Top 3 Greatest Wrestling Video Games

In this edition of The Wrestling Estate roundtable, we present our top three greatest wrestling video games.

John Corrigan’s Greatest Wrestling Video Games

WWF No Mercy

The gold standard. Easy to play, plenty of characters, fun Create-A-Wrestler and Diggity Dog. Before we started chasing girls, my friends and I spent our weekends with the N64 Holy Trinity: No Mercy, Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros.

SmackDown: Here Comes The Pain

P-Cat and I once played a Last Man Standing match with Brock Lesnar and Goldberg that lasted over an hour. Good times, good times.

SmackDown vs. Raw 2007

My brother and I will still dust this off about once a year as he tries to beat me in GM Mode.

Neal Wagner’s Greatest Wrestling Video Games

Fire Pro Wrestling World

Playing this as I type this. I’ve never played any of the other incarnations before, but this came at a time that I had given up on wrestling games. The addition of NJPW on the roster just made things even better as I could play new characters not seen anyplace else.

WrestleMania 2000

I’m probably in the minority that loved this more than No Mercy. Both are great but I liked the season mode in WrestleMania 2000 more because you were continually wrestling show after show and building to your most difficult matches on PPV.

WCW/NWO Revenge

This was my counterpart to WM 2000 because it’s the same game except it’s with WCW. But because it’s WCW is why it has no actual career mode. The gauntlet to the title is still good, but the lack of entrance music is the biggest drawback. This and WrestleMania 2000 bring me back to my childhood and I still have them today.

Chad Gelfand’s Greatest Wrestling Video Games

SmackDown: Here Comes the Pain

The best wrestling game there’s ever been. From the animations to the gameplay to the story, this is the most fun I’ve had with a wrestling game. Brock Lesnar’s constant shoulder shrug animation still lives in my head rent-free.

SmackDown: Shut Your Mouth

The free roam feature combined with the expansive season that could stretch over several years with fresh storylines puts this game over the top. You never knew who you were going to run into backstage, be it Planet Stasiak, Debra’s cookies or a pissed off Undertaker.

SmackDown vs. Raw 2007

Probably the best soundtrack in wrestling video game history, but it also featured the wacky storylines that I love out of wrestling video games, such as Candice Michelle having a magic wand for some reason and Trish Stratus winning the WWE Championship. Sometimes too much realism in wrestling video games can get boring, and it’s fun when the storylines are a little out there.

Steven Jackson’s Greatest Wrestling Video Games

Super Fire Pro-Wrestling X Premium

Anyone can ask me what my favorite console is and my answer will always be the same…Super Nintendo! The vast library of games combined with incredible replay value put it at the top of the tree. Nothing comes close. The SNES was also my first foray into importing international video games not otherwise available in Europe. The most important of these was Human Entertainment’s wrestling masterpiece Super Fire Pro-Wrestling X Premium. The two great loves in my life – video games and wrestling – perfectly meshed in this incredibly deep and satisfying game. A roster with everyone you could think of from around the world, tons of options, unlockables, create-a-wrestler, colorful graphics with tons of expression and multi-player make this a game that I can go back to again and again. (I also wrote about this game over 10 years ago for RetroGamer.Net and you can find my full review here.)

WWF No Mercy

The Attitude Era was not my favorite period for watching wrestling, but I have to admit, it helped produce some pretty amazing video games! Standing above all others is WWF No Mercy. Before answering this roundtable, I thought long and hard about whether to choose WCW/nWo Revenge or WWF No Mercy. Both are seen as the pinnacle of wrestling video games. However, because No Mercy built on the engine of Revenge, and added in a story mode, as well as create-a-wrestler, it wins out. Whether you are a casual, die-hard or not even a wrestling fan, pop the grey cartridge into your N64, and everyone will be up for a fight! I need to mention as well that No Mercy is probably the longest actively played wrestling game of all time, with so many creative and fun modifications still being made today. Its appeal will never waiver and its gameplay is as close to perfection as you can get. Just avoid those damn handicap matches!!!

WWE SmackDown: Here Comes the Pain

Many games try to reinvent the wheel and fail miserably. Others follow what has been done and meet positive reception with a wish to see more. Then others come along which follow the lessons of their predecessors, but also feed off the moment and create something truly magic. The last of these is what WWE Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain managed to do on the PlayStation 2. Smooth mechanics, beautiful graphics, great storyline mode, awesome authenticity and every option you could think of make this the last great wrestling video game. And, add in that the European version had one of the coolest covers to any video game in history, you have a home run.

David Gibb’s Greatest Wrestling Video Games

Fire Pro Wrestling Returns

Two-dimensional sprites, complex timing mechanics and the need to figure out a lot for yourself (since the translation wasn’t great) kept Fire Pro Wrestling Returns from breaking through as a mainstream hit in the U.S., but it’s really the perfect wrestling game for when it came out. Fire Pro Wrestling Returns was one of the first games to allow you to simulate the pace and sequencing of a 21st century match while still plugging in immovable legends of the past and over-powered MMA strikers in ways that made sense. It’s got a steep learning curve, but it’s probably the most rewarding wrestling game I’ve ever played.

Legends of WrestleMania

This game isn’t hard enough, and the create-a-wrestler function isn’t deep enough to scratch the modern itch, but it was a valiant and successful effort to do something beyond the Smackdown vs. Raw formula at a time when that series was struggling to deliver anything beyond a slightly different roster each year. Legends of WrestleMania might not be regarded as an all-time great game by everybody, but it simulates the grandiosity and pageantry of classic wrestling in a way almost no other video game has been able to replicate.

WWE 2K16

Complimenting any entry in this series seems a little strange, considering the fiery death it has subsequently died. With that said, 2K16 is a masterpiece because its timeline of Steve Austin’s career and Hall of Fame Showcase both put players in the ring during some of wrestling’s greatest moments and gave them controls over characters and situations that were a massive improvement over the generic “career mode” storylines that had been built into WWE video games dating back to the SvR days.

Jack Goodwillie’s Greatest Wrestling Video Games

Wrestling Revolution 3D

I’d be curious to hear how many of you have heard of or played Wrestling Revolution 3D. This game is the latest in a long line of wrestling games from indie developer Mat Dickie that take influence from the Fire Pro series with his own spin on it. One of the biggest draws for me? The art style. There are mods you can download for various MDickie games to uptick the graphics, but I like em just the way they are. They walk the line of being cartoony without being too unrealistic. Another draw? The creative freedom! Every wrestler, non-wrestler and referee in the game, as well as every company in the game is completely customizable, and the career mode as both a wrestler and booker cultivates a world of wrestling where literally anything can happen.

Another unintentional aspect from Mat that I personally enjoy is the wrestler names. To avoid the legal fist of WWE and other wrestling companies, MDickie features real-life wrestler likenesses in his game with creative names to stray you from the path. For instance, Steve Austin is Redneck Rosteen, Owen Hart is Oje Goodman, Bret Hart is Brad Goodman and John Cena is Jimi Sierra. I always get a kick out of that. The controls make the game easy to pick up and play, and the effort and love that went into this game from a one-man shop is evident in the animations (moves, finishers, taunts, etc.), if nothing else. Pick it up on Steam if you can, but it’s also available on mobile devices. It’s only 10 bucks American, 1/6 of what you’ll pay for WWE 2k games and you’ll get six times the mileage out of it. If you still don’t believe me, check out Chris Denker’s playthrough of the career mode on his YouTube channel. PLUS, if you follow MDickie’s Facebook page, you can get updates on an enhanced 2.0 version of the game that is currently in the works.

WWE SmackDown: Here Comes the Pain

I sort of fell on WWE Smackdown: Shut Your Mouth by accident when my brother and I picked it up used for $10 at GameStop just to see what it was all about. As highly as I thought of the Smackdown vs. Raw season modes at the time, SYM blew it out of the water. For years I’d tell people this and they’d tell me, “you gotta play Here Comes the Pain then,” and for years I’d put that off because I swore by SYM. But the truth is, as much as I like SYM, HCTP does everything SYM does, but takes it a step further. It’s got a larger roster with legends. It’s got slightly better graphics. It has the same immersive season mode with the added benefit of the brand split and more storylines. The create-a-wrestler is deeper. It’s got the Elimination Chamber. And it does all of these things while retaining the fast-paced, frantic gameplay style that teeters between being an arcade and sim style. If you are a gamer and had a PS2, (and let’s face it, you probably did since the PS2 is the highest-selling console of all-time), then THIS is the perfect wrestling game. And you can still play it today, as it hasn’t aged too terribly and has probably even aged better than many of the Smackdown vs. Raw games, as much as I hold them in high regard.

WWE Day of Reckoning 2

I know I mentioned the PS2 being the highest-selling console of all-time (over 155 million units sold), but what if you owned a Gamecube? In that case, your options for wrestling games were limited, but the WrestleMania series (also published by THQ, developed by Yuke’s), while flawed, did create the foundation for a great gameplay engine that, with a better roster, better graphics and more to do in the game, could be something special. When the WrestleMania series rebranded to Day of Reckoning, it made good on that potential. The graphics and animations improved considerably, and the career mode (although really more of a story mode than career mode) was well-written and a marked improvement from WrestleMania XIX’s Revenge Mode.

These games were also coming out concurrently with the Smackdown vs. Raw series, and while Smackdown vs. Raw on the PS2 steered more towards the sim-style gameplay we know today, Day of Reckoning kept a more frantic pace and was overall a more fun game to play. Did it have General Manager mode? No. But the graphics were able to get to a level where the two games looked near-identical but played differently and offered a different, yet equally rewarding experience. Day of Reckoning 2 took the Day of Reckoning formula, but made it better! More wrestlers, more legends, more match types and the career mode was interesting in that it was actually a sequel to the career mode in the original game, so you need play the first one first in order for the second one to make sense. Meanwhile, both soundtracks absolutely slap. The GameCube may have only sold 22 million consoles, but it has some of my favorite games and is a critical favorite to many. The best wrestling game on that console is Day of Reckoning 2, and there is no debating that.