WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006

WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 for PSP brought THQ and Yuke's long-running World Wrestling Entertainment series to Sony's handheld in December 2005. Released in North America on December 13 and in Europe on December 16, it is the PlayStation Portable counterpart to the PlayStation 2 game and the first SmackDown! title made for the system. The licensed professional-wrestling game follows WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw and captures the Raw and SmackDown brands of the 2004–05 WWE period, with an extensive lineup of active Superstars and selected Legends.

Matches are built around a blend of strikes, grapples, running attacks, aerial moves, submissions and ringside weapons. Players pick a wrestler, choose from exhibition match options or longer modes, and work toward a pinfall, submission, count-out or other rule-specific win condition. The 2006 entry placed greater emphasis on how a bout develops: the momentum system tracks which competitor has the advantage, while stamina can make sustained high-impact offense less effective if it is used carelessly. Wrestler attributes such as Stamina and Hardcore further differentiate the roster's strengths.

The move system gives performers styles that suit their in-ring identities, including power-based, technical, speed-oriented and brawling offense. Grapple choices, signature moves and finishers give familiar WWE competitors distinct approaches, while the stronger Irish whip provides another way to send an opponent into the ropes, corners or ringside environment at a cost to stamina. Steel Cage bouts were expanded to allow escape through the door, and the game includes specialty contests such as Buried Alive alongside the wide range of standard singles, tag-team and multi-person matches.

Outside a single match, WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 offers several ways to shape a wrestling career or a full television brand. Season mode presents storylines across Raw and SmackDown programming as the player pursues the WWE Championship and World Heavyweight Championship. General Manager mode instead puts the player in charge of one brand: drafting a roster, arranging weekly cards, managing rivalries and trying to win the audience battle through to WrestleMania. Create-a-Superstar, Create-a-Move-Set, Create-a-Belt, Create-a-Stable and Create-An-Entrance tools add room for custom wrestlers, teams, championships and presentation.

The PSP version preserves much of that scope in a portable format while adding features designed around the handheld. Local wireless multiplayer supports the game's PSP-exclusive minigames, including wrestling trivia in WWE Game Show, a poker game and Eugene's airplane challenge. It also includes a PSP-specific Legend, Jake “The Snake” Roberts. A USB connection between the PSP release and the PlayStation 2 version can share selected content and unlock features across the two editions, making this more than a simple platform conversion for players who owned both.

As a snapshot of mid-2000s WWE, WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 on PSP combines licensed arenas, personalities and championship ambitions with deeper systems than its immediate predecessor. Its mixture of quick standalone matches, customizable creations, brand management and portable multiplayer gave the handheld a notably full-featured wrestling game. The following year's WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2007 continued the annual series, but this 2006 installment remains the point at which the franchise first entered the PSP library.