The story only applies if you play the actual Story Mode, in which you must create your own WWE Superstar. As you begin, you wrestle in small time house shows for the WWE. But, as you become more popular, you slowly make your way up the ranks and into WWE Sunday Night Heat. After finally proving your worth to the WWE, you meet the different managers of WWE, who all offer you both advice and a spot on their show. It could be either Eric Bischoff's RAW or Kurt Angle's Paul Heyman's Smackdown! Depending on which show you join, you are give the opportunity to join the major group on a certain show, either Triple H's "Evolution" on RAW, or Undertakers "New Ministry" on Smackdown! As you make a name for yourself, you go through a series of tag team matches as well as a few other matches with different types of stipulations. All of this eventually ends up with you attempting to catch the biggest prize…The WWE Championship/WWE World Title (once again, the title you go for depends on the show you join).

The controls are fairly easy to manage, that is, if you have played previous WWE titles. If not, then it may take some time to get used to them. They're pretty basic: the A button is used to grapple, but, the way you press it makes a difference. If you quickly press it, you will perform a weak grapple, allowing you to only use weaker moves to soften up your opponent. On the other hand, if you hold the A button down, you perform a strong grapple, and are able to use stronger moves, causing much more damage to your opponent. To perform a move, you must first grapple, and then press A and a direction on the Analog Stick. Each direction, paired with the A button, has you perform a different move. You can also perform moves from behind your opponent, the exact same way you would from the front. The blocking and reversing engine in this game is not one of my favorites. In my opinion, of all the WWE titles I have played, I found this to be the worst. If your opponent is attacking from the left, you press L, and if from the right, R. But, it is hard to tell exactly which side you are being attacked from, and though the picture does appear telling you whether to press L or R, it doesn't come soon enough for you to react in time to reverse.

The character models are great. The faces of the superstars are dead on, and the way each superstar walks and moves is perfect. The entrances of the superstars is also perfect - each of them walking down to the ring and performing the movements they do just as they do on TV. The arenas are crafted well, just as you would expect from watching WWE on TV. The only problem I had with the surroundings during the match is the audience. They look nothing like what you would expect from a newer game. They move in the same motions all the time, and really don't have a face. However, as they're not part of gameplay, they're not terribly important. Still, it would have been nice to get excited by crowd intensity.

The music in this game I found annoying. Like most WWE games, there is music playing as the match goes on, on the selection screen, and every other place you can go during the game. You are able to turn the background music off without getting rid of the Superstars Entrance Theme. But, after the match that theme will not be played, like it normally would. Of course, one of my personal favorite components of a WWE title is the superstar entrance themes. I could listen to them for hours on end, mostly because I know them already from hearing them on TV. The noises you hear during the match are dead on. For example - the sound of the superstars landing hard in the ring our running, and of course, the crowd cheers and chants.

The gameplay design isn't particularly innovative, but it's still fun. I'm not really sure they have much more to add from what they have in previous WWE games except for updated characters and perhaps graphics. When playing an exhibition match, you are able to choose from different types (singles, fatal 4 way, triple threat, tag team) and different stipulations (normal, cage match, hell in the cell, table match, ladder match, TLC match).

The difficulty varies. In exhibition, in which you can pick actual WWE superstars and your own created superstar, the difficulty depends on who's your opponent. But, in the story mode, the difficulty is has a very steep, almost impossible curve. As you begin, it is fairly easy. But, as you make it onto Sunday Night Heat, it becomes near impossible. For example: you're teamed up with a superstar known as Batista to take on Lance Storm and Val Venis, with a 30 minute time limit. Your opponents reverse so many moves and cheat so badly, it's just horrible. I went 30 full minutes without even getting close to beating them, until the match time finally ran out.

I do have some rather big grievances with this game. My largest complaint is the lack of a few major WWE superstars who definitely should have been in this game. For Example, John Bradshaw Layfield, who debuted (as JBL, he was in the WWE before as Bradshaw) in March. This game was announced in May, yet JBL is missing? Rene Dupree, the "French" superstar of the WWE, also made no appearance in the game, even after being in the WWE for over 2 years. And the biggest surprise to me was the lack of the tag team known as the Dudley Boys. They are one of the biggest tag teams in the WWE today, yet they were not in it? More WWE Divas could have been added - Torrie Wilson, Dawn Marie, Lita, and Gail Kim - yet, the game only supplies us with 4. In my opinion, the lack of all these superstars was unfortunate and I can only hope they couldn't obtain the licensing and it wasn't intentional.

This, like other WWE games, is very replayable. Whether you do exhibition matches, or create a new character to use in the story mode, it is always fun to play over and over again.

Overall, I found the game to be very fun. I loved this game, and will play it until the release of the next. If you're a fan of WWE games and watching it on TV, then WWE Day of Reckoning is the game for you! Even if you're not a WWE fan, I know several people who play this and find the story mode fun. A definite thumbs up in my book.