - have out of date attires, whilst Christian's attire is only half-finished. Second, there seems to be a glitch where after a player's superstar has been on the receiving end of a Running Irish Whip, the character's animation freezes whilst it still carries on moving across the ring. Third, Season mode continues to become less and less unpredicatble, with an even smaller number of avaliable storylines avaliable to the player - and, once again, the promise of superstar-specific storylines has completely gone. Despite the allowance of title changes in exhibition mode, Create-A-PPV mode still doesn't make it feel like a real PPV - with no promos and certain matches only avaliable at certain arenas, it needs a few adjustments to increase the realism feel to it. In Create-A-Move-Set, a large number of moves have unneccessarily been removed. The game has, fortunately, been made harder in the higher difficulty levels, but the higher counter ratios make it almost impossible to win in Legend mode as the opponent tends to cover almost everything you throw at him.

SUMMARY:
The mistakes in this game are few, but they tend to stick out like two sore thumbs once you get going. The game has taken some massive steps forwards, but they've also taken some back as well. It'll be interesting to see how the game crosses over onto the PS3 in the next couple of years, but the last PS2 version of the game was overall a positive ending to the series on the PS2 console.

THE BAD:
- Season Mode - CPU A.I - Some obvious glitches (some affect gameplay and some don't) - Stamina metre can be a bit annoying (it can be turned off) -Those that have played previous SD! games may have trouble with the new controls.

SUMMARY:
With plenty of fun to be had and hours of replay value, this game is a must to all wrestling fans. As stated in 'The Good' section, SvR 2006 has an all new GM Mode, where you get to take control of one or both brands of the WWE and test your skills as a WWE General Manager. This game mode alone can add hundreds of hours of replay value to the game... ...but wait, there's more! After the title defense situation on Smackdown vs Raw 1, you will no longer have to set up a PPV just to defend your titles! They can now all be defended in Exhibition mode, even created titles. As you would expect, the graphics have now been amped up, so the wrestlers and Divas now look more life-like than ever before. And the voice overs now give the characters a personality. CAW Mode has been taken up top the next level, with many new options to change even some slight details you may want to give your CAW. And you can now give your CAW a voice so that when you go through Season mode, they talk! How many times have you wanted to beat up your opponent with a piece of wood wrapped in Barbed Wire? Well now you can, with whole new weapons to use, including he Ring Bell, Barbed Wire Wrapped 2x4, a Shovel and many more. Now, onto the bad stuff, and there isn't really to much to type about... ...except for the season mode. I don't know if it was limited by the voice-overs, or if it was just neglected, but the season mode this year, pretty much sucks. Did you hear about the all new two year season mode? Well, forget about it. It doesn't exist. Did you hear about the character specific storylines? Forget about them, they're not what you were thinking, either. Every game has glitches, but it would seem that this game just makes them obvious. One I can say is really annoying, although gameplay is not affected, is that when you Irish whip an opponent, they sometimes just 'glide' or 'slide' across the floor, with out their feet moving. Other than these minor setbacks, this game is damn-near perfect. If you have been looking for a game to play, and feel then need to put someone threw a table, but don't want to go to jail for assault, the SmackDown vs RAW 2006 is the game for you. Go and get it now. I mean it.

THE BAD:
Non updated roster
Some flaws
Challanges can be hard

SUMMARY:
THQ has come a very long way since the original SVR was released back in 04.The game itself is a chart topper in my veiw.Although,in some cases the game is a big dissapointment.The roster is missing some key superstars such as MNM,Ashley and The Mexicools.They could have replaced some of them for crap superstars such as Charlie Haas and Michelle McCool.I can't blame them for not adding superstars like The Boogeyman and Bobby Lashley because they had probably made the game before they came into the business.Bearing this in mind,THQ has a cure.The new General Manager mode lets you create matches on your fav show weather it be SD! or RAW.You can even draft your roster and put legends in.Speaking of legends,this time around THQ have added more legends such as 'The Million $ Man'Ted DiBiase and Jimmy Hart.Also SVR 06 has a new stamina system that drains your superstar if it is empty.This may take time to get used to.Finally,to spice up the meat THQ have new match types on offer.This includes the Buried Alive,Backstage Brawls and the divas fav,the Furfill Your Fantasy Match.If you a bigger fan if the games than the actual thing then i recommend this.