Smackdown vs Raw 2006's only flaw is the source material it's limited to.
Since its departure from Acclaim the WWE has had to suffer from some lame games from some bad companies and on multiple systems. To me warzone will always be the street fighter of this genere, but let me not get too off base. The second smackdown had great stories and improved vastly over the first. Then there was shut your mouth the last Rock catch phrased game. That was great in numerous ways and made for a great game. Then there is this years and so far its been said a lot already, but this is the top of the moutain baby if it gets better that this then you might as well be in the WWE yourself.
I didn't play a smackdown game for two years for fear that they were garbabge and to me I was right. Bring the pain was horrible not as bad as the third game but still bad. Which brings me to the title of this review the worst thing about SvR 06 is the past wrestling year or so its based on. Other than that its fantastic. Had this been the early Austin era to the late rock mick foley time this game would be a classic ageless title on par with game like MGS and symphony of the night.
I say that because simply right now wrestiling isn't as entertaining as it was in the late 90's. This all illustrates how good this game is. How you ask--- well the graphics are stunning and that isn't saying much for smackdown title seeing as they have always looked good. This though my fellow gamers is almost next gen in its self. The caw's even blend in and no longer look awakward compared to real superstars. The detail in the faces, the cut scences, the intro's which I will refer back to the days of old imagine the care given here to old intros like the new age out laws, chyna, mankind and many others. I cringe with the thought of what could have been. Oh well you get the picture.
The sound in this game is a mixed bag for me because while they used liscensed music as gs pointed out they chose some rather weak bands. On the other hand I'm glad that gone is the lame music that use to play during a match and now commentation takes its place and sure they did it last year but this is great and not too repetetive commentation, heck its even better than mainstream sports title in that the commentators will interupt them selves mid sentence in order to point out big moves or something important in the game. Now that's detail. They even get exited when appropriate. The crowd cheers and boos when appropriate. There's even CAW voices this year and good ones at that ala def jam fight for newyork.
Gameplay-- something was lost if you ask me between shut your mouth and this years version in the way of control. When thq took over from acclaim the big complaint was moves were to complicated to perform and gameplay was slow. Here we are 6 or 7 games later and those two things have resurfaced. While not overly complicated, I think the right term to use is sophisrocated. While the gameplay at its core has not changed a whole lot the changes that were made are drastic. Like reversals, I think they are great in this game and feel realistic but at the same time by using the l2 and r2 buttons the constant guessing and tapping wears you down quicker as oppse to using square in the past which was simple but effective. Other than that the game varies the moves quite well. It listens to what you tell it to do very responsive. Easy to navigate menus. The only problem here would be load times but no worse than any other game. Imagine this game running like tekken 5 wow!!
Replay value and miscelaneous-- this game has tons of reasons to keep playing it if the online is as great as the core gameplay this might be the only online game I play from now on including madden and socom its that good. You can make your own belt and the good thing about that is that you have to collect pionts to pay for the belt to be made justifying the title because if everyone could just make belts all day then they would hold no value when defending them. You can create ppv. Season modes, GM mode, caw you. Couldn't ask for anything else ecxept for make a sign and fan modes and those are trivial. A cool idea for future online play could be a league mode or your own brand where you could cut promos with your friends and use the head phones to record and deliver your lines. Well heres to hoping.
The caw in this game is great giving you enough choice and flair to make an accurate representaion of any wrestler you want. The only problem is theme music they should have had more and good ones at that.
All in all this is a brilliant game and as with all good games it makes you want more and raises the bar for future games now. There is only a few major gripes I have. The roster choices from the show are week while I like seeing eugene I could do without the like of scotty 2 hotty and spike dudely. That and more legends where's king kong bunddy or big john stud, owen hart and so many others. Well you can't have everything. Still an awesome game. Thanks for reading and PEACE !!!