WWE SmackDown vs. Raw

Ah, wrestling. A form of entertainment we have long admired here at PSPworld — who else remembers The Road Warriors? — has finally made it onto our favorite portable. A more or less straight port of the console versions, WWE SmackDown vs. Raw is a wrestling game for the modern era — which means lots of sideshow antics, mini-games, and attitude.

Graphically, the game looks really good, even when compared to its console siblings. The controls on the game are a little different — for instance the stamina button is moved to the Select button — and it can cause some minor problems during matches, but nothing too obtrusive. There are plenty of single player modes to keep gamers busy for quite a while, and if you happen to be in close proximity to other owners, the ad-hoc wireless multiplayer is a lot of fun.

Also pushing the game’s replay value is the addition of unlockable classic wrestlers from the past. Nothing makes us smile quite like seeing Jake the Snake Roberts coming out to whoop up on some of the modern-day guys, and this nostalgia value will be a big deal for those PSP owners out there old enough to remember when these legends were still prancing around in their tights.

Overall, the game is one of the best wrestling titles we’ve played in a while — PSP or otherwise. The inclusion of PSP-specific mini-games, wireless multiplayer, and unlockable content and wrestlers is just the icing on the cake, and is more than enough to make up for the lacking audio quality that was no doubt the result of packing all of the other features onto a UMD. A solid game, and recommended to any PSP owner who is into the WWE.

Review Round-Up

IGN: 8.7
“…while I’ll be the first to admit that the series could still work on its list of recurring problems, there’s no other handheld wrestling game currently available with this much replay, value, or depth. In short, SmackDown lends itself extremely well to the handheld format.”

GameSpot: 8.5
“Not every single thing that WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 tries to do completely works, but the sheer amount of crazy stuff more than makes it worth the while of wrestling fans — provided, of course, that they didn’t already run out and buy the game on the PlayStation 2.”

GameSpy: 8.0
“SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006 has so much packed in, you can hear your PSP working overtime to keep up with it all. It’s so faithful to the PS2 version that it’s almost terrifying.”

Computer and Video Games: 9.0
“First the fantastic news: every mode, wrestler and bonus extra has made it across from the PS2 version. Now the rather insignificant news: there isn’t any match commentary, and the crowd and backgrounds have lost quite a bit of detail.”

Aggregate Rating: 8.6