Favourite Wrestling Games

[Liam]

I don't think I've ever spent as much time or had as much fun playing WCW/NWO Revenge. I know the WWF games were probably better in terms of pure gaming, but I absolutely adored Revenge and played it an absolute shedload with friends. Perfect cross section of place and time really.

Since no-one has mentioned it, I'll give an honourable mention to WCW versus the World. Not the greatest by any means, but one I really enjoyed playing.

[Gabriel]

17 minutes ago, Liam said:

I don't think I've ever spent as much time or had as much fun playing WCW/NWO Revenge. I know the WWF games were probably better in terms of pure gaming, but I absolutely adored Revenge and played it an absolute shedload with friends. Perfect cross section of place and time really.

Since no-one has mentioned it, I'll give an honourable mention to WCW versus the World. Not the greatest by any means, but one I really enjoyed playing.

Revenge is one that really did get a lot of play from me. Probably more than WrestleMania 2000, but not as much as No Mercy. I particularly enjoyed editing the attires and watching through the opening cinematics.

[Josh]

This all reminds me: Hallowicked has a video game series on YouTube/IWTV called Arcade of Terror. It’s his own weird low-budget comedic “reviews” of horror or wrestling video games. He did one for WCW/nWo Revenge that’s amazing.

 

And then he just recently followed that up with WWE 2K22. It’s a great continuation.

 

[apsham]

These videos having low views is a crime - glad to have found out about it.

[tristy]

King of Colosseum 2 surprisingly holds up for a game from the early 2000s. It's basically a 3D Fire Pro, though. No real "season" or story mode to speak of, just facing the entire roster of a given promotion to unlock stuff is the main mode, but that somehow manages to be fun. I guess the first game actually has a career mode, though? I need to put Red/Green in and merge them and give that a go eventually. But, for now, I'm enjoying going through the NOAH roster with Kawada on Hard difficulty.

But, when I was a kid, the games I really remember loving were Super WrestleMania, Royal Rumble and WWF RAW, all for the Super Nintendo. I loved Smackdown 2: Know Your Role for the seemingly never-ending career mode. I have no memory of any of the RAW vs Smackdown games, even though I know I bought them every year. Since 2K has taken over, I remember being really into the one with CM Punk on the cover, 2K19 and 2K22.

Oh, and I do remember the Legends of Wrestling games being fun as hell to play. I'm actually looking to pick those up now that I have a PS2 again. I think those games were the first ones where I actually fantasy booked and wrote down match cards I wanted to book and play.

Really though, from the time I found Promotion Wars/EWR up until that 2K game with Punk on the cover, my time with wrestling games were spent pretty exclusively just playing the aforementioned booker sims. That was always more fun to me back then. Somewhere during that time period, Spike released Fire Pro Wrestling Returns for the PS2, and I searched all over my tiny ass little hick town for it before finding it in a Dollar Tree of all places. I actually still have that same copy, and was playing it just a week or two ago.

TLDR: My favorites/holds a special place in my heart are: King of Colosseum 2, Fire Pro Wrestling Returns, Legends of Wrestling 1 & 2, WWF Super WrestleMania, WWF Royal Rumble, WWF RAW, Smackdown 2: Know Your Role, the 2K game with CM Punk on the cover (13?), 2K19 and 2K22.

[DavidMarrio]

For me it boils down to No Mercy, HCTP and 2K19 as my favourites. 

WWE 2k14 as well was a really good game. 

My first wrestling game would have been Warzone which I played so much before getting ECW Hardcore Revolution and WWF Attitude. Then it was pretty much the Smackdown series from 1 onwards 

Day of Reckoning 2 was a really good game as well. 

[Benji]

Which one was the one that had Anthrax, Zebrahead, and Powerman 5000 among others?

[JasonM]

9 minutes ago, Benji said:

Which one was the one that had Anthrax, Zebrahead, and Powerman 5000 among others?

SVR and SVR06

[Benji]

Then those ones.

[METALMAN]

When I was a little boy I had Smackdown Just Bring It. I played that an awful lot and probably far more than it deserved to be played. But I didn’t have much else to do.

[Hellraiser]

I don't think there has been a SmackDown game whose roster has been as outdated by the time it was released as Just Bring It other than maybe the first one. The game was released on the day of Survivor Series 2001 but almost none of the WCW and ECW guys the WWE brought in for the Invasion angle were part of the roster thanks to the cut-off date for the roster usually being around WrestleMania. But unlike the first game of the series, this one had a decent (for the time) create-a-wrestler mode.

The first was released around the time of WrestleMania 2000 and featured neither Kurt Angle, Too Cool or The Radicalz. And it had a terrible create-a-wrestler mode as well. You could only select pre-created head, upper-body and lower-body parts with little to now customization. Fortunately the 2nd game came out later that year and the roster was pretty decent in that one.

Edited July 11, 2022 by Hellraiser

[The Buscher]

Ah I remember the days when rumors were going on about RVD, Booker T and some others being hidden in Just Bring It.  People were convinced that there was no way they'd actually be left out.

I got my PS2 for Christmas 2001 and the first match I did was an 8-man battle royal because I was stoked you could have that many people on screen at once.  I used Tazz and remember being blown away by the graphics which, at the time, felt amazing.

And then 10 months later I fired up Shut Your Mouth and almost fell out of my chair at how realistic Brock looked in his entrance.  Man I miss the excitement of those games.

[Hellraiser]

The game did allow you to beat the crap out of Fred Durst though. That is a positive in my book.

[Hobo]

Just Bring It was pretty terrible. Although I think Perry Saturn and Moppy were in it and if you interacted with him in story mode all he would say was "you're welcome".

I seem to recall Smackdown vs RAW 05(?) came out around the time Eddie Guerrero died and i remember playing as him in story mode and finding myself in a very awkward position of being in a buried alive match

[Hellraiser]

That would have been SmackDown Vs RAW 2006. It was also the one in which they introduced GM Mode. 

[Bobfoc]

I didn't have a PS2 until I got one for £10 well into the following console generation, so it was a long time before I got to play the Smackdown games fully. My brother's friend used to let me use his PS2 for a few minutes sometimes, which was perfect for Just Bring It's story mode. While I understand a lot of people were disappointed with how insubstantial it was, it was ideal for quick sessions.

[The Buscher]

IGN's SmackDown Countdown ahead of the release of the SVR games was such a great way to get people pumped up for it.  Basically every weekday they'd post the stats of a new wrestler in the game and show of their model for the first time with a video of their entrance and finishing move.

SVR06 might've been my most anticipated game ever in the series for that reason.  And they never seemed to post the countdown at a consistent time.  Literally the first thing I'd do upon getting home from school was run to IGN and check to see if the countdown was up yet.

[Hellraiser]

I totally forgot about the IGN countdown. Checking that website every day to see who made the roster and in the end always being disappointed when it is done because someone you liked wasn't included due to debuting after the cut-off date. There was always someone missing.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Hellraiser

[Schlitzbrille]

wow way to remind me I'm old when talking about the IGN countdowns for WWE games

[The Buscher]

I was definitely one of those teenage edgelords who saw a diva on the daily IGN countdown and groaned.  At the time, we were unfortunately in the midst of women’s wrestling almost universally being considered to be a piss break on the Internet...and it felt like THQ/Yukes put about as much effort into the women in the game as WWE did on TV.  Aside from finishers they all had basically the same stats and movesets.  So I was in that toxic mindset of “ugh, why are they even in the game?  What a waste of space”.

Moronic 16-year old me probably would’ve bumped Trish and Lita for, like, Funaki and Simon Dean.  Glad I wasn’t in charge.