Smackdown! Vs. RAW 2006 (PS2) Review

Posted by Sean Garmer on 07.16.2006

It's wrestling that should entice you enough. Come read about why Smackdown! Vs. RAW 2006 is so great and why it will all have us craving next year's game.

The Smackdown! Series over the years has been the one game that wrestling fans could depend on to meet their expectations. It has been the game with the most innovations and most enhancements. It also has probably been the most criticized series when something doesn’t go right. As the standard for wrestling games in the modern age, this series has a lot to live up to every time it takes a step inside the squared circle. After a so-so effort last year and the speculation at the time of release of this game, that this would be the last PS2 Smackdown! Game. Many wondered if Yuke’s would just take a break with this game in order to prepare for the future in the PS3. Now that we know there will be a 2007 release for the PS2, the improvements in this year’s game really show that Yuke’s has always tried to pay attention to the fans. They really went all out with this game and left themselves with many things that just need a little touch for perfection next year. What is the end result in all of this? Well an all-around terrific game. I know most people reading this review may have already bought this game and had tons of fun with it. This is mainly for any skeptics that may have decided to skip out on this year’s edition.


Graphics & Presentation: I like to describe how well things are presented to you in a game. Not just how they look but how they fit in with the game too. If this is a sequel than this is also where I describe all the new things that do not involve the game-play. Don’t worry if there are any graphical problems I’ll cover that too.



This Smackdown! Can easily be called the best looking wrestling game ever; as the facial animations on the wrestlers are amazing. You can even see all the tattoos on Rey Mysterio or Batista’s body. All the Legends look fantastic as well, with all their traditional attire it makes for a wonderful set of characters. The layouts of the various arenas look fine. The crowd is in full 3D which makes the arena look better when the camera pans around during the entrances.

The game is presented with a few new different match types including: the Buried Alive match, “Fulfill Your Fantasy” which is a replacement to the Bra & Panties match, and the Bar Brawl. The Buried Alive match-up is a very welcome edition and one that wrestling fans have been clamoring for many years. The whole point is to take your opponent and weaken him enough to where, he won’t be able prevent you, from putting him into the casket. Before you can even put him in there, you have to button mash, until this meter fills up that throws your opponent into the casket. After that another meter comes down where your opponent has to press a button at the correct moment to prevent the casket from closing on top of him. It’s a really fun match with a friend because you have to button mash against each other to see who loses. The “Fulfill Your Fantasy” is a really silly contest that serves no purpose other than cheap attempts to throw sex into a game. You win by hitting your opponent with pillows and stripping off their clothes. I really thought this was just a throw away match type that could have been left out. In this game you do not have the freedom to wander around backstage, so the only way you can do that is by having a brawl. There are three types of brawls, one backstage in the lockeroom, one in a bar, and one in a parking lot. All three have their own little kinks that let you know where you are. All of them can be fun if you want that old school backstage fight feel. However, the game by no means is perfect in the graphical aspect because this game like all wrestling games is hit by the collision detection bug. A lot of the issues of wrestlers going through each other have been fixed, even though it does happen occasionally it is not the huge problem that has plagued other games. The issues come with some of the running and flying moves. Sometimes when you are doing a running move you will knock the guy down, even though, you may have completely missed the target. More often than not, it happens when the opponent is halfway getting up. The flying moves especially, special flying moves, tend to miss too much. I was very happy when they did away with the automatic flying special. Where immediately when you did a flying special move, it would lock on and you would be helpless. Now it is quite the opposite, it seems like the wrestlers take so much time to do the move, that the other wrestler is given plenty of time to get up. I’ve always been in favor of having a meter for the special flying moves. That is similar to the meter used for the buried alive match or the new sleeper hold system. Where the opponent has to press the button at the correct time and if they miss, the move hits. This is not a huge issue that will ruin the game for anyone it is just a minor one that could frustrate some people. Especially, when you are all set for the win as RVD and you miss the Five Star Frog splash because the game took too much time taunting.



All the matches from the last game make a return and some familiar faces got some much needed upgrades. In cage matches, if you decide to escape the cage there is a new way to do it. You can either walk out the door or decide to climb the cage the old fashioned way. However, the cage climbing is a little different. Instead of just pressing the button to climb and letting the game do the rest, now you control your destiny. In this game when you climb the cage, a meter pops up and it will rapidly go back and forth. You must press the button and try to get it as full as possible. As you continue to climb, the meter will continue to pop up until you get over the cage. Keep in mind you have to do all this while your opponent is trying to knock you down. So let’s just say that cage matches got even harder. The Ladder Match also got a little bit more fun. Now, when two people get on top of a ladder they can duke it out with punches and the winner sends the other off the ladder. Making it real a fight at the top. While all this is happening, your tag partner could knock you both off the ladder or grab another ladder and take the title. It adds a lot more realism to the match and makes it even more fun in multi-player. The Table’s are little bit more difficult to bust in this game. So you can no longer go in for that quick knockout. You have to actually take the time to weaken your opponent a little bit before he goes through the table. I don’t want to spoil everything for you. So if there is something I didn’t touch on in this section. I left it for you to discover on your own. Let’s move on to all the different modes of play in Smackdown! Vs. RAW 2006.


Modes: This one is pretty self explanatory.


As with all the Smackdown! Games there is a season mode for you to play through. This one is a little better than last year’s because it gives you a few more branching off points in the storyline. Some storylines only appear with certain wrestler’s, so it makes it worth it to go through the story mode more than once. Of course you can expect all of the normal stuff you would see in a WWE year to be included in the game. The one thing I did like is that when you play in the season mode. The A.I. is harder to play against than in your normal exhibition match-up. So as you progress through the season, there will be times when the game really gives you a test, where you will have to be very good at the game to defeat your adversary. I still think that Yuke’s should add another story mode into the game that plays similarly to the one in Smackdown 2: Know Your Role. Where the season mode kept going and never ended. Also there was a ranking system where you had to beat all the superstars in front of you in matches, before you could get a title-shot. Having two options for a season mode is not a bad idea because after a while, you start doing the same storylines over and over. So it becomes rather boring to do story mode. A never ending story mode allows you step in and have some fun whenever you feel like it, without having to go through the same boring storylines.

Exhibition, of course is included. You can take any of the 43 wrestlers, 13 legends, or seven divas and put them in a match. There are 24 match types with around 80 variations of all the matches. There is a lot to do there so if you get bored with the other modes, you can come here and just have a match. The game supports up to six players and can be a lot fun with a few friends, if you get bored playing by yourself.

Create-A-PPV and Create-A-Belt also make a return. Create-A-Belt is cool because you can defend you’re created titles against your friends or online against the globe. Create-A-PPV is the same as always.


New this year, is the invention of GM Mode. This is basically a wrestling version of a sports franchise mode and is obviously a mode for all the big time wrestling fans. Any of the smarks out there that say, they can book better than WWE, finally have their chance to prove it. You begin by choosing your show either RAW or Smackdown! And then you sign your roster. Up to 20 superstars, divas, legends, and created characters can be signed at one time. Then you go through a whole WWE year. As a manager you have a plethora of options at your disposal. You can decide to waste all of your money on signing all the big time players or spend wisely and try to give a more balanced show to your fans. Whatever you choose is up to you, but there is a catch to all of this. Since you will be playing against either a friend or the A.I. you must be wise about your spending. As a manager the whole point of this is to make sure you beat your opponent in fan support, so that you can have the main event at Wrestlemania. In its first year of existence the GM Mode actually plays fairly well. As long as you don’t go overboard you always seem to have money available so that you are never out of it. If you protect your superstars, keep them happy, and make sure they win every once in a while, you can put up a fair fight against anybody. However there are problems with the mode that I should discuss. First off, I should mention that if you use created characters they start off at the lowest popularity possible. The way the GM Mode is structured every match you either gain or lose popularity. So it becomes very difficult to raise your created character to the main event levels. Especially because you cannot just start a jobber in the main event. Building him up becomes a bigger effort than it should be, because for you to gain popularity you have to constantly win matches, and that forces other wrestlers to lose their popularity. Then if your character is not popular enough and he goes against the big name guys, the people won’t care so you tend to have low ratings on your shows, and just like with the WWE, ratings mean everything because it gives you a clue as to how many people are watching your program.

I suggest that Yuke’s shouldn’t make the superstars lose popularity every time they lose a match-up, because then you have to sacrifice everyone to build up one guy. In wrestling, especially with the main eventers, losing doesn’t cause the fans to automatically lose faith in those superstars. When you are dealing with guys wanting more money, guys wanting title-shots, injuries, and losing streaks, it is silly to have to worry about popularity in such an extravagant fashion. Thankfully the mode gives you ways to save your rivalries and give superstars that are not active on the show each week, the ability to keep their popularity. The game uses promos for advertising, injured superstars, and even as a way to invade the other show. So if you have too many people on your roster, you can use the promo’s to make sure people don’t forget about them. That is very much the same thing WWE does when they want to bring in someone new or bring someone back from injury. There is one problem however, the player cannot see the promos, so you never know what really happens. The player is left with the results and sometimes they don’t go in your favor. However, I’m sure they will come up with some way to let you see those promos next year, or at least I hope. The last issue that arises is with the rivalries. If the superstars that are in a rivalry don’t have some kind of match against each other, every week or if you don’t preserve the rivalry with a promo, the rivalry automatically gets dropped, which is not always the case in wrestling. Especially with WWE, there are so many feuds going on that they skip a week with some of the feuds. That’s really a minor thing, and if you don’t over populate your roster you should be able to prevent that for the most part. I do think it is still a problem that should be addressed in next year’s version. Overall though, the GM mode is a lot of fun and can get very addicting. It is even more fun, if you play it with a friend because you always try to outdo each other. Then at the end you get to brag about being the better booker, and the best thing about it is that you don’t even have to play any matches to do it.


Online is back with this year’s version and it is ten times better than last year. This year you can play almost all of the matches online and up to four players can play in one match. The one problem that occurs aside from the fact that there is still no voice chat, is that you can only play one person per PS2. So if you have a friend come over and you guys want to play online it is impossible for both of you to play on the same PS2. He would have to bring his own copy of the game and his own PS2 for him to play. That is really something that is elementary in this generation of online play. XBOX Live at least lets you play with two people on one box. I think that PS2 should be able to do the same. It really hurts the online product because what if that friend of yours doesn’t have a PS2? Well if he could play with you, on your PS2, it might make him want to buy a PS2 just to get online. I don’t know if they will fix this for next year’s PS2 version, but they should at least fix it for the PS3 version because it will be one of the first games out that will have a big impact on the online use. Other than that, the online mode works fine as you can go into a lobby and look for players and all that. There is lag of course because Sony insists on letting people who have dial-up internet get access online. So as long as you play with people that have a good internet connection it should be lag free. You can also take your created characters online with you. So that all the people around the country can see that you are the master of the created character. The best thing about online mode is that it adds a lot to the lasting appeal of this game because people can always go online if they are lacking friends to play against.


Challenge Mode is also here in this year’s version. This is very much like Madden’s challenge mode where you get money for completing specific tasks in the ring. The tasks range in difficulty from easy to legend. As you complete each difficulty level you also receive an un-lockable item, so it is worth doing. This is also how you unlock the secret arenas, one of the legends, and the different attires for some of the wrestler’s.

They have also added a lockeroom feature to this game. It’s similar to having your own room on your profile. You can go in and check your win/loss record, change the difficulty for challenge mode, and even customize the room. The cash that you earn in challenge mode or story mode allows you to buy things from the WWE Shop. Then you can use those items to decorate your lockeroom any way you want. There is also a trophy case that has all the trophies that you have earned through playing the game. It also tells you what you have to do, to get the trophies that you don’t have. It’s a neat idea, and is a nice way to take up some time.


As always the Create-A-Wrestler feature has returned for another wrestling game. This is one feature that Yuke’s is always really good at making better each year. Along with that they also added a Create-A-Entrance feature. Now you can take control of all the aspects of your entrance. You have four different places that can be customized. The Stage, The Ramp, Ring Entrance, and of course the ring itself are all at your disposal. You can put pyro anywhere, there is also about 13 camera angles that you can play with, and also you can change your entrance moves to anything you choose. So now you can have four different entrance moves instead of just choosing one to go through the whole entrance. It gives people a lot of different options and can make for some very funny entrances. You will see a little bit of lag, if you have put too much pyro in the character’s entrance, so be warned. However, it is not really a big deal, just a minor detail that only applies to those people that are pyro freaks. Basically, if you have pyro going on every part of the entrance, then it is more likely to have some lag. Also the created characters take a little too long to load when you are playing a Royal Rumble match. I think it depends mostly on the amount of created characters that are in the match itself. The more created characters the game has to load the more lag there will be. It can really get annoying in spots because it distracts the player. Really it’s just one match type and won’t kill the game for anyone. I just thought I’d mention it because it does happen. Lastly to finish off the character, you have to give it a move set. There are a few more types of moves that you can choose from in this iteration. Now there are seven types instead of the regular old four. Submission is included for every wrestler but aside from that included are; old school, martial arts, technical, lucha, brawler, and power. That’s a lot of moves, and it provides the creator even more choices for their characters. With this many moves I’m sure you will be able to give each created character at least five unique moves. You also gain more moves by unlocking the 13 legends. Gosh if only there weren’t three Hogan’s. It is probably the best group of legends WWE has put into one game though. So I really can’t complain. I think that about sums it up for the modes, so we can finally move on to the game-play.


Gameplay: Well it’s the meat of the game. The whole reason most people buy games is for this. If this isn’t good, you might as well forget even playing this game.



All this other stuff that’s in this game would be meaningless if the gameplay didn’t match up. Thankfully, the improvements made this year really help add a lot to the already impressive gameplay. First is this invention of the stamina system. The stamina system brings an element into the match-up that many fans don’t think about. Wrestlers even if they don’t show it, do get tired in the ring. Yuke’s tried to match that by placing the stamina system in there to let the player understand that concept. If you do too many moves in sequence or run around too much, you will lose stamina. If the player uses up too much stamina, the wrestler will fall down giving the opponent an opportunity to capitalize. Then you can use the select button to raise your stamina back up when your standing or you can press random buttons while you are down to regain some stamina. Stamina even affects your special moves. If you don’t have any stamina and try to do a special, the wrestler will not be able to finish the move. That is something to always keep in mind, because stamina always plays a big part in every match. There have been many times when I thought I had the match won, but then I would forget about stamina and I couldn’t pull off my special move. This let my friend right back into the mix and I ended up losing the match. So you always have to pay attention to the stamina bar. Stamina can also lower your body damage for a brief period of time, if you fill it up all the way. This always helps keep things even and helps less experienced players stay in the game longer. I love the stamina system because of the realism it brings to the game. However, I know that there are a lot of people that like their wrestlers to be un-tiring, and if you don’t like the stamina system, you can go into the options menu and turn it off. Yuke’s did a smart thing there because they know not everyone is going to like all the new editions. So to keep people from taking the game back, they allowed fans to turn the stamina thing off.

Another new thing is the momentum meter that replaces the old special meter. This one plays a lot like the momentum meter from the Nintendo 64 games. It goes up or down depending on what you do. This also ties in the face or heel aspect introduced in last year’s game. If you’re a face and you do high-flying moves, taunt, or block a lot you will raise your meter faster. Heels can do things like using weapons if the ref is down, using dirty moves, or simply dominate their opponent. Once your momentum meter is full, it flashes and then you can perform a special move. You also have the option to save your special and fill up your special meter again to get the most damage out of your special move. Also if you have a saved special and then wait till fill up your meter again, you can steal your opponent’s finisher (that applies to clean wrestlers only.) Heels can do the same thing and steal their opponent’s taunt. I really liked the momentum meter because it makes you earn your special. Instead of just accumulating it because you did so many moves. Also this prevents repetition because you get penalized if you use one move too much. So players have to think about what they are going to do and not just focus on one thing. Since it only lets you save one special, it also takes away from those players that just save up a bunch of specials and then use them all to get a cheap win. I really don’t see any harm in it, but I’m sure there are those that don’t like it either. Also I should add; the saved special can be used for the new possum pin. Just like in real WWE matches, if you have one special saved, you can score a quick roll-up pin on your opponent. For the most part, it is like having a secret special move. It is another element that allows you to catch your opponent off-guard because if your opponent goes to grapple or strike you, while you are on the ground, you can hit them with the possum pin. It is really funny when you are being dominated for a really long time, and your friend thinks they have the match won. Then out of nowhere you win with a possum pin. It ends up being a pretty helpful addition in my view.


The A.I. is a lot better in this version. As long as you play it around the third difficulty level, you should get a challenge in matches. Sometimes the A.I. will even use some psychology if they have a submission special. You will still see a lot of just continued countering, but they are smarter to where you can actually have a very competitive match every once in a while. The heels have too much of a tendency to go to the outside of the ring more than they should, which can get very annoying. Even though, it is a smart way to allow the A.I. to gain stamina. Most of the time, it results in the A.I. walking around the ring for five seconds and then getting back inside. This just allows you to attack them as soon as they get back in the ring. So it does not amount to much for the A.I. Other than that, there are some silly moments that happen in the Elimination Chamber match. The A.I. still goes up on top of the chamber or off the top rope too much to do flying moves. At least, they decide to use some discretion every once in a while, but it still happens way too frequently. Sometimes I would get so annoyed by this that I couldn’t take the match seriously anymore. I finally decided that the only time I would play a Chamber match was if I had at least four people playing with me. They did add a new feature for the tag team matches concerning the A.I. Now, with just a movement of the Left Analog stick up or down you can tell your tag partner to either attack your opponent in the ring or attack his partner on the outside. This is a lot better than letting the A.I. decide to break up pins, because many times it would decide to do everything else but what it was supposed to be doing. So it helps control the tag matches a little better, so that you don’t lose because of you’re A.I. partner’s stupidity. Like I said before, the A.I. is a lot smarter in this game. Even though, you will get into some counter-fests sometimes, it is more competitive.

As for the rest of the gameplay elements, the body damage system has returned. The weight balance system is better because now, it even relates to the finishers. So you will not see a Cruiserweight doing any kind of lifting on the Undertaker. All the submission moves have some kind of meter you have to play against. So there are no more cheap submissions. Everything else is pretty much like last year’s game. It adds to the fun of the game, while giving you some challenges as well.


Sound: Does the voice acting sound ok? Do the sound effects come out correctly? And how is the music? That should be answered in this section.


Well, I am really impressed with the voice acting this year. The wrestler’s actually sound like they are talking normally and not like they are just reading lines. The voices all sound great too and not like they were in some warehouse like last year. So you have to applaud the staff for that. Most of the wrestler’s do voiceovers for the game, however, most of the legends did not. The only legends that did voiceovers for the game were Mick Foley, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Jimmy Hart, and Hulk Hogan. It was really cool though, to hear all of them say their lines in character and act just like I was watching it on television. It adds a lot more to the story mode which felt like a big drag with all the text boxes in previous versions. Now, even your created characters can have voices. This is also a really good thing, because it doesn’t discourage people from using their created characters and it makes them feel like they are part of the story. Instead of just being the player in the game. There is still some text that only pops up when the game wants to ask you a few things, but, at least after that, they have the character say the text lines. So really, the game is mostly text free. The sound effects are also spot-on, with the exception of some of the weapon shots going off right before you hit your opponent. Other than that, everything else sounded fine.

The announcing is better than last year’s because the announcers have more lines. However, it still feels rather weird in spot’s because they tend to say the same things over and over. They do have the separate announce teams for RAW and Smackdown which is good. The problem is that wrestling from a video game stand point, does not translate well to play-by-play. So they have to do it WWE style, by adding in random facts about the wrestler’s and just talking about big moments in the match. I think it is always going to be hard to do announcing for these games because no matter how many lines you give them. Many of the same situations pop-up in each match so you are bound to hear the same lines a lot. I do appreciate the effort they give though to make it sound genuine. Especially, Cole and Tazz, that still have that bickering nature they used to give us on Smackdown every week. If there is one thing that is disappointing about the sound it is the menu music, which is not very good at all. The only song I could stand hearing more than once was “Broken” by Fireball Ministry. I actually liked it so much, I used it for a created character. Other than that, the soundtrack suffers from trying to please rap and rock fans. There is not a whole lot of variety to them either, as Bumpy Knuckles does all the rap music. Then some other artists do the rock music. I understand WWE was trying to be low budget by using bands that are not very well known, but my goodness, I had to turn the volume down going through the menus after a while, because the music got annoying. The superstars all have their current entrance music. The Legends for the most part also have the music they used back in the day. There are two exceptions in British Bulldog and Junkyard Dog. Bulldog’s is some official English national anthem and WWE didn’t want to pay the license for it. As most people know Junkyard Dog used Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” as his theme music, of course, it is not on there either, but really it is not a big deal, it is just an entrance.


Lasting Appeal: Does this game have enough to keep you playing it over and over?



If there is something this game has more than anything else, it is lasting appeal. There are many modes of play, you can play with up to six players at a time, and the gameplay is really good so it will keep people coming back for another match. The online mode is a blast, and it is so much fun beating people you don’t know, or maybe even people you do. With so many match types and the new GM mode, fans of the game will find some way or another to keep this game in their disc trays for a long time.


Fun Factor: How much fun did you have playing this game?



This is one of those games that if the gameplay is really good than there is no way you can’t have fun with it. Smackdown vs. RAW 2006 is so much better than last year’s game, that it makes it pale in comparison. The fact that I could have a double knockout in a match enticed me to play some extra matches. When you play with friends the game can keep you there for hours at a time, not to mention, all those classic moments that can give you lasting memories to talk about for years to come. Unless you hate wrestling with a passion, you will have fun with this game.


The 411: What else can I say? The game is oodles of fun and the sheer amount of stuff you can do gives this game a lot of longevity. If the minor A.I. and collision detection problems were not there, and if the GM mode and Story mode were a little better I might have given it a perfect score. Like I said in the opening, most of these modes just need a little touch to be perfect. I really think they should add a second season mode to help give it some length. Ultimately though, the rating doesn’t matter because the bottom line is this, if you love wrestling there is no reason not to pick up this game. What matters the most is that you have fun playing it, and this game gives you plenty of opportunities to do that. I just hope the series gets even better next year.

Graphics	9.0	For the most part really good, the wrestlers look amazing and the arenas too. A few collision detection issues keep it from being perfect.
Gameplay	9.0	Extremely well done, the stamina system and momentum meter add alot to the gameplay. Minor A.I. issues are all that stand in the way.
Sound	8.0	The Voice acting is really good and so are the sound effects. The announcing is still a little quirky and the menu music sucks ass.
Lasting Appeal	9.5	You can do so many things in this game that it could have you playing it for hours. A better online mode and GM mode are the major contributors.
Fun Factor	10.0	I really do not know how you could not have fun with this game. Six people can play at one time, four online, and there a lot of match types. It is just great.
Overall	9.0   [  Amazing ]