Reviewed: January 17, 2006
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
THQ

Developer
Yuke's Media Creations

Released: December 14, 2005
Genre: Sports
Players: 1-4
ESRB: Teen

9
9
8
9
8.9

Supported Features

WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2006 has already taken the PS2 wrestling community by storm and now Yuke’s and THQ want to put the power of the entire WWE in your pocket. Yes, it’s a bold objective and nobody was more surprised than me to find out that they actually pulled it off.

SVR2006 was a huge improvement over past efforts when it released on the PS2 last November and with only an extra month of development time I was surprised to see how much more the designers could actually pack into the PSP. This game has it all and then some. It easily surpasses any other wrestling game on the market including its PS2 counterpart in features, modes, wrestlers, and presentation.

Match types are bigger and better than ever. Try out the new Buried Alive match, backstage Bar Brawl, or best of all, the Fulfill Your Fantasy match where you fill up the fantasy meter then watch WWE divas rip off each other’s themed costumes like naughty nurse, school girl, and of course, the French maid.

The fighting system has been totally tweaked and the new additions of momentum and stamina add greatly to the overall strategy in a wrestling match. No longer can you simply mash the same buttons and pummel your opponent with the same move over and over. Try it and the crowd will lose interest and shift their allegiance to your opponent. The game literally forces you to mix it up which makes for a much more fun and realistic experience.

But momentum is only half the equation. While the game encourages you to mix it up, if you mix up the wrong moves you can easily deplete your stamina making you slower and much more open to enemy attack. This adds a strategic element to know when to manually restore your stamina meter.

Both of these new elements add greatly to the overall wrestling experience and I can’t imagine another wrestling (or boxing) game after this that doesn’t have them no matter who designs them.

Reversals are back and better than ever after some significant tweaking from last year’s effort. You can now chain multiple moves together for some impressive combo strings. Grapples and holds have been improved with the new Sleeper Hold move, and you can get really sneaky by feigning injury or unconsciousness then surprising your attacker when they get close enough. And wielding objects has gotten some serious attention with the additional new stats and abilities.

Another new move is the Power Whip that allows you to toss opponents out of the ring provided you can manage the grapple meter. You can now customize your player’s grapple. Before, they were the same across the board, but now you can tweak five modes of grapples with seven choices like Speed, Power, Martial Arts, Old School, and others. Not only does this separate the playing style for all the wrestlers, it gives you access to far more grapples than previous titles.

With all of the improvements on the human side of the equation it was still a bit disappointing to see that the computer AI is still a bit deficient. Admittedly, it’s better than ever, certainly better than last year’s installment, but even with numerous slider bars to tweak the computer’s ability to play, the challenge lies merely in the computers ability to make use of the new moves and features than any true artificial intelligence. There is no real strategy at work here.

Then again, any wrestler worth their spandex will be playing SVR2006 with friends. Up to four players can go at it with the wireless link, and there are numerous modes and endless options to tweak. Best of all, all AI issues vanish when you are playing real people.

The PSP loses a few polygons compared to the PS2 but nothing that isn’t compensated by the smaller screen and sharper visuals. Textures are also slightly reduced in detail and the crowd details have been reigned back a notch, but if you have never seen the PS2 you won’t even notice. SVR2006 looks mighty fine on the PSP by any standards.

The music is primarily hip-hop, as well as several rock tunes to bang your head to. Some of the artists range from Megadeth, Bumpy Knuckles, Dillinger Escape Plan and more. It’s certainly not my favorite soundtrack or even my personal choice of music, but it works for the entire WWE presentation and you can always turn it down or off if you don’t like it.

You also have a lot of creative freedom with this title that will keep you playing around with modes like Create-A-Wrestler, Create-A-Stable, and my favorite, the all-new, Create-An-Entrance. No longer do you have to choose and watch from a stale list of scripted events. You now have total freedom to make and play the game you want to play.

With more than 60 match types and three mini-games (Poker, Trivia, Eugene Airplane Race) there is no end in sight to the fun you can have with the multiplayer in SVR2006. Perhaps the best multiplayer feature is the ability to win and then defend title belts in ten categories, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Everything you can do on the PS2 is here on the PSP plus more, and you can even transfer data for season progress and custom wrestlers between the PSP and the PS2. There is even a custom PSP character you can unlock and transfer to your PS2; a slight incentive to own both copies or at least get your hands on the PSP version long enough to transfer the character.

You can play with the included wrestlers or make your own, run the franchise as the GM or drool over divas getting semi-naked, play a season or jump into an instant match. Whatever your guilty pleasure, SVR2006 offers the exquisite gameplay and improved engine to keep you thoroughly engrossed in this title for months to come.