He's been to Rebellion, he's bought the T-Shirt, and he plays with the Big Red Machine action figure… so now Daz is ready for the main event itself, SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth on PlayStation 2.

With big releases on both the GameCube and Xbox in the past few months the question of which version of WWE's latest wrestling games would be superior was one that needed asking. WWE Wrestlemania on the GameCube proved to be entertaining, with many different match types but little in the way of depth or gameplay. WWE Raw on Xbox looked more like the real thing than the real thing, and provided a new strategic variant to the gameplay style, yet lacked any real options and match types, plus it didn't have Rob Van Dam. WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth, the latest in a long line of SmackDown! games, proves to be somewhere in between.

Something that was hinted at when Raw was in development but never materialised was the ability to have six men in the ring at any one time. SYM now delivers this step forward in wrestling games. The six man tag team matches and the Royal Rumble are two such match types that allow for those total carnage moments that the WWE is famous for.

One of the biggest advantages SYM has over Wrestlemania and Raw is its Season mode. Choosing your favoured superstar and taking him through a season of wrestling action allows you to challenge for and win titles, bid to headline pay-per-views and even appear in Wrestlemania itself. The season starts with Vince McMahon and Ric Flair choosing their draft picks for Raw and SmackDown!. You can either decide the drafts yourself, or skip it and let fate decide. It will affect you though as your chosen wrestler will be involved. Once the season is under way you turn up for the brand you're allied to and have total freedom to wander around the arena during airtime. You can storm into Vince's office and demand a title shot, or make your way to the ring and interfere with an ongoing match. This is quite enjoyable as the feature wrestlers try to avoid you in order to compete in their match, so you smacking them repeatedly won't anger them to the point of retaliation.

You can also engage other superstars in conversation, and interviewers such as Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole. All of the dialogue is conducted via captions, with which you are able to choose your desired response to be as polite or aggressive as the mood takes you. Your aim is to catapult yourself to superstardom in the eyes of the people, and of Vince McMahon. Your victories and performances increase your superstar points, and your ranking. The higher you're ranked, the more chance you have of gaining a title shot. The title shots seem to take place every four or so shows at the pay per view matches, the first of which is Backlash. Winning at these events will unlock hidden items and costumes for you to use later, either in single player or in season mode.

Unlike Raw and Wrestlemania you can only win title belts in the season mode, so if you're into the hardcore title you'll need to adapt your wrestling style to suit and impress Vince enough to be granted a title shot.

Unlike Raw, you get no shortage of match types from Hell in a Cell to TLC, but oddly unlike Raw if you do choose a Cage match, or something that changes the look of the ring, your entrance isn't altered to accommodate that change. You still enter an ordinary ring as if you were fighting a standard match. There are little niggles in presentation like this throughout the game, the worst being in multiple competitor matches. In Wrestlemania and Raw when two wrestlers were locked in a grapple you could interfere by performing any offensive move and take them both down. In SYM you have to wait until the grapple is over before being able to hit either man. Your efforts at attacking them will simply see you hit thin air. This is in some ways a blessing, as now that you can have six men in a ring at any time, the ability to hit an opponent while he was performing a grapple move would lead to total chaos, and very little in the way of grapples and throws being executed. AI opponents stand by and wait for the grapple move to end before attacking, it looks a little strange but you can see why it happens.

Another difference from Raw is in the manner in which points and victories are scored. Instead of baying to the crowd to increase your popularity, thus decreasing your opponents as you do in Raw, you build SmackDown! points by performing offensive moves. As your SmackDown! points increase you get SmackDown! icons lit, allowing you to quite literally lay the Smacketh down by pressing L1. This has to be timed right though, when you are able to perform your trademark finishing move the SmackDown! logo will appear next to your name, pressing L1 at that exact moment will allow you to whoop some serious ass. Performing moves such as the people's elbow is remarkably simple using this technique, even for a novice. When involved in a match such as the Royal Rumble that can have up to six men in the ring at any time, the potential for finishing moves galore is very high.

SYM sports the most up-to-date roster of any of the games to date, but once again falls foul to the curse of an ever-changing entertainment industry. The arrival of Rey Mysterio happened too late to make it into the game, causing much disappointment throughout our ranks. You can of course use the create a wrestler to make your own Rey, but mask and finishing move can not be recreated so he'd be Mysterio in name only; maybe next time. John Cena is another WWE superstar missing from SYM, which is a strange one because he came to the WWE long before Mysterio and should be featured. He's definitely one to look out for in the future. One welcome omission is the character of Eric Bischoff. He may be intentionally portraying the character of an evil snide git, but he plays it too well. Thankfully he's not in this game. Playing the game using as many of the characters as we had time to, the only intro we found to be inaccurate was that of Maven's. Rather than the rousing music he sports on SmackDown! we get to listen to a kind of remix of the SmackDown! theme.

Of the new editions to the SmackDown! ranks, the names of Brock Lesnar, Rob Van Dam, Shawn Michaels, Goldust, Hulk Hogan and Booker T stand out. There are in fact sixty playable characters this time around, with six non-playable characters. No characters can be unlocked; they're all available from the start. You are able to find and unlock items in season mode though. Things such as weapons and extra outfits can be unlocked this way. Beating RVD to win the Intercontinental Championship at Backlash unlocked some extra garb for the Rock. Hopefully the more you progress and the more you win you'll eventually be able to unlock some outfits for Stacy and Torrie. Bra and Panties outfits perhaps?

That's not as far fetched as it sounds, because during the season mode the special 'women's events' do happen. One edition of SmackDown! started with Jerry the King Lawler introducing what seemed to be an evening dress match between Stacy and Deborah. His comments and facial expressions were pure Lawler.

The commentary in SYM comes from Raw announcers JR and Jerry Lawler. Thankfully it has been kept to a minimum with only occasional references to the action being made. They pipe up with tidbits of info specific to any of the wrestlers involved in the action too, but they are limited so it won't be long at all before you're listening to the same thing over and over again.

The few niggles with SYM are far outweighed by the game's advantages over the competition. Graphically pinned by its Xbox counterpart it emerges victorious with its varying match types and comprehensive season mode. This is without doubt the best SmackDown! to date and will provide WWE fans with the best wrestling experience they're likely to get short of a Doctor Pepper ad.

Daz Jamieson

+ : The most up to date roster of any WWE game to date
+ : Up to six men in the ring at any one time (sounds painful)
+ : Season mode is full of surprises and realistic events

- : Have to wait for a grapple to end before attacking a wrestler in multiple wrestler matches.
- : No Rey Mysterio
- : Graphically not quite up to the standard of WWE Raw on Xbox