The history of wrestling games on handheld systems has always been a spotty one, especially for the WWE/WWF license. Sure, there's probably some poor schmo out there who'd say, "Hey! I liked WWF Road to Wrestlemania on Game Boy Advance," but is that spoken out of love for the license or a genuine desire to enjoy mediocre gaming? The truth is, even outside of the arguably good Fire Pro Wrestling port on Game Boy Advance, wrestling games have pretty much always sucked on handhelds since the beginning of handheld systems. But, now they've found a bedfellow with a successful series. The SmackDown! franchise has been on a roll this year. First, Yuke's and THQ deliver a SmackDown! installment on PS2 that both wrestling game fans and wrestling fans who happen to play video games could agree upon. Now, they've set their sights on bringing a quality WWE experience to a handheld, something that no publisher or developer has been able to successfully pull off.

For the most part, Yuke's effort is a success. WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006 is a damn-near literal translation of the PlayStation 2 game, but truncated to a handheld. Everything that you can do (except jump online) in the PS2 game, you can pretty much do here. And for that, SDvR 06 can be commended. However, there's a fatal flaw that comes with the fidelity to source material, and it's completely crippling. The load times are horrifically long. From the match options menu to actually participating in a Buried Alive match, it was roughly 55 seconds, a kiss of death for handheld gaming. Midnight Club 3 was probably the last PSP game to have load times so atrocious.


On both PlayStation and PlayStation 2, the load times for SmackDown! games were usually quite bad; usually enough, in fact to turn off wrestling game fans. SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006 on PS2 was somewhat bad, but the overall experience made up for it. While the PSP version is nearly identical in its excellent gameplay, its load times are a serious liability and one that can't go unmentioned, in part because they feel twice as long as the PS2 game. Besides waiting on matches to start, it means that the load-intensive Create Mode is effectively a no-no unless you're patient or doing something else while a game is loading. To remedy that, though, both versions of SDvR 06 have cross-compatibility through USB, a feature that is a serious relief if you already picked up the PS2 version. In essence, it means that you can transfer your created Matt Hardy or Ken Kennedy onto your PSP without having to endure the arduous amount of time it will take to load up a face. The synchronization is a wonderful feature; hopefully more PS2 games will offer it in the future, as SDvR 06 shows how it can be done right.

Now, awful load times aside, SDvR 06 boasts all of the modes that are in the PlayStation 2 version. That means that, yes, the awesome Madden-like GM Mode can now go on the road with you. Season Mode has all of the dramatic cutscenes and voice acting that are in the console game. And all of the new game modes, including the exceptionally fun Buried Alive Match, have made the cut intact. It's something that's certainly commendable to see from the Yuke's team has managed to adapt everything gameplay-wise over to the UMD, possibly because the loss of a lot of sound effects (absolute silence from the crowd happens frequently; players likely won't notice unless they turn the soundtrack of bad hair metal and forgettable hip-hop off) and Jim Ross and Jerry "The King" Lawler's color commentary freed up some space.