Favourite Wrestling Games

[TheGrandAvatar]

So as the thread title does mention. Feel free to say any and all. 

Think I've played most of the wrestling series out there. 

Been a fan of WWF since Warzone game from Acclaim that became ECW publisher for a while. The WCW games on PS1 from Nitro, Thunder, World Tour and Mayhem. With the awful Backstage Assault. 

Never managed to play much of N64 wrestling games. But have had a go at them all and found them fun. Which I love the style of. Same with Fire Pro Series. Smackdown Series I loved HCTP and is the standard of a wrestling game to me. Same with No Mercy and WCW/NWO Revenge.

Legends of Wrestling to EWR and TCW. So many good games. Do you have a favorite and what is the best memory of it or made it fun for you. 

Oh god. I even had Simpson's Wrestling which was just awful awful awful. 

[OctoberRaven]

Besides Fire Pro, one I really love (but can never seem to find a legit port of or even a cabinet with it anymore) is the Taito arcade game Champion Wrestler. Very visceral brawling, impressive physics for the time, managers who throw weapons in the ring and even cage matches.

It's the only game where a Giant Swing can be used not only to submit someone, but also throw them out of the ring or headfirst into a cage wall.

 

[K]

WWF No Mercy. I used to do a complete roster replacement and made it an ECW game. you could edit the appearances and names of all the default characters, so you just had to find which moveset best fit someone else, usually based on their finisher. Apparently people are doing some amazing hacks to the rom nowadays.

 

[Mick]

So, in order of release: 

 

 

Pro Wrestling

NES wrestling titles where somewhat lacking, especially in the earlier days of the system. You had M.U.S.C.L.E. , Tag Team Wrestling and Pro Wrestling to choose from. The first two were pretty shit. Pro Wrestling was not. Seven total wrestlers, each with their own unique moves (well, like two each  ), six of which were selectable, and one hell of a final boss match. Except for maybe Tecmo World Wrestling (which I'm omitting because I haven't played much of it), this was the best NES wrestling game. The WCW game sucked, the WWF releases were terrible. This was the king. 

 

WWF Royal Rumble

 

So, 1993 was not a good year for professional wrestling. And I know what you're thinking when you see this box art: "Oh, that's an LJN title!" Well, the series with Acclaim that LJN did for the WWF was actually pretty decent (They also did Super WrestleMania and RAW). 

So, Super WrestleMania, at least on the SNES, shafted the players because there were no finishers. Royal Rumble introduced them. It is a little akward using a Sharpshooter or Figure Four and then pinning the guy, but hey, we took what we could get. You had the following wrestlers on the SNES: Randy Savage, Mr. Perfect, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, Yokozuna, Tatanka, Lex Luger, Ric Flair, Crush, Razor Ramon and Ted DiBiase. Those that played the Genesis still had Bret, Savage, Crush, Luger, HBK, 'Taker and Razor, but the others were replaced by Hulk Hogan, IRS, Jim Duggan, Rick Martel and Papa Shango. 

I did like this game a lot. The Royal Rumble mode was fun, and the Singles mode was neat just to see guys who never got the title finally get their big breaks. 

 

The N64 Big Four

(I'm not posting a picture for four games)

 

So, come the N64, the first real wrestling title of note was WCW vs nWo: World Tour. I'll admit, I didn't watch very much of WCW back then in '97, the only show I really remember was a Clash of the Champions where Alex Wright won either the Cruiserweight or Television title. I wasn't completely ignorant of the rosters. I just didn't really care about WCW. The other info I did have about them came from some wrestling magazine I had. ANYHOW. 

I first read about this one in Nintendo Power issue 100. I rented it, and I was hooked. I had no idea who the Japanese stars were (finding out later that while the models were accurate, the names weren't), but it was a blast. The Giant was pretty much my wrestler of choice, and I loved going through each fed just dismantling everyone with the chokeslams. 

 

So, come WCW/nWo Revenge, I was amped up for more of the same. Still didn't know who the Japanese guys were (and they really changed the models this time), but hey, I could edit the way the wrestlers looked as well as their names. And oh hey, there's a mode to challenge for the titles! And they were they belts! And.....anybody in nWo Hollywood spraypaints the WCW title, for some reason 😕 . Oh well. Better action, a better roster (it excludes Ric Flair, but that was a bit of a clusterfuck from what I understand), more refined moves. A solid upgrade. 

 

But it was nothing compared to WrestleMania 2000. 

I was underwhelmed by Warzone and didn't bother playing Attitude. But WM2K, HOLY FUCK. The CAW mode alone was worth the price of admission, and the Road to WrestleMania was just nuts. And the E-Feds! The CAW websites! Oh, it was fantastic!

There are only two things I will say I didn't like about WM2K. One, the wrestlers didn't wear/carry the title belts, and second, it got a little tedious come a PPV when you're defending multiple titles in multiple matches. Oh, and a third: You have to win the Royal Rumble. Other than that, it was great. 

 

BUT THEN ALONG CAME NO MERCY!

 

And No Mercy was an improvement. Gone was Road to WrestleMania, and now you could challenge for each belt, recreating famous WWF angles. It does get a little weird watching your character go from acting like The Rock or Mick Foley to Triple H, but whatever. While you could unlock wrestlers through the story modes, the other options were the SmackDown Mall or the survival mode. 

The only thing I'll really say that gets under my skin is Steven Richards being given the Big Show's spot in the story mode.

And now, the most honorable mentions: 

Virtual Pro Wrestling and Virtual Pro Wrestling 2. 

I've played these via emulation. I'll say this, they are pretty much Japanese versions of WCW vs nWo: World Tour and WM2K, but they have just enough to make them their own separate games. If the US versions are a Ford Mustang, than these would be a Cobra, if that makes sense. VPW2, in particular, I feel works a lot better as a game than WM2K. An even more robust CAW mode (including the option to customize a mask), MMA style matches, MMA style wrestlers, select wrestlers from NJPW, AJPW, and so on, just wow. I imagine it'd be like having WCW and WWF guys in the same video game. It just didn't happen. 

 

 

WWE SmackDown vs RAW

 

 

I had only played either the first or second SmackDown games and didn't care for them all too much. This, on the other hand, was one I loved. I really got into it and had a lot of fun (and frustration, if you go back in time to the beginning of this subforum). The only drawbacks I had with was the use of Ric Flair's old WWF theme for licensing reasons, somewhat lackluster voice acting, and again, weird story angles (I don't care. I refuse to buy the Undertaker's deadman revamped gimmick as 1) Going out with Trish and 2) Being the US Champ). 

[RazorsEdge]

WWF Attitude was my first real wrestling game love (I had Warzone but didn't play it that much). Then the SmackDown games with their career modes like Here Comes The Pain.

[Dang117]

First game I remember playing was Smackdown 2 but never owed it. First one I owed was Here Comes The Pain, which is my all time favourite.

I also enjoyed the backyard wrestling games on the original xbox just for the wackiness of them. The RAW games on the original xbox as well were okay if not as good as the smackdown series.

Smackdown vs RAW 2006 was the introduction of my favourite game mode gm mode which in turn lead me to discovering EWR and TEW. The story mode in the Smackdown vs RAW games were just wacky but fun.

 

[Hobo]

I still play No Mercy, Wrestlemania 2000, WCW/nWo Revenge and Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 from time to time today. So those.

I did kinda enjoy Legends of Wrestling 2. Probably more for the jimmy hart themes, the bonus interviews, and the novelty of the games having the likes of Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks as playable characters.

[Hellraiser]

My favorite games per console:

• SNES: WrestleMania The Arcarde Game (the LJN games kinda sucked)
• PSX: SmackDown 2: Know Your Role (good game and a great improvement over the first one. The load times were godawful though)
• PS2: SmackDown: Here Comes The Pain (with an honorable mention to the original SmackDown Vs RAW and SVR 2006).
• GameCube: Day Of Reckoning 2 (it sucked that they stopped making console-exclusive games just as they had finally perfected the formula for their GameCube games. Day Of Reckoning 2 was great!)
• XBox 360: SmackDown Vs RAW 2010
• PS4: WWE 2K19
• PC: Fire Pro Wrestling World

Edited July 4, 2022 by Hellraiser

[TheGrandAvatar]

WWF SmackDown! 2 was quite fun for me back in the day. The last WWF game on the PS1. Season mode was annoyingly slow to play. Took ages to load anything. But often do love the nature of the random cut scenes and story the game does try to create in a simple fashion. It inspired my playing of TEW in a way with role-playing elements. Simple ways of also describing the story, or results I post on here too. 

[OctoberRaven]

The 90s WrestleMania arcade game is a good shout but I don't really think of it as a wrestling game so much as Mortal Kombat with wrestlers. Then again, the gameplay is better than that era of MK so...

Also the endings are hilariously weird and a lot of them involve people being killed...

In fact Taker's ending has him killing LESS people than fuckin DOINK

[Skummy]

1 hour ago, TheGrandAvatar said:

WWF SmackDown! 2 was quite fun for me back in the day. The last WWF game on the PS1. Season mode was annoyingly slow to play. Took ages to load anything. But often do love the nature of the random cut scenes and story the game does try to create in a simple fashion. It inspired my playing of TEW in a way with role-playing elements. Simple ways of also describing the story, or results I post on here too. 

yeah, I loved how randomly generated the season mode was - I used to try and customise stuff to fit the stories that were coming up; if the game was having my CAW team up with and help out Hardcore Holly, I guess that meant he was in a tag team with Hardcore Holly now, so I'd create that team, and so on. It was always a bit of a shame playing the later games that the season/story mode was so rigid and stuck in one story, even if that story was more complex than what came before.

I will always have massive soft spots for the first two Smackdown games, because they were right at the start of my real hardcore wrestling fandom. In fact, the first game was basically the catalyst for me getting back into wrestling after drifting away from it as a kid.

[Your Mom]

I don't know if I'm a victim of the moment but I'm actually pretty obsessed with 2k22. I'm done with the story mode but I play all the other modes like constantly still and usually I'm pretty much done with a WWE release by now

[TheGrandAvatar]

[Cyberpunk2077]

WWF No Mercy, WCW/NWO Revenge, Fire Pro Returns, WWE: Here Comes the Pain

[TheGrandAvatar]

7 minutes ago, Cyberpunk2077 said:

WWF No Mercy, WCW/NWO Revenge, Fire Pro Returns, WWE: Here Comes the Pain

A very good selection of the best games there. Control systems all worked great, and something competitive about the gameplay. Plus simple not over top visuals. 

We need a hybrid of all the best games out there. 

[Toe]

When I was 12, my brothers and I would constantly rent WCW/nWo Revenge from the local video store every weekend. Our mom was planning on giving it to us for Christmas that year, but because we kept insisting on renting it all the time, she just let us have it a month early. 

[Hobo]

I never really enjoyed the smackdown games that much.

I owned a few but i never liked that the way they played. They were very fast and things felt a little weightless.

[Gabriel]

Y'all are forgetting about the best SNES wrestling game... SATURDAY NIGHT SLAM MASTERS!

I definitely got the most play out of No Mercy on the 64. Played that for years before I finally upgraded to a newer console. I know we hear it a lot, but really... an updated version of No Mercy would be prime. It's creation suite was fairly good, story mode was a ton of fun and the gameplay was just solid. I feel like with the newer games, the depth of the creation suite is actually prohibitive. Of course, we have these absolutely amazing CAW's that we can donwload, that often look as good or better than in-game characters... but almost anybody could sit down and hammer out their favorites in No Mercy's CAW suite. More options would be necessary, but the depth of it was almost perfect. Not too much, but room for additions.

[Josh]

I grew up loving Royal Rumble on the SNES.

But shout out to Wrestlemania XIX on GameCube for finally giving us the rooftop and barge battles we had all been clamoring for.

[Naitch]

I started on Smackdown vs Raw 2007 and continued buying the series annually until WWE '12. Since then, I've only played '13 and 2k14, the latter of which I only bought in 2020. I consider the franchise to have peaked, gameplay-wise with SvR 2011, and feature-wise with SvR 2008.

EWR was fun when I first discovered it in ~2009, it lead me here and indisputably changed my life so I'm very grateful for that! I think I've played every version of TEW except the latest one (2020?), to varying degrees of commitment. TEW10 is probably the one I sunk the most hours into as it was the latest one while I was at uni. 13 and 16 are definitely technical improvements on that game engine, however.