SmackDown vs. Raw '06: Initial Thoughts

Picked up the game on Friday and I have been experimenting with it off and on this weekend. It's getting harder and harder for THQ to top themselves, but they've definitely done it again. Initial thoughts:

- The ring entrances are EXTREMELY lifelike, to the point where it almost looks like the real thing. Really good stuff here.
- The "General Manager" mode (eg EWR-lite) is just AMAZING. Combine this with the fact that you can play any of the matches you want, and it's a tremendous feature that I'm surprised hasn't been tried until now.
- The Season Mode (from the little I've seen so far) is more challenging than normal, though it has considerably more depth than ever, so a feature worth pursuing. I still remember in the SmackDown: Shut Your Mouth days where they only had three storylines, and you had to sit for hours clicking through everything if you wanted a created character to appear in them.
- Speaking of which... the CAW feature seems a lot more difficult than previous incarnations. I'm still trying to figure out how to do even the most basic of things here. Haven't tried the "Create An Entrance" feature yet, though I'm excited to. On the plus side, they've brought back decent sample characters, so if you wanted to resurrect Brock or Luther Reigns, you could do so quite easily.
- There seem to be more characters than before, although many of them (Spike Dudley, Mohammad Hassan, Mark Jindrak, Joy Giovanni, Chris Jericho, Christian and of course Eddie Guerrero) aren't on the current roster. But I'm sure there will be many more over the next year, just as in all incarnations. As for the new ones, they make pretty decent likenesses of Eugene, Heidenreich, Carlito, Masters, etc. Nice choice of legends here as well.
- Overall gameplay is slightly trickier, mostly because of the new "Stamina" bar. I'm not crazy about it, because it means you constantly have to increase your stamina, but it's not the end of the world, either.
- There are a few new game modes here: Buried Alive (which is hard), Title Matches (ehhhh) and some different incarnations of the hardcore match. I still choose TLC most of the time because it's the most functional all-around mode. Also, you can change the number of competitors in a Royal Rumble, in case you don't want to sit through a 30-person affair.

Looking forward to playing this one a bit more, for sure....