Tag: Retro Wrestling Game Reviews

Royal Rumble is almost always overshadowed by the more famous WWF games on PS1 and N64. Mind you, there's a good reason why: Royal Rumble is nowhere near as good as any of its three counterparts from that year, but that isn't to say that it's a completely bad game.

If you can appreciate it for what it is, nearly 20 years later, War Zone remains one of the most fun wrestling games ever, and a vital chapter in the history of wrestling - and especially WWF/WWE - videogames.

Although it hasn't aged well, WWF Attitude remains a milestone in the history of wrestling videogames, and a good climax to the final era before the THQ era for WWF/WWE videogames.

WrestleMania 2000 was awesome, and a perfect snapshot of wrestling's greatest ever era.

It wasn't quite flawless, but it was as close to perfection as one would expect; if the modern WWE 2K titles were as good as No Mercy, no fans would ever be complaining. A phenomenal wrestling game that all diehard fans should play.

If you decided to go for SmackDown!, you probably would have had, and still today probably would have, a whale of a time.

Had the near-perfect No Mercy not been released around the same time, this would be even more fondly remembered but, even when you take this into account, Know Your Role was great, and still marked one of the high points of WWF/WWE wrestling games.

Just like the 2001-era WWF in comparison to today's WWE, some fans would much rather have Just Bring It than the modern-day 2K titles. Still, within the series as a whole, Just Bring It comes in somewhere near the bottom.

After three SmackDown! games which had positives but also a fair number of negatives, the fourth title in the series was the first to bring everything together. Every area that had been lacking was addressed, whilst the elements which had been lauded by fans remained in place, resulting in one hell of a wrestling game.

Here Comes The Pain is amongst the elite of wrestling games, and if you don't believe me, get playing it on your PlayStation 2 and you'll soon find yourself realising why Here Comes The Pain is one of the greatest wrestling games, if not the greatest wrestling game, ever made.

Has any wrestling game had a tougher act to follow than SmackDown! vs. Raw? SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain was such an outstanding game from top to bottom that nothing less than absolute perfection would have been considered an acceptable sequel.

SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain was and is considered to be the holy grail of wrestling games, at least within the SmackDown! series of titles for a variety of reasons. However, one game which doesn't get quite as much adulation, but arguably provided a stronger overall package, was SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006.

You will rarely have more fun playing a wrestling game than you will if you decide to play WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2007.

Overall, history hasn't been too kind to WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008, but it's easy to see why when playing it again.

Despite the limitations of RTWM and Career mode, these were still much better and a lot more fun than the flawed 24/7 experience in the previous game.

While the main issues had yet to be fixed, SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 is generally remembered fondly, if not quite reaching "great" status.

SvR 2011 falls somewhere in the middle on the spectrum of games from the series; at the heart of the game, you still had a damn fun wrestling title.

It offered a fresher approach than SvR 11 had, but there were still several big issues remaining in this game (some of which would be fixed in WWE '13).

Whilst it definitely could have been expanded or improved, I still consider this to be one of the top five WWF/WWE videogames ever.

As it is, WWE '13 remains a great game, and is in my top five or six for the entire series.