The N64 Wrestling games...anyone else play/love them?

NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Wii
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Zork
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The N64 Wrestling games...anyone else play/love them?

Post by Zork »

Remember way back when the 64 was new and they came out with WCW vs NWO World tour and it how mostly anyone that played it thought it was freaking amazing? If you didn't I know I did. Of course back in those days most people who played Wrestling games were Wrestling fans, I was one back then and I still am now, it's been a thing for me since my very early childhood. But anyway I've always thought the this style of Wrestling game was always the best. It had the right type of system for endurance, counters, move damage and all that stuff, it was possible to have a very long match or not get completely dominated by someone, which is usually impossible with the Smackdown series nowadays.

After World Tour came WCW vs NWO Revenge and Wrestlemania 2000, the WWF/E counterpart. At this point I would say that the WWF games were better simply because the production values and accuracy was much better for whatever reason. Revenge didn't have any of the wrestler's themes or anything, World Tour didn't either but I could understand that because it was the first game but you'd think the sequel would be better or offering more in production other than simply improved graphics and a larger, more complete roster.

After those games there were not any more WCW games of that style and the rest were quite crappy, thus the last game that came out using this style of gameplay was WWF No Mercy which was, and still is one of the best wrestling games ever made. Production values went up, there was a larger roster, better create a wrestler mode, and a ton of moves, the only real problems this game had was it's somewhat Bi-Polar AI meaning sometimes it was very easy, sometimes it was average and other times the enemy would be a unstoppable juggernaut, there was really no way to tell and it didn't really matter what difficulty you had it on. The other problem was the game had some framerate problems, and slowdown, whichever you'd want to call it. I can only guess that it had this problem due to the graphical improvements which were a lot better than the three games before it, but couldn't they have just fixed this by making the game Expansion Pak compatible?

Anyway I know I'm probably trying to reach out to a niche audience within a niche audience with this subject but I'd just like to see if anyone else shares my opinions of these four games or what they think of the N64 Wrestling games in general. The only other game series I've heard of that is comparable to this is Fire Pro Wrestling and I've never played one in my entire life. Anyway, please fire away. :)
msimplay
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Post by msimplay »

The Def Jam series is supposed to be the continuation of that fighting system EA bought it out.
I thought you may like to know since the Def Jam series is the unofficial sequel to the N64 wrestling games. I still think they are much better than the Smackdown vs Raw games
risk
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Post by risk »

yup, i played most of the n64 wrestling games. i personally still love wcw vs nwo. the fire pro wrestling games are fun. although, cartoony like the old school snes/gen games, they make up for replay and playability value. they have american wrestlers but without their actual names. i still watch wrestling every week here. been so since i was 6yrs old :)

ps: sorry but i dont consider the def jam series wrestling games.
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Zork
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Post by Zork »

I was very dissapointed with the recent Smackdown vs Raw effort. The matches don't last long anymore, they took out a TON of new moves and kept really old ones (They basically cut out like half of the moves I think), destroyed Caw mode almost even though Caws look like wrestlers finally and I hate the way unlocking things work. It was so pathetic.

After playing that it made me realize how great stuff like No Mercy was.
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LordOfTheCynics
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Post by LordOfTheCynics »

WCW vs NWO was AWESOME. I made some of the craziest characters in that, and it was very much ahead of its time. Sadly, THQ hasn't changed the games much recently, not for the better anyway. With SD VS RAW 07, my brother and I seem to have trouble with the new grapple system. I prefer the old one, myself. And yes, the game does seem like it's missing a lot. I've no idea why they'd remove moves, but it couldn't have been space restraints. The game image is only 4.14 GB.
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Post by Zork »

It's probably because they dolled up the graphics and put in a lot more voice acting and whatnot. It seems like lately all they're really caring about is presentation, presentation and you guessed it...presentation instead of gameplay. But then again it seems like thats the real problem nowadays with any other game.
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Post by LordOfTheCynics »

Yeah, it seems so with this new release. While fun most of the time, it gets a little tedious with all the loading times and hearing some of that lame music they put in it (though the music's better this time around, ha ha; who the hell are "Bumpy Knuckles" and "Poet," anyway? LAME). Seems like they spent more money and resources on licensing crap.
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Post by DCAllAmerican »

Yea those N64 games were beautiful

I played the imported versions though
Virtual Pro Wrestling
Virtual Pro Wrestling 2

Had Japanese wrestlers instead of the Americans stars; loved the game
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Post by Zork »

I take it you're not really a fan of American Wrestling?
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Post by DCAllAmerican »

I will watch it; but back then I was more of a Japanese/Mexican wrestling fan

I like it more for the actual sport of it
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