Two years ago, we submitted our top fifty games and it was a real blast. I felt like I got to know you guys better and it also made me sit down and think what would make my list. While it was a relatively straight forward list with a lot of first party titles, what surprised me the most was my love of Pro Wrestling games. It wouldn't surprise me if it's the genre I've spent the most time with and as wrestling fans, I'm sure you're all in a similar boat. So I'm interested to get your impressions on each game and reminisce about your own careers in the squared circle.

N64

WCW/nWo Revenge - The game that got me into Pro Wrestling. I've flapped my gums a lot about this game, it's a fantastic wrestling game so I won't go too in-depth. I'll just point out how all the fictional wrestlers were a blast to play as, the Tekken-style intro was amazing and Battle Royales were usually a great way to settle some differences after some Mario Kart 64 Blue-Shell hijinx. 9/10, would have been 10 had they had the Nature Boy, woo!

WWF Warzone - Crazy to think, but this was state of the art back in '98. It had one of the most in-depth create-a-character of any game period, the graphics were relatively good for their time and commentary wasn't a given back then. The only bummer is that button input wasn't great and the animations weren't as good as the AKI games.

WWF Wrestlemania 2000 - It took me ages to realise this was the spiritual successor to Revenge, maybe 3-6 months after it's release? Fortunately I made up for lost time and the CAW mode was a game changer. Being able to change the appearance of any superstar expanded the roster greatly and made each save file that more personal. I wouldn't actually buy my own copy until 2004, so most of my experiences were renting copies from all-around Brisbane. My favourite save was this weird fan-fic where everybody was in Blue Meanie's cult except for Stone Cold. It really made me think of who was living in my local area. These days, my cart is based on WWF circa August of '98 with Vader, Goldust, Mero, Owen, Scorpio, Michinoku, Golga etc. thrown in. Over time, I feel like the game has been skipped over. Personally I thought it added more to the series than No Mercy and much preferred it's presentation over Dig Diggity Dawg.

WWF No Mercy - Has taken on a life of it's own and is revered as the greatest wrestling game of all-time. I feel like it's a retroactive title, but since it was AKIs last title, one I have to agree with. I've been through some trips with this game. It started off as my Monday Night Wars game with a ton of WCW CAWs and edits. I had two favourites of the lot - my Rob Van Dam who was surprisingly accurate and Steiner who just went around Screwdriving everyone. I got so invested in the game, I made my own fantasy league where Steiner was my initial champion. I played through about 10 months worth of television, which included 12 PPVs and 2 shows a week that would alternate. Week 1 would go Nitro & SmackDown, Week 2 would be Raw & Thunder. Since the brand split came in, I naturally had one as well and while it was mostly just WWF guys taking on WWF guys and vice versa, I remember I made Kane a WCW Wrestler which made him cooler in my eyes, especially when I assigned him to the Flock. That save somehow got lost, which meant I had to start from scratch around 2009. At that stage, I took a more modern approach with TNA guys like AJ, Daniels, Styles, MCMG, Orton, Batista, Cena etc. I think I was just messing around with CAWs and the game looked like a dogs breakfast. Finally I reverted everything back to normal and made a more sensible save. It was basically WWF No Mercy, with DLC like additions. So my CAWs were Hogan, Macho, Flair, Bret, Diesel, Razor, Big Show, Raven, Regal, Sting, Goldberg, Mysterio, Rob Van Dam, Rhyno, Tajiri, Booker T, DDP, Lesnar. One of these days, I need to go back, grind up some money and finally unlock Ho. After all these years, it's just never happened for me.

You ever play Attitude, the sequel to War Zone? I put a lot of time into WZ and don't remember much about this one other than Mr. H talking about some "fatass" playing the game. Surely he didn't mean me.

I eventually got around to it in 2012. Maybe I needed to adjust to the learning curve, but I thought the game was awful. The controls were clunky, the animations looked stiff and the game sounds awful. There's no music during the middle of the matches, so all you hear is the wrestlers grunts, the odd crowd taunt and out of sync commentary by Shane McMahon of all people. I'm pretty sure by February of '99 he was done with commentary.

Normally I would have been all over a wrestling game back then. However, my perception was Warzone was a really ambitious first attempt that had it's heart in the right place and worked as a solid alternative to WCW/nWo Revenge. Attitude was just a lazy sequel with an updated roster, a couple new modes and fleshed out entrances.

But then maybe I was a huge homer for the AKI games?

One thing I didn't mention about WWF No Mercy is it's mod-scene. It's still alive today, but I used to actively follow No Mercy Zone and keep tabs on all the projects that were coming together. The pick of the bunch for mine was WCW Starrcade which was the 1998 WCW game I always wanted. Every PPV arena, all the deep-cuts in the roster and some 1999 stars to pad the game out. Forever Indy (a mid-00s mod with ROH, CZW, PWG, TNA etc included) and an ECW mod were killer as well. The last mod I saw was Wrestlemania Legends which I believe had something like 240 great WWE wrestlers of all-time.

The Royal Rumble games for SNES and Genesis were fun back in the day, feverish button mashing madness playing with cousins and little bros.

The Wrestlemania game on Genesis that came out later in it's lifespan is surprisingly good. Vince's commentary is hilarious. The gameplay is not what I usually like a wrestling game to be, it's more of a fighting game like Mortal Kombat, but there's something about this that I like. The graphics do look really good, especially for a Genesis game(this port is better than SNES version I've read).

WCW vs The World was hot shit in my hood at one point. This was like proto-Revenge on the original Playstation.

The biggest fight me and my little brother ever had was over a match of WCW Nitro on the Playstation at our uncles house one time when I was maybe 12 or 13. I kept beating him over and over again by luring him out of the ring and leaving him laying to get counted out. He got so pissed off he slugged me in the face, I chased him into the bedroom and it was on like fucking Don Frye vs Yoshihiro Takayama. Good times.

NES

Pro Wrestling: I never owned it, but it was my favorite wrestling game on NES. I have no idea if this is true, but at the time I thought the gameplay was better than anything the WWF did, and Starman was the best video game wrestler of the 1980's. By reputation, Tecmo World Wrestling is considered the best NES wrestling game, but I have zero recollection ever playing it. I must have, but I don't remember, so Pro Wrestling is my #1.

WWF Wrestlemania: I was really young when I played this, so the only thing I remember doing is cartwheels with Bam Bam Bigelow and getting squashed in the corner by an AI Andre the Giant.

WWF Wrestlemania Challenge: I remember using my life savings to buy this game (I was six or seven) and being really disappointed in it. One of my early life is bullshit moments. 

Sega

WWF Super Wrestlemania: My favorite Sega wrestling game, but that might be because it's the only one I owned. I remember playing one where it was like Street Fighter style (Arcade?) and being like a nine-year-old purist about wrestling video games like, "This is not what a wrestling video game should be like." What a little snobby shithead. 

Playstation

WCW vs. the World: I never owned a Playstation, but I had one friend that did AND owned this game, and we played it a few times. Neither of us were gamers, really. I think it was his brother's Playstation. I remember WCW vs. the World was exciting because you got to wrestle as Crow Sting about a year before he ever did for real. I watched Starrcade '97 at that friend's house (Jimmy T!) and when Sting's wrestling gear matched up with his Playstation gear, we felt like we were in the know.

N64

WCW vs. nWo World Tour: A severely underrated game because of Revenge's improvement, but this was the greatest wrestling video game ever released until WCW would do it again the next year. 

WCW/nWo Revenge: Big Pete covered this perfectly, just a magnificent game. Wrestling with Cruiserweights was the most fun I ever had with a wrestling video game up to that point. All these moves that were still relatively new to even watch, and you were doing them pretty effortlessly in the game. They figured out how to make springboards a painless part of gameplay. Add that with the great moves off of lock ups from World Tour, and it was by far the best gameplay a wrestling video game ever had, with the dopest roster ever.

WWF Warzone: So frustrating. The greatest CAW of its time (1998 wrestling websites were all about Warzone CAW, giving settings away to help you create as close as possible), but the gameplay was so atrocious. I remember doing battle royals (Royal Rumbles?) and the only way to really get somebody over the top was a release overhead belly-to-belly. Your back would have to be close the ropes, you'd have to lure some jabroni close to you, and then enter in a five button sequence to pull it off (I feel like it was left-right-A-left-right). It was ridiculous. WCW was starting to lose Monday Nights, but still winning the video game wars.

WWF Attitude: A minor improvement on Warzone. At that point, it was almost like modern day Madden where you were paying for the roster updates. A lot would change in a year.

WWF Wrestlemania 2000: Revenge is my favorite wrestling game of all time, but Wrestlemania 2000 is my GOAT. It was an improved Revenge, so it has to be my GOAT, but I played Revenge way more, and because it came first, there's more sentimentality about it. 

Dreamcast

UFC: The last wrestling(ish) video game I ever played was on New Year's Eve 2000/2001. I had spent pretty much every year of my childhood at my best friend's house on New Year's Eve. It was a tradition, that even as we got old enough to do cooler things, we stayed arrestedly developed doing the things we did when we were 8, and that's go to Blockbuster (boo!), rent a shitload of tapes, and one video game and spend New Year's Eve and Day going through our rentals. 2000/2001, we were 16 and still doing this (heaven forbid we went to a party where girls might be). We rented UFC that year and spent an hour trying to figure out how the fuck to do anything. We never did. The only thing we managed to do was appear to shoot for a double legged takedown that would never happen, so it just looked liked the fighters were doing Marvin Gaye backup dancer shoop moves. We watched movies instead. 

No Mercy on N64 was awesome. The create a wrestler was great and I loved the battle royal mode. I thought WrestleMania The Arcade Game on SNES was fun but it gives you a poor selection of characters to choose from...but then again this was that period of time in WWE where there really weren't a ton of big names on the roster. Also it was clearly inspired by the popularity of Mortal Combat as the wrestlers had a bizarre set of supernatural abilities like Undertaker throwing demons at you and doinks massive hand slap.

I was a Nintendo loyalist as much as I was a WWF loyalist.

Warzone was my intro to the video game party, and I was hooked by the CAW aspect despite some of the shittiest gameplay ever. I ended up becoming hooked on the shitty gameplay though, and switching to WCW/nWo World Tour was so jarring that I foolishly hated THQ/AKI for a while.

When I realized that things weren't really getting much better from a gameplay or CAW standpoint with Attitude, I bailed for WM2000 (passing over Revenge despite my annoying neighbor singing its high praises for the battle royals). Honestly, I really mainly passed over Revenge because it was a WCW game. I didn't wanna betray my WWF guys, even if it would've meant a better gameplay experience.

I was pretty upset to learn that WM2000 had the exact same gameplay engine as World Tour and Revenge. Unlike Warzone and Attitude though, which were always just rentals, WM2000 was an xmas gift... So I was stuck with it. Fortunately, it's CAW was a thing to truly behold. It made the game worth it as far as getting over the learning curve for adjusting from Acclaim's bullshit to THQ/AKI's genius system.

Eventually I got the gameplay down, and IMO there has never been a better wrestling engine before or after. WM2000 indeed did turn into the GOAT wrestling game. Then word came out about No Mercy, and by that point I was fully on board.

No Mercy improved a lot of things but then also had a few improvements that I could've done without (limiting which moves could be assigned to weak grapples, for instance... I mean, I appreciate the realism, but c'mon!).

After devouring No Mercy and testing the outer limits of it's replayability, I decided to wade back though the earlier THQ/AKI games that I might not have appreciated. I worked backwards, starting with Revenge. I almost instantly learned why this game had the rep it did, and why my annoying neighbor maybe shouldn't have been considered all that annoying after all. Insanely deep roster, gameplay not too far off from WM2000 or No Mercy... And, in fact, the grapple combos and few extra moves that didn't make the transition to the WWF games gave Revenge enough of an edge to compensate for the areas where it's more primitive gameplay didn't hold up as well to it's successors.

World Tour had its own charm, and I've honestly gone back and forth on whether I get more of a kick out of it or Revenge. Overall, I really enjoy getting to see the lineage evolve over multiple titles.

Then, after exhausting all the US THQ/AKI titles, I finally tracked down the heralded Virtual Pro Wrestling and Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 (as well as an adapter to make them work in my console). I found a manual for translating as many of the wrestlers' names and appearances as possible, and went to town. I don't know when it was released, but VPW seemed like a bigger/better version of World Tour. VPW2 seemed like a bridge between WM2000 and No Mercy. Honestly, if it had been in English and taken the story mode and some of the match types from No Mercy, I think VPW2 would claim the crown as best/favorite/greatest/etc. wrestling game of all time. As it stood though, the Japanese was hard to overcome and I ended up missing my US pro wrestling tropes like ladder matches and cage matches and storylines. The MMA matches were cool as fuck though. Also, these games are pretty much responsible for my knowledge of puro (aside from whatever Strobe and Emperor have tried to impart upon me).

The last realm of exploration for me was THQ/AKI games on emulators on the computer. This seemed to be my only option for getting to play an entirely English version of VPW2. Then I learned about mods, and got super fucking excited. Unfortunately, I'm not good enough with computer back-end stuff and could never figure out how to make modded No Mercy work. Plus, I hated playing on a keyboard but could never figure out how to get a USB controller to work.

Everything not related to the THQ/AKI system was second rate garbage to be at best, and steaming piles of hot dog shit at worst.

Fire Pro's comeback on Steam seemed like the perfect time to finally check out this highly regarded franchise. And... I didn't get it. Way too complicated for me. Guess there is such a thing as having too much control, too many options. I guess THQ/AKI really did strike that perfect balance.

Then there was my attempt to evolve beyond the N64. I went Xbox at first, and got RAW. FUCKING TERRIBLE. It was so bad in fact that it was a deciding factor in me trading in my Xbox for a GameCube. WrestleMania X8 was better than RAW, but not by much. WrestleMania XIX was a further improvement (minus the weird as fuck story mode) but still a long way off from being a remotely acceptable successor to the N64 lineage. I don't know if that's to be blamed on THQ switching out for Yuke's or what, but I gave up on GameCube not long after.

I worked my way though a PS1, PS2, and PS3 and a sampling of the SD! series, but wasn't impressed overall. Mainly it was a gameplay thing. The early games moved too fast. The later games were too convoluted IMO. And I also HATED all the loading screens coming from a cartridge experience.

To this day, I maintain my N64 and blow the dust off every now and then to play a good ol' THQ/AKI joint.

I made the mistake of going back to World Tour after playing Revenge. The character models looked like cheap swap meet knock-offs of the wrestlers and the jerky animations threw me off. It's the only rental I returned and exchanged for something else, I was that put off. Coming back to it years later, I can appreciate how it refined the gameplay from the PS1 entries and enhanced the multiplayer experience which was the bread and butter of the AKI games. Back then, I would have taken any other N64 title over it.

I was in denial with WCW Mayhem when it first came out. Originally I wanted it for Xmas of '99 but the game was delayed down under so I settled for WCW/nWo Revenge. I dodged a bullet, but when Mayhem finally made it's way out, I couldn't convince myself it was an awful game. I really wanted to like it because it had authentic WCW themes, it had commentary, it had backstage arenas to wrestle in and a roster that was more authentic than Revenge. They even had the guy who knocked on Goldberg's door (Doug Dillinger) for crying out loud! It just wasn't as satisfying as Revenge and I'd later learn it didn't hold a candle to WM2000 which was the true successor I was after.

I never played WCW Nitro or WCW Backstage Assault. Neither game made their way out here on the N64, presumably because they were so awful. I've watched some gameplay of Backstage Assault since and somehow it looks even worse than Mayhem. It looked like they removed a lot of features from Mayhem, only including a few more backstage arenas and all the new characters looked like CAWs from Mayhem. In a way, it was the perfect representation of WCW 2000.

PS1

WWF SmackDown 2: Know Your Role - I bought a PS1 right at the end of it's life-cycle which came with a mod-chip and 21 games. Of all of them, this would have been my most played game of the lot and doubled as the first WWF game I 'owned'. These days I remember the game mostly for it's copious amount of load times which makes season mode a chore to sit through, but at the time, no other wrestling game was as polished. It had all the best matches, a never-ending season mode with plenty of unlockables and the best backstage arenas to mess around in. As somebody who didn't have WM2000 or No Mercy at the time, this was the ideal replacement. Finally the PS1 had a wrestling series that could compete with the N64.

PS2

WWF SmackDown 3: Just Bring It - As soon as this game was announced I knew I had to make the upgrade. The game promised to have an open ended season mode where every choice would change the outcome and no two seasons would be the same. It was also based on the WWF circa 2001 which meant they would have had a whos who of talent. What I got was a higher res version of SmackDown 2, with a shorter season mode and a sub-par roster. Who in their right minds would want to play as Fred Durst? Making matters worse was it's 4MB memory requirement (half your memory card) and shallow CAW slots (10). The game was so bad, it's one of the few games I traded in because there was no way I was going to play it again.

WWF SmackDown: Shut Your Mouth - This was the proper sequel to Know Your Role. Unlike SD3, Yukes put in a lot of time revamping the game and using the tech available to create the most enjoyable SD entry to date. What I enjoyed most was playing as Rob Van Dam and scaling the SmackDown entrance set to the giant fist and executing 5 star frog splashes on my opponents. It was still very arcadey but you could tell they had a lot of fun making it and putting the game together. It also has one of the best credit sequences I've seen since the Super Mario World casting call.

WWE SmackDown: Here Comes The Pain - You either fall into three camps when it comes to the best wrestling game. There's the No Mercy camp, then there's the Japanese Wrestling Game camp then there's Here Comes The Pain. Following on from SYM, Yukes made a game with an in-depth grappling system that expanded the gameplay and made a lot of wrestlers different. One complaint that could be made with the AKI games is that every wrestler basically plays the same whereas here playing as Brock and Ultimo Dragon felt completely different. The game also retained the sense of fun SYM had where if you traveled out to Time Square you could hijack a helicopter and perform a suicide dive from 30ft in the air. It seemed like Yukes had finally perfected the formula and wrestling games would only continue to get better from there.

In the original Smackdown or perhaps it was the second one on PS1 I always thought it was strange that Matt's finisher was a Northern Lights instead of Twist of Fate. Or perhaps it was like Warzone where Rock didn't do the People's Elbow... he hadn't really established it as a move when they designed the game? Also recall Jeff's Swanton being worthless. It only connected if they were literally in the corner and didn't seem to do any damage. Either that or young Ness sucked at the game.

Speaking of sucking at games... the moonsault in War Zone drove me insane for YEARS. According to a guide I believe you simply pressed X as one of the headbangers, but it never worked. Foolishly we pressed it once they were in position, but since the moonsault is a backflip you were supposed to press it before you turned around to face your opponent... kinda tricky and obviously if they used an RVD type animation it would literally not work.

Anyone know what I'm talking about? Probably not.

You know for years I always presumed everyone skipped over the original SD. By the time it came out, the sequel was well and truly on it's way with mass improvements, leaving the original to feel more like a beta version. I think apart of that is weird anomalies like Matt Hardy's finisher being wrong. Could you edit the move-lists like you could in later SD games? It used to drive me up the wall how in AKI games you could change the appearances but not the moves and vice versa in the SD games.

Yeah, I think after No Mercy came out Kurt started using the Anklelock and it was annoying you couldn't change it despite it being in the game for Ken Shamrock. I think I ended up doing a CAW clone with everything done the same except for that. Either that or I'm simply thinking of another game.

Apr 17, 2018 12:43:15 GMT Big Pete said:

You know for years I always presumed everyone skipped over the original SD. By the time it came out, the sequel was well and truly on it's way with mass improvements, leaving the original to feel more like a beta version. I think apart of that is weird anomalies like Matt Hardy's finisher being wrong. Could you edit the move-lists like you could in later SD games? It used to drive me up the wall how in AKI games you could change the appearances but not the moves and vice versa in the SD games.

Fuck, yes, I HATED that about WM2000 and NM64. That's one of the primary reasons I invested in a gameshark and tried wading through hexadigit code... Just to figure out how to give Angle the ankle lock, Rock the Sharpshooter, and also unlock Big Show's face. But that coding shit is sooo fucking difficult, I think it ultimately wasn't worth the effort.

I'm sure it's been discussed a billion times at this point, but what was the story behind Show/Richards in No Mercy?

The popular theory is that AKI was lazy. Right before No Mercy was released, the WWF demanded the Big Show to be removed from the game, so instead of picking a more suitable wrestler they just replaced The Big Show's code with Stevie's who had just started RTC around the same time.

Goddamn, I forgot about Mayhem. That was a one night rental that lasted maybe an hour.

SmackDown vs Raw Series

HCTP was heralded as arguably the greatest wrestling game of all-time upon release. It truly felt like the series had come into it's own and was beginning to set standards it's competition couldn't hope to match. Unfortunately Yukes took their eyes off the prize and instead of focusing on the gameplay, they started focusing on other features that limited the overall game. This was evident in their decision to have wrestlers voice themselves in season mode. Not only was this hindered by some of the worst voice acting you could imagine, it limited the scope of season mode significantly and impacted on who could be on the roster. Since voice acting drove up the costs of the game, the roster was down 10 slots and seemingly based on early April '04.

It was the first SmackDown game since the original I didn't bother adding to my collection. The gameplay actually felt worse than HCTP with unnecessary mini-games working their way into matches and the inferior roster made it an easy decision to skip. While Yukes' had their hands tied as far as the state of the WWE's roster, if they were going down this path of Raw vs. SmackDown, then they really needed to add more wrestlers. Even if it was just talent like Lita, Gail Kim, Jazz, The Hurricane, Rosey, La Resistance, Rikishi, Billy Kidman, Jamie Noble, Nunzio, Paul London, Billy Gunn, The Bashams etc. it would have felt more authentic.

Yukes seemingly learned their lesson with the original SmackDown v Raw game as 2006 restored the roster to the 60+ standard and included GM Mode. While Japanese players had something similar in the Fire Pro series, GM Mode gave the players the opportunity to book their own shows and receive ratings based on how enticing their cards were. Even though the mode was limited, it was a new way to approach the game and gave loyal fans a new experience they could sink their teeth into. Season mode was also expanded to include more branching storylines which fixed the monotony that was SvRs disappointing effort a year prior. The series had once again found it's rhythmn and while it wasn't as enjoyable as HCTP there still appeared to be some promise.

SmackDown vs Raw 2007 rehauled the grappling system, basing the majority of wrestling moves around the right analogue stick. The purpose was to make the ring more interactive as players could now powerbomb or suplex their opponents from inside the ring onto the outside if they wanted to. On paper this sounded like a good idea, but the new grappling system limited the type of moves wrestlers could perform and only made the series more monotonous than it had been. It was the black eye on what was largely the same game as before.

Unfortunately it would get worse before it got better. SmackDown vs Raw 2008 is considered by many to be the low point of the series with another limited roster and the worst season mode since SmackDown 3. WWE 24/7 promised to give the player full autonomy over their wrestler's direction, including the option to seek out movie deals to earn more money and buy rewards with it. This could have been a good idea, if the game didn't completely ignore a lot of your decisions and booked you in non-sensical programs. Maybe it was trying to represent the state of WWE's creative at the time, but one week you'd be in the middle of a blood feud with a rival, the next you'd be exchanging gifts and be best friends with them. To make matters worse, most of the storylines were generic which made the mode redundant. Why bother playing a bunch of boring matches when you'd have more fun playing in exhibition mode? The game retained the grappling system from the '07 edition and introduced a style mechanic. To help distinguish the wrestlers, each guy would be classified as a showman, a power guy, a high-flier, a hardcore guy etc. etc. and would be privvy to a set of skills others didn't have. It was actually a neat concept, but the grappling system prevented it from reaching it's full potential.

Thinking back, I knew about these reservations but bought SD vs Raw 08 regardless. I fell for the allure of new generation graphics and while the next gen games looked better, I learned a tough $80 lesson about impulse buying. The only mode I really got any enjoyment out of was challenge mode where you'd be pit in a bunch of famous scenarios and would have to come out victorious. It was a basic scenario mode you'd see in Soccer games, but it was a challenge you normally wouldn't get in these type of games.

The final game I bought from the SmackDown vs Raw series was '09. What stuck out about this game was the expanded roster. Since the legends had their own game (Legends of Wrestlemania), SD vs Raw 09 consisted of a lot of deep cuts you normally wouldn't see in the game. This was to take advantage of the overhauled tag team system which gave you more bells and whistles to communicate with your tag partner. Season mode was also overhauled with a new Road to Wrestlemania mode. You'd play through 5 story-heavy campaigns that were arguably better than what was happening in the WWE at the time. These storylines went to crazy places MVP starting a stable based around his micro-nation Better-Than-Utopia, Zombie-Santino & Jericho investigating a mysterious hacker. They were enjoyable campaigns, but once you cleared them all, there was really nothing else to sink your teeth into. The gameplay still suffered from the overhauled system and while there was still plenty of creative options, they removed GM Mode which was seemingly getting better with each year. By this point I was well and truly done with WWE games and quite honestly video games in general. It would be a few years before I'd check out another WWE game.

I always lamented post HCTP WWE games, up to that point, each new game was a triumph, from the simple beginning in the first Smackdown, it just got better and better and better, all culminating in Here Comes the Pain...then the vs Raw series began, and it just didn't have the same magic. Even if you beat the living bejeesus out of a guy, they never really felt entirely beaten like before, and could reverse even when thoroughly thrashed. That old feeling of true domination was just gone. Also felt like, while the animations got better, the gameplay itself just got stiffer. I haven't returned to the well in years, but watching my nephew play one of the newer ones, doesn't look like it's improved much on that aspect, just don't look appealing to me anymore. Doesn't help I also lost interest in werestling when I wasn't as into the new batch as my favorites were leaving, and also got more heavily into real fighting with the rise of the UFC.

As far as WCW goes, if it wasn't Revenge or World Tour, it really wasn't worth playing.

Misc.

WWE Raw 2 - I own 5 games on the OG X Box and this happens to be it. This is by far the best wrestling game on the system, which is to say it's mediocre. Anchor Inc obviously did their best to ape the SD system the best they could, but instead of a fun arcade wrestling game, you were left with a sluggish mess of a wrestling game. I don't have any real memories attatched to this one other than every now and again I'd convince myself the game wasn't that bad, boot it up and within an hour get bored of it. It's a shame because the CAW system was strong and unlike the SD series had 64 CAW slots to mess with so you could have a roster of a 128 wrestlers. Season mode on paper sounded great since it was based on SmackDown 2, but it didn't honour the brand split and the booking was horrid. A few weeks into mine Trish Stratus and Stephanie McMahon were challenging for the WWE Championship on a regular basis which even back then just didn't happen.

WWE Day of Reckoning - This was the first GameCube wrestling game I took the plunge on and I was so satisfied with my purchase, I skipped over SmackDown vs. Raw which was one of my more anticipated titles. This maybe a controversial opinion, but I preferred the grappling system in these games. It seemed like Yukes' attempt at making an AKI game with the same grappling system and finisher system. My memory of this game was being really into the junior heavyweight/lucha scene of the 90s and using a lot of CAW formulas online to make my roster. The game had 18 CAW Slots and I had Hayabusa, Jushin Liger, Great Sasuke, Juventud Guerrera, Psichosis, Ciclope, La Parka (or as Austin refers to him as 'Skeletor'), Blitzkrieg, Super Calo etc. and then I randomly had Stone Cold Steve Austin & JBL because I was bothered by their lack of presence. I mostly stuck with multi-men matches and every day would find myself in these 20 minute non-stop crazy matches with guys like Benoit, Eddie, Rey, Jericho etc. thrown in for good measure. Also while GTA Vice City was my favourite OST of any game at the time, this was an extremely close second. Looking back, a lot of these songs are awful, but I have fond memories of taking insane suicide dives while Polyaramous was blaring in the background. This was also the first GameCube mode to have a proper story mode and while it was pretty standard zero to hero fare, it was a big improvement on the Revenge mode in WMXIX. For those who didn't play, you basically work your way up from OVW to Raw/Smackdown where you either join Evolution or the New Minitry and you watch both those stables fall apart. The highlight of the entire mode was facing Ric Flair in OVW where he's by far the most challenging opponent in the game. He's like Mike Tyson from Punch-Out and if you can beat him, it's something worth crowing about.

Wrestlemania XIX - I ended up receiving this later after the infamous Sean Michaels ladder triple threat. I've told the story before, but a friend of mine bought this game over during a sleepover along with his save that included this ridiculous wrestler. He had the body of Captain Planet, Wolverine's Claws, Super-Saiyan Hair, Baraka's Scythes and his entrance saw him blow up the entire arena. Every stat was 100 and his move-list was decked out with the most powerful moves no matter how weak or strong the grapple was. However, he turned out to be horrible at the game and my other mate and me who were like Rob Van Dam & Booker T - two regular schmoes, beat him down to the point where he pulled a tantrum, took his wrestler up to the entrance ramp and went AFK. It was down to just two of us and we had this classic back and forth match filled with all twists and turns. One moment he'd have it won, the next I'd have it and we both ended up knocking each other down. Before we knew it, Sean Michaels had a change of heart and was back in the fray. I decided to dispose of Michaels once and for all, throwing him over the ropes and finish him off with a Superkick, except he reversed it and took me out with a big german suplex. I thought I had done enough to distract him, but Booker T couldn't reach the belt in time, so Sean Michaels went up, slapped Booker off the ladder and in the most anti-climatic finish since Edge vs. Ric Flair in a TLC, just grabbed the belt. Booker T and I were gobsmacked as Sean Michaels backflipped off the couch and started flipping us the bird like he was Stone Cold Steve Austin circa '98. It was the most bizarre thing we'd seen and created this lifelong memory we still bring up whenever WrestleKingdom or the Rumble comes up. Eventually Sean Michaels gave me his copy and his save of the game. While DoR is more polished, WMXIX has the better roster and the better controls for multi-player. Revenge Mode where you beat up construction workers is notoriously awful and ruined what should have been a really good wrestling game.

Fire Pro Wrestling: Returns - Is more of a weird oddity than a game I had a ton of experience with. It was announced for a PAL release in 2008, but only found it's way to parts of Europe and is now one of the more rare PS2 titles. Compared to the States where it was treated like a bargain basement game, a copy is so hard to come by and I was so bummed it never found it's way here. Eventually I was able to emulate the game which was probably for the best since it allowed me to try out a bunch of different saves. The one I ended up going with was a 2012 save which had every major promotion in the world including Indies like Chikara and DG:USA.

Fire Pro Wrestling: World - I was really excited when this was announced last year. I was following Spike Chunsoft's press conference hoping for them to confirm it and when it was officially announced I made sure to get my hands on Early Access ASAP. But last year I bought so many games I found myself rarely playing it and most of my time with the game is going through the Workshop, looking at CAWs, downloading them to my game and then spending 30 minutes to an hour organising them into the right slots. It's a game I definitely want to sink more time into since it seems like a really deep wrestling system.

My first wrestling game was WWF Attitude, then Wrestlemania 2000 then I picked up Revenge and then Mayhem all for the N64. My D-Lo Brown was undefeated for WarZone. I took Kane through hellfire and brimston...er...Wrestlemania 2000. At that time I discovered WCW for about the last year they were in business. I leg dropped anything that moved with Hogan and it was basically WWF Attitude with a different characters. Mayhem was fun but I used cattle prods and speared/Jack hammered everything with Goldberg.

No Mercy was my Elisium at the time. The DAYS I spent trying to get all the multiple branches of the different storylines consumed me. And the 100 man match was always brutal. At the end I won it with Shawn Michaels and finally unlocked Andre. At the time it was the greatest wrestling game I'd ever played.

Then I switched to PS2. Here Comes The Pain was and is the best wrestling game I've had fun with. All the big names were there. Again DAYS went by of Time that I consumed on this game. I won, defended, and claimed every title with Goldberg.

Some of the rest of the games were the SvsR series. I think it was 2 or 3 games in that I switched to the XBOX360. Now I'm on the PS4. The last few games are pretty much all the same game with upgraded features. This year's was good because you could download some of the NXT characters and play as them.

I think my first wrestling game was Super WrestleMania for Genesis. Then Royal Rumble for Genesis and Super Nintendo. I also remember liking WrestleMania 2000 for N64. Used to own SmackDown: Here Comes The Pain. Haven't played any of the latest games like those in the WWE 2K series.