This game is a huge improvment of last year's game!!!!!
Gameplay: If you played any of the other versions of the game or if you played last year's game, you will probaly know what to expect from this game. You have some of your favorite superstars like John Cena and Batista, you got some divas like Melina and Lita and you got some old school legends like Hulk Hogan and The Rock. In the game, you have all your favorite matches from elimination chamber, to Royal Rumble, to Buried alive. But, the developers added a new and challenging mode called Money in the Bank which is a six man ladder match. You need to go up the ladder and retain the suitcase but the challengers will always push you off the ladder. And speaking of ladders, the developers made some improvments to ladder matches and table matches to make it better then ever. In ladder matches, not only you can put the ladder on the turnbuckle, but you can put it on the side aswell so you will be able to pick an enemie and drop him right on the ladder. Another improvment to the ladder match and probaly the best improvment to the ladder mathces is putting a ladder against another ladder so when your enemie climbs to retain the suitcase, you can run on the ladder and give him one heck of a closeline. In table matches, there are 3 major improvments. First of all, the table matches have been improved so now instead of just doing a regular attack and finish the match in a second, you need to give him some beating and then restore a finisher and to break the table you need to use the finisher because you won't be able to break it in any other way. Now for the improvments. The first one are the finishers that you can do to an enemy near the table. You can do all kinds of finishers which is really cool because you can choose John Cena and he will do FU or you can choose Kurt Angle and he will do angle slam. The second improvment are the finishers you can do to an enemy when he lies down on a table. Well, there is only one finisher that you can do in that situation and that is body splash which is cool but I rather see some more finishers like Frog Splash or all the Diving finishers like Chris Benoit's diving head butt finisher. The third and final improvment to the table matches are the finishers you can do to an enemy when you put the table against the turnbuckle and then you irish whip his to the table. There are some cool finishers like (for example) Psicosis finisher which you are on the enemy and then you scissors cros him to the table which is really fun to do. Now that I have talked about the improvments of these matches let me explain about the modes. There is exhabition mode which there you can choose any match you like and there you can challenge for a title like the WWE championship or you can challenge for a title that you created. The next mode is Story mode which has greatly improved from last year's story mode. There are 29 story lines which are all fun and interesting. They all include your favorite superstars from Rey Mysterio to Mr. Kennedy and they all go on the same way. What I mean is that in each story line, you will have four matches and then a match in a PPV like Summerslam or Wresltemania. After every week, you can check your email from superstars and what is cool about it is that you can voice mail from superstars so you will hear Booker T and his voice and you will hear John Cena in his rappin style of talk. There is one last improvment to the storymode and that is that last year's season was one year. This year's story mode, generaly there are 2 years but you can continue depending if you are a champion, if you want to challenge for a championship or you don't want to be the champion at all which leads me to the fact that every story line will take turn depending of your decision of you want to challenge for a title and be the champion or don't you. I forgot to mention that some of the story lines are really funny. For example, you have a story which a superstar that you choose, makes Candice Michelle mad so she turns you into a girl with her magic wand which is really funny. The next mode is General maneger mode which hasn't really been improved but they made a few changes that will make fans please. The general maneger mode is a mode where you are a manager to either smackdown!or Raw and your job of course if to win the GM manager of the year trophy. You can book matches, take care of injuries that happend often to superstars and manage them by giving out title shots and renew their contract. The season mode and General manager mode are all in the game modes and there is one more mode there which is PPV mode which there, you can create your own PPV or play a random PPV which is cool. You can create over 16 PPVs and it is the same as last year. Now I will explain the improvments in this mode. The first improvment is that you need to hire storyline writers that will write stories for rivalries and by that increasing that superstars' popularity. The last improment and the best in this mode is that instead of just managing Raw and Smackdown!, you will also manage Heat and Velocity depending on what show are you taking on. This addition is really cool but you don't have enough superstars to fill The mini show and the show you are running which is kind of a bumber but the mini shows which are Heat and Velocity help the superstars who have low popularity. The thing you will get when you win the GM award is ultimate experience for caw so you can make them stronger then ever. Now let me explain about the create modes. First, there aren't any create modes that weren't in last year's game. The first create mode is the create a superstar mode which is a cool mode because superstars that aren't in the game like Jeff Hardy and the Spirit Squad can be created in this mode. But, this mode is kind of disappointing because, although they added many customs and other stuff to this mode, there are only 16 layers which is anothing compared to the PS2 and Xbox 360 version and with that kind of layers, you can create the superstars but you won't be able to make him perfect, but he will still be recognized. The second create mode is create a move set mode which you can add moves to current superstars like Batista and you can add moves to created superstars. This mode is the same as last year's mode but only this time, because of all the new superstars, there are a lot more moves to add. The third create mode is create an entrance mode which is probaly the best create mode. The easy entrance is the same as always but this time you get to see the entrance when you are making it. The same goes to advance entrance. What is really cool about it is that, for example, you put the motion of Randy Orton. When you do, or in any other motion, you can decide when the box with the name will appear, when the fireworks will apprear and if you chose screen effect, you can choose when it will appear. Because if this addition, my created superstar really rocks (for all of those who want to see my character, contact me). The forth create mode is create a championship mode which you can create a championship to single or to tag. This is the same mode but only this time they added more stuff for you to put on the championship. The fifth and final create mode is create a stable mode which is the same as last year's but you get more entrances of tag to choose from like the DX tag entrance or Edge and lita entrance. What's really funny about it is that I can create a stable of Edge and Randy Orton (rated RKO) and then put the tag entrance of Melina and Johnny Nitro. This turns out to be really funny. Now for the final mode of the game, which is an exclusive to the PSP is Road to Wresltemania mode which there you can play or create a tournament for a title or just for fun. You can select that superstars that are in the tournament and what kind of match is in each level of the tournament. There are 4 types of tournaments that you can play there. Road to Wrestlemania is when you do a tournament and then (if you win) you go to challenge for a title at Wresltemania. Money in the bank is the same thing but only this time, at the semi finals of the tournament, you do a Money in the Bank match and who ever wins go to challenge for a title. Smackdown! vs. raw is a tournament which you play and then you challenge for a title and King of the Ring is just a tournament without challenging everyone. This mode is really fun and it can definitely take the place of lack online play but I had only one issue with that. When you start a tournament, you choose someone, and then you are only him in the whole tournament and you can choose who will win in each level of the tournament which is kind of lame. Ok that is all of the modes now I will talk about other stuff. The controlls, which are good and bad. The good part about the controlls is that they add the ultimate controll feature, which when you want to get to that feature, you press and hold the R button and then press any of the grapple buttons and then you go to ultimate controll move. The ultimate controll move can be used for regular damage or huge damage with environmental hotspots. You can take someone (with him on the ultimate controll move) to the turnbuckle and then punch them as many times as you want (until 10 punches) until your stanima is low. You can use ultimate controll move as environmental hotspots in all of the matches, in and out of the ring, and in backstage brawl you can use it on cars and other stuff. The bad thing about the controlls is the fact that it will take some time to get used to. The developers changed the strike button and the pick button in their places so it will feel better for the ultimate controll feautre. It does feel better, but for new comers it will take some time to get used to the controlls. The camera angles are really good and amazing because, in the entrances or even in the match, it really follows the action. The difficulty of the game is good but in the challenge mode (which I will explain in the "Value" part of the review), the legends challenges are really tough. Like there is a challenge which you are Mickie James and you are fighting The Greak Khali and just see the differences between these two and you see why it is really hard. There are other modes that I didn't mentioned but I will explain about them in the "Value" part of the review. One thing I forgot to mention which is really important is that this year, you can fight in the crowd. Even though you don't have the announcer tables you can still take your enemy into the crowd and hit him with tables, chairs, unbrellas and even hit their head with a microwave.
Graphics: The grahpics in this game are really good but they are kind of disappointing aswell. The characters' models look awesome (the disappointing part is that the characters' models are the same as last year's game), the arenas are really gool and the areas of the crowd and the backstage brawls look really nice. There is another improvment to the graphics that I will explain right now. In last year's game, when someone finished a match, they had the same finish motion, everyone did. This year each one has his own finish motion. For example, Mr Kennedy. When he finishes a match, he gets his microphone and he says "The winner of the match, Mrrrrrrrrrr Kennedy, Kennedy". It is really cool and everyone has their own finish motion. The loading times have been greatly improved and it only takes a few seconds to load, even with a created superstar. The frame rate is also really good. Although it freezes seldom, it doesn't really bother the action.
Sound: The sound in this game are the worst thing about the game. All of the superstars' music (in entrance) are there but there aren't any announcer in the match and the announcer that there is there is doing a lot of mistakes. For example, in title match. The announcer calls the champion by the championship that he is holding and his name but in general manager mode, in title matches, he doesn't call the championship that the champion is holding. And there is another mistake I have to mention is that the announcer, in Ken Kennedy's entrance, doesn't call the type of match that you are playing. If you are Ken Kennedy and you are fighting in a last man standing match, for example, he doesn't call the match. Even though, there are all of voiceovers of the superstars which are really good (especially Mr Kennedy's voiceover) and there are plenty of sound tracks that will keep you busy.
Value: You can play this game for hours and hours trying to finish the game. The season mode is huge, the general mode is long and full of veriaty and the unlockables and all the tough challenges will keep you busy for a really long time. Now let me talk about the two other modes which I told earlier that I will talk about them in this part of the review. There is the Locker Room mode which includes challenges (there are superstar challenges and legends challenges) and include the shop zone which you can buy superstars and other stuff like DX entrance, other customs for superstars and screens of divas and legends. All of the arenas and legends are unlocked by finishing the season mode but there are two arenas which I will explain now how to unlock them. There is Saturday's night main even arena which you unlock by completing all the superstar challenges and there is ECW one night stand arena which you unlock by winning a Money in the Bank match in legend difficulty. The other mode is Online mode which features Ad-hoc mode, up to four players and you can play there any match you like except Royal Rumble and Money in the bank. The online mode doesn't include WIFI mode which is kind of a bumber but with all the modes, matches and unlockables, you won't get bored from this game for a second.
Reviewer's tilt: Overall, WWE smackdown! vs. raw 2007 ends up to be one of the best PSP games so far. The graphics are amazing, the veriaty of matches and unlockables are stunning and the season mode and general manager mode will keep you busy for a really long time. If you have a PSP, get this game because it is a must have for all action fans or sport fans.