Wrestling video games
 

Since there's several wrestling fans in here, I figured they all played wrestlign vidya games at some point or another in their lives :tsmile:

So, what are your favorite and least favorite wrestling games?

I think my favorite is a tie between WWE Day of Reckoning 2(GameCube) and WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain(PS2). HCTP was by far the most well rounded SmackDown! game I've played and it also had a killer roster. It's still more fun than the likes of SD! vs. Raw 2006 and 2007 after all these years. The only problem... not being able to have title matches on Exhibition.

DoR 2 had a grat CAW system and also a great story mode. Better than the story mode of any SmackDown game. The roster was a bit thin because of GC's limitations. But the game had more solid gameplay than your more arcadeish SmackDown series. I also like how you can break moves in this game, as frustrating as it can be when your finisher gets broken :lol:. Sadly, like HCTP, you could not have title matches on exhibition.

I also liked WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth! (PS2). All those backstage arenas and the two year long storyline were pretty fun. Although sometimes you could go for a month or two without anything really happening. Plus, this game had no overall ratings for each fighter and you could pit men against women and Spike Dudley could lift the Big Show. Unrealistic but it didn't hold down cruiserweights and female fighters as much as later instalments did.

SvR 06 was alright for its time. But it has not aged very well gameplay wise. Plus, I'd rather play EWR than a poorman's version of it(GM mode). SvR 07 felt like an update to 06 with better graphics, updated roster, better GM mode and entrances being added back to gimmick matches.

Have not played a wrestling game that has been released since SvR 2007. As for older titles, I haven't played much of WWF No Mercy to rate it yet. And have not touched SD! titles prior to SYM. So can't comment on any of those games.

What about you? Tell us about you experience with wrestling games.

well having played damn near every wrestling game released the last 20 some years, it's hard to pinpoint a favorite.

but I think i'd go tied with WWF No Mercy and WCW/NWO Revenge as my top two; with WWF Wrestlemania 2000 and WCW v. NWO World Tour as close seconds

I loved the Smackdown series of games and own em all on PS2. Never played too many for the OG Xbox other than Wrestlemania 21 and i liked it alot. Couldn't get into the Game Cube games very much

and as for the current iterations, WWE 2k16 on XB One is my favorite with WWE All Stars on 360 is second

I also loved the rare gem on PS2 entitled WWE Crush Hour! imo i thought it should've gotten a sequel

The Xbox WWE games were not so well received, iirc. Especially not WM21. A classmate of mine had that game and he says he hated it.

I miss the days when each console had an exclusive series of wrestling games. Then it became all SmackDown/WWE 2k. I also miss the days when wrestling games were not treated as legit sports titles. They began caring more about the graphics and presentation than the gameplay.

I got into wrestling in the late 90s so the first game I played was WWF Attitude or Warzone on the PS1 at a friends house a little, I also remember playing a WCW Thunder game at a demo kiosk for PS1. I almost bought Warzone on the N64 but I saw that Wrestlemania 2000 was coming out and decided to wait and little did I know that I ended up buying a game with one of the best wrestling engines and avoided the bullet of a mediocre wrestling game with Warzone.

I spent countless hours with that game and made so many wrestlers in the CAW little did I know it would become one of my favorite N64 games a definitely surprise. I bought the sequel No Mercy as soon as it came out and loved most of the improvements and only had a few problems with some of the stuff they removed but it was definitely the better game of the two and I also played it tons of times. I was hella jealous of the PS1 WWF games though with their FMV titantrons and better gimmick matches to choose from but apparently based on consensus I did get the better games.

I got a few wrestling games used after that like WCW Mayhem which was terrible and WCW/NWO revenge which I was surprised to see it was basically the WWF games I loved with WCW guys and later a Gamecube WWF game which I played once. I'd love to buy a fun wrestling games like the AKI games again, sadly part of what made the games great was also the roster which would be totally different now.

The problem with the SmackDown! games is the too arcadeish gameplay nature of them. DOR 2 is more challenging in the sense that you can't just pull a finisher out of nowhere 2 minutes in a match. Plus, after you press A+B you have about 10 to 15 seconds to perform your finisher or a special move. Not to mention wrestlers don't get up that quickly after a beatdown like they do in SD! games. DOR 2 also had a better CAW mode than any SD! game I've played. Which makes sense considering that you can only play season mode in that game with a CAW.

I've thought about getting a GameCube and getting the WWE games for it, or even just finding them and playing them on the Wii but I'll admit that those games are a b*tch to find like anywhere

No Mercy, WCW/nWo Revenge and Here Comes The Pain are some of the best

Lucha Libre AAA and TNA Impact are the worst.

I pre-ordered Day of Reckoning from the WWE Euroshop back in 2005... it arrived about nearly two weeks later after its release. Never again have I pre-ordered a video game.

Many GameCube games are hard to find these days, I've heard. Fortunately I haven't really missed out on many good GC games. The only big ones I can think of that my collection lacks are Eternal Darkness, Viewtiful Joe and Luigi's Mansion.

The TNA game was in development for a long time, wasn't it? And it turned out to be so disappointing from what I've heard.

i actually didn't mind the TNA game myself personally.

and going back to GC games, I wish Nintendo would open up the Virtual Console to GC games like they did with N64

Maybe they will do so when the NX comes out?

I've only owned 2k13. I played 2k15 and 16 at my cousins house. I never really had fun though. It always seemed way too "heavy". Everything moved slowly and it just wasn't that fun. A good wrestling game needs fluid movement.

SmackDown games were notorious for being fast paced. SvR 2007 was a bit slow, though.

Sounds fun. I understand the devs for the new games are aiming for "realism" with the slower paced matches, but seriously. I want to play a game, not Monday Night Raw simulator.

Indeed, man. I might get one of the more recent WWE games on Steam someday, though. Heard the Universe mode is fun and that the games have a lot of legends in the roster nowadays. I wonder if the PC ports are good, however...

I have no idea how you'd play it on a pc unless you have a steam controller. Very complex controlling systems.

I hear that the universe and career modes were fun. Universe was were you made your own show, right? Because that had potential to be fun, but it was just tedious, writing promos and formatting the whole thing. A PC/keyboard might infact be better for that since it was the typing on a controller that was the worst part.

I own a Logitech controller. I only really play shooters and games such as Football manager, CIV, etc. with mouse and keyboard. Games like Sleeping Dogs, Street Fighter, etc. are obviously meant to be played with a controller.

Leo656 said sometime ago that WWE 2k14 was a great game... but the Universe mode froze a lot.

If you want a freeware game where you run a federation and are in charge of creative decisions download Extreme Warfare Revenge or Total Extreme Wrestling. EWR does not even require installation. And you can find rosters from several years. From 1998, to 2003, to 2007, to current rosters, etc. Not to mention you can go into the file editor and edit wrestlers attributes, names, finishers, etc. and also edit belts, federations' names, tv channels, etc. You don't see anyone fighting tho. You'll only get a brief description of the match and how much the fans are into a feud and the wrestlers.

That actually sounds really cool. I'm the type of guy that loves "managing' type games if they're done well, so when I get my PC I'll check that out for sure.

Vince McMahon Company Management Simulator is a game that I'd legit love to play.

You don't need a powerful pc to play it. It's a pretty light game. Search for EWR videos on youtube to see it for yourself. And even TEW isn't that graphically advanced either. It's basically text and pictures of wrestlers.

I forgot to add that vintage games like the WWF games released for NES and the genesis I were pretty fun

Only played WWF WrestleMania. You couldn't grapple in it, which is odd for a wrestling game. Tecmo Wrestling was much better.

I once played the SNES version of an arcade WWF game. It had Mortal Kombat's engine pretty much. Crazy

Yes that was WWF Wrestlemania the arcade game. Have it and two more for my Genesis

It was, the controls are trash and the lack of a roster is extremely disappointing. They had about 20 actual wrestlers and the rest were all custom guys.

Anyone here has played any of the Fire Pro Wrestlign games? There's several of them. I remember back in 2009-2010 seeing plenty of copies of a couple of Fire Pro Wrestling games for the PS2 in stores, but no one bought them(prolly cuz pretty much NO ONE knew what the hell it was...). But then people went on the internet and realized "woah this game series is pretty rare!" and now many are desperate to buy it off the internet. :lol:

Meh was never interested

WWF raw is war, on the snes was awesome, loved WCW revenge on the N64, and the arcade game was great fun.

anyone ever try those piece of crap Backyard Wrestling games? wow those were absolute garbage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backya...at_Home#Sequel

Never heard of this series. It does look like sh*t, though.

yeah not fun in the least. a friend of mine had the game and hated it and we played it once together and he got rid of it soon after lol

The first Def Jam wrestling game was pretty decent.

hmm, don't recall that one

Has anyone here besides Leo656 played that Simpsons wrestling game that came out over a decade ago? Heard it was pretty bad.

lol nope, but yeah i also recall it being pretty terrible, which is likely why it never got a sequel.

one game I wish had gotten a sequel was WWF/E Crush Hour

So I've played more No Mercy this week and it seems like a pretty alright game. I've only been playing exhibition matches thus far, though, since I'm still getting used to the controls and gameplay.

A shame this game does not have Hell in a Cell or Hardcore matches, but then again it's nearly 16 years old. And it does have cage and no DQ matches, so it could be worse.

The customisation is pretty good and it does not take the whole day to make CAWs like it takes in more modern wrestling games.

yeah it's a gem and one i'm happy to own

Well i take back what I said about SvR 2006 in the OP. Been playing it again in the past few days and it holds up a lot better than I expected. It's still a good game. Didn't like 2007 much this time around.

Anyone play Fire Pro Wrestling? I know it has a massive following but I've never given it a chance. But its coming out soon for PS4 and I'm wondering whats everyones thoughts on it are.

I played one for the SNES many wears ago. Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium or whatever. It was only released in Japan, so navigating menus was a bit of a pain at first.

I never really got the hang of the gameplay style, though.

It's tricky but worth mastering.

To get up to speed, "Fire Pro Wrestling R" for PS2 was very, very good, and not quite as tricky as some of the others. Both Fire Pro Advance games for the GBA are also very good, but they're a bit more unforgiving and a little harder to master the timing.

I haven't seen too much of the newest one, but my wife was having a pretty easy time and she's not great at Fire Pro at all, so it seems like they made it a little easier.

Around 2009-2011 PS2 shelves in stores here were already full of crappy shovelware games and also DOZENS of Fire Pro games. Don't ask me which title(s) it was/were because I can't remember. Now obv since only Japanese people and very big wrestling fans that happen to be huge gaming nerds would know what Fire Pro is, let alone play it. So no one here bough it... but a few years later most people who go around buying and selling games online realised that those games are pricey and rare, so then suddenly a lot of collectors began hunting for it online

If I had known that back in 2010 I'd have bought Fire Pro Wrestling for the PS2 and sell it later for 4 times the price :lol:

I see Fire Pro R for PS2 floating around for dirt cheap. It was the first Fire Pro to get an official release outside of Japan so they over-produced the hell out of, expecting it to sell much better than it did. It also launched as a $20 "budget" title to start with.