Well, the wait is finally over. Fans in the UK are now able to get their hands on a fresh copy of WWE2K14. Now that the game is out, it's time to take a look at the final stretch of games that further advanced the genre and led to the newest game on the market. This last part of my epic series takes a look at the recent years of WWE games from 2005 right up to this week's big release. Because it's the current run of games, expect a LOT of "Smackdown vs Raw," as it was the dominating series of the past decade or so. Because the games in this generation came out for multiple consoles, I'll mostly be focusing on the more advanced versions that came out on the PS3 and Xbox rather than the stripped back versions for Wii and the portable consoles. As always, you can read the previous three installments before this one.
PART 1,
PART 2 and
PART 3 (2001-2005). If you've been reading with me the whole time, thanks for joining me on the journey. If not, shame on you. Do it now. THEN you can go and enjoy WWE 2K14. But first let's go back to 2005.
Smackdown vs Raw 2006 (2005) (Ps2/PSP)
This was the second game in the Smackdown vs Raw series and the first game to come out on a portable device (the PSP.) Finally handhelds got a decent, though stripped back game to play. It turned out to be the last time that the Playstation had Smackdown as an exclusive game. The aim of 2006 was to bring a new realism to the series and make a slight change from the slightly more arcade like gameplay that came before. Among the new options were new match types in the long requested "Buried Alive" match and "Fulfill Your Fantasy," which was just Bra and Panties match with more options for the virtual creeper. Buried Alive was very similar to the previous casket matches. Another big new addition was General Manager mode. GM Mode was a mode more like a sports management simulation almost along the lines of Football Manager or the popular Extreme Warfare series. You chose a show, performed a draft and set to work at making your show a better one. You chose the match types, participants and got a rating for your show to compete with the other GM. Now you could finally create an entrance like you could previously in the Raw games on Xbox. It was a welcome addition that fans had been clamoring for, for years although slightly disappointing in that it arguably wasn't as good as the Raw or Day of Reckoning versions, though obviously inspired by their influence by things like the timing of the pyro. Gameplay introduced a new momentum bar to determine the match flow and a stamina bar that could be turned on and off. Each character could now have 3 of 7 grapple types; Power, Speed, Technical, Brawler, Martial Arts, Luchadore and Old School. Additionally, they also had either a clean or dirty grapple and one for submission. These options gave a whole new level of move variety and made for possible interesting combinations in wrestlers. A power irish whip was added, which took longer to execute but obviously was more effective. Cage matches now let you escape through the cage door, that is if you could beat its button-based challenge. The season mode on 2006 was two calendar years for Raw and Smackdown. Voice acting was heavily improved and had around 100 motion captured cut scenes. Created wrestlers now also had voices, though were limited to one of 5 preset voices which were particularly cheesy. In an awkward moment for the company, one of the stories in season mode showed Eddie Guerrero being choke slammed into a coffin after his death. His unfortunate death happened just after the games release and was too late to remove. GM Mode was an interesting new addition and the extended season mode was a welcome addition, but further improvements to the series were needed to keep things interesting.