Rasslin' Video Games

[Death From Above]

12 hours ago, No Point Stance said:

IIRC it was WWF Warzone that started that (thankfully short-lived) period of wrestling games using stupidly complicated Mortal Kombat-style input. Dreadful times.

I had this one too lmao

[Zimbra]

Remember the ECW game with the Warzone engine?  That was the drizzling shits.

I have a weird affection for Backstage Assault.  It's definitely not, like, good but they did take a swing at something different.

[SirSmUgly]

6 hours ago, Zimbra said:

Remember the ECW game with the Warzone engine?  That was the drizzling shits.

I have a weird affection for Backstage Assault.  It's definitely not, like, good but they did take a swing at something different.

Which one? Hardcore Revolution or Anarchy Rulz?

Warzone was bad, and so was Attitude, but I spent a lot of time with them, especially because Warzone was such a leap from the LJN WWF games that Acclaim was putting out.

[Cliff Hanger]

41 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said:

Which one? Hardcore Revolution or Anarchy Rulz?

Warzone was bad, and so was Attitude, but I spent a lot of time with them, especially because Warzone was such a leap from the LJN WWF games that Acclaim was putting out.

At the time those Acclaim Iguana games came out on PS1, I had just started watching wrestling in earnest, was playing a lot of mediocre fighting games in the campus arcade, and so they were great first wrestling games for me at the time. I had no fucking taste, of course, they're basically unplayable. But until I was able to get an N64 and play WM2K, they were what I thought I wanted: WCW Vs the World, which I came around on later, just felt so slow (I hated having to hold down the grapple button for seconds at a time) and didn't have any of the presentation flourishes I wanted. So I played probably hundreds of hours of Attitude, then got really into WM2K and Fire Pro (first thru a copy of X Premium obtained thru Nefarious Means, then a legit copy of G) and so when Hardcore Revolution came out i bought it and hated it.

 

I am aware that the PS1 owners got by far the best versions of these; the N64 ones were missing most of the presentation stuff and the Dreamcast ones (which may have just been the ECW games) sucked because of the lack of enough buttons for the controls the games were meant to have.

 

I have a lot fewer memories of WCW Nitro and Thunder, for whatever reason those absolutely did not work for me. I do remember cheating to unlock the deeper hidden characters; there was a disco-themed arena where if you hit the taunt button, both wrestlers would freeze and do the YMCA. So you could throw somebody out of the ring and just taunt a few times in a row and guarantee a count out win.

Edited March 23 by Cliff Hanger
Added an extra thought

[Firebreaker Chip]

The ability to set 5 sigs and finishers (with optional 3-finisher  deathmoves) in 2k24 has me downloading loads of 90s Japanese wrestlers and arenas and trying to basically turn it into a ASPW3 or KOC2 rerun this year. I've done a lot of compulsive tweaking of movesets to try and optimise the finisher and sigs slots to give as broad a range as possible, but with only being able to have max two in each grapple position it gets tough with guys like Akiyama and Kobashi who have lots of gnarly front grapple rarities. And you have to use best-fit proxies for stuff like Black Crush and Diamond Head because 2k are way less enthusiastic than Yukes were about putting indy and old Japanese moves in the games, in favour of Stupid NXT Neckbreaker Variant #753

The strike exchanges are quite fun, had an AI simmed one where Vader taunted Kobashi to hit him harder and promptly got wiped out with a backfist, then a second match where the climactic backfist sent Vader staggering across the ring, only for Kobashi to sprint after him and decapitate him with the Burning Lariat for the pinfall

[Craig H]

So...Is this thing worth buying if I bought last year's game? Is enough different?

[Cliff Hanger]

32 minutes ago, Craig H said:

So...Is this thing worth buying if I bought last year's game? Is enough different?

I think it depends on what parts of the game you enjoy most. I got my money's worth for the third year in a row, but I seem to mostly want different things than most of the other players here. If you want new toys in the playpen for GM and/or Universe, official versions (w/music, commentary, etc) of a bunch of people who've either never been in a game or haven't been in a decade, and new moves to give to edit characters, it has all that but it's just, like, 10-15% more in each case. If that sounds like it's worth MSRP to you, then it likely will be. If it leaves you on the fence, maybe wait til August since that was when it went on deep sale on PSN and Steam the last couple years and you're almost definitely going to get your money's worth then. 

[odessasteps]

I wonder if it will end up on Game Pass or the PS version. Dont know if last years did or not, but it seems like that’s the direction of travel for games now. 
 

Google tells me last years game hit Game Pass in August, six months or so after it came out.

Edited March 26 by odessasteps

[Cliff Hanger]

1 minute ago, odessasteps said:

I wonder if it will end up on Game Pass or the PS version. Dont know if last years did or not, but it seems like that’s the direction of travel for games now. 

Not on PS+,  though that did just get NBA2K24. The PC version HAS made it into Humble Bundles or Humble Choice the past couple years towards the end of the life cycle. 

[odessasteps]

I’d be tempted to try it out once it comes to Game Pass, depending on just when the Starfield DLC drops and if I’ve ever gotten around to playing MLB the Show 24. (I did figure out you can go in and selectively turn off the music.) 

[twiztor]

i remember recording the ps1 WCW Nitro character select screen on VHS. i loved that every wrestler cut a short promo. a few of them (DDP, Eddie, and Alex Wright off the top of my head) had two different versions. and i have Savage's committed to memory:

"watch the flying elbow drop off the top rope. Not only beats people 1-2-3, but i hurt 'em real bad!"

spent plenty of time with that game, WWF Warzone, and WWF Attitude. but once those AKI games came out? never looked back.

[Craig H]

22 hours ago, Cliff Hanger said:

I think it depends on what parts of the game you enjoy most. I got my money's worth for the third year in a row, but I seem to mostly want different things than most of the other players here. If you want new toys in the playpen for GM and/or Universe, official versions (w/music, commentary, etc) of a bunch of people who've either never been in a game or haven't been in a decade, and new moves to give to edit characters, it has all that but it's just, like, 10-15% more in each case. If that sounds like it's worth MSRP to you, then it likely will be. If it leaves you on the fence, maybe wait til August since that was when it went on deep sale on PSN and Steam the last couple years and you're almost definitely going to get your money's worth then. 

I watched a video saying that the camera has been pulled back a little bit more, gameplay feels a little better even if it's mostly the same, the AI is improved and very challenging, and the action has been slowed down in the ring. Any of that sound accurate?

[Cliff Hanger]

27 minutes ago, Craig H said:

I watched a video saying that the camera has been pulled back a little bit more, gameplay feels a little better even if it's mostly the same, the AI is improved and very challenging, and the action has been slowed down in the ring. Any of that sound accurate?

I'm no judge on camera. The AI is significantly more challenging, yes, and pacing is slower in large part because your stamina meter is a lot more important. Last year I had to remind myself what it was because it appeared so rarely; this time I'm having to make conscious choices to whip someone to the corner so I can let my stamina recover and do a taunt. "Video game wrestling" isn't nearly as viable, though it's by no means Fire Pro level enforced slow build. It's also a valid strategy to whip someone to the ropes and then do 2-3 leapfrogs/drop-downs to gas them out, which would have been absurd before. In general, aside from the camera thing (I'm just not near that observant) all those points are correct.

[No Point Stance]

4 hours ago, Cliff Hanger said:

pacing is slower in large part because your stamina meter is a lot more important. Last year I had to remind myself what it was because it appeared so rarely; this time I'm having to make conscious choices to whip someone to the corner so I can let my stamina recover and do a taunt. "Video game wrestling" isn't nearly as viable, though it's by no means Fire Pro level enforced slow build. It's also a valid strategy to whip someone to the ropes and then do 2-3 leapfrogs/drop-downs to gas them out

This all sounds good to me. I don't suppose they've brought back the chain wrestling from 2K19? Because that would be a big incentive to me buying now and not waiting months for a major price drop.

[dragonzombie]

The version of WWE WrestleMania Steel Cage Challenge with Warrior instead of Hogan. And the Mountie was replaced with Razor Ramon

https://tcrf.net/WWE_WrestleMania:_Steel_Cage_Challenge_(Plug_%26_Play)

[Technico Support]

So I got a PS5 recently and just started playing FirePro.  It’s pretty great (I used to play 6 Man Scramble with a buddy back in 96 on his modded Saturn).  I’m working through the story mode right now as a heavyweight.  Can anyone tell me if it’s any different playing as a junior?  Thanks!

[Cliff Hanger]

Sunday is the last chance to use the YOURSTORY2K24 code to get the toy version of Cena in all modes and a couple card packs in Faction, or to unlock Cody's "ugly" mask for CAWs (by winning the Live Event tag match with Dusty and Toy Cody.) So far those are the only two time-limited Faction things that unlock anything anywhere else in the game, though we know there will be more "Oddities" cards coming later in the season--pieces of signature gear like that which unlock the item for CAW and, when you complete the set, grant a card--but not when or how.

[blitzkrieg]

Feel like there's a lack of love for WWF Raw, Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game, and In Your House which also might be why WWF Warzone felt so amazing at the time. Underrated feature of In Your House was that you could stick it in a CD player and listen to all the theme songs.

Edited April 1 by blitzkrieg

[Cliff Hanger]

On 3/28/2024 at 11:43 AM, Technico Support said:

So I got a PS5 recently and just started playing FirePro.  It’s pretty great (I used to play 6 Man Scramble with a buddy back in 96 on his modded Saturn).  I’m working through the story mode right now as a heavyweight.  Can anyone tell me if it’s any different playing as a junior?  Thanks!

I never got that far, but the tutorial stages are all the same quest ("do X Y times and then win") but the dialogue between them is entirely different; it's all about putting over the Junior division as unique and dynamic. Champion Road Beyond, meanwhile, is completely differenr--it was written by Suda51 as a sequel to the infamous Fire Pro 3 story where Ric Fl...I mean Dick Slender kills your tag partner and your hero commits suicide after winning the belt. It doesn't have the stat management, etc that the NJPW modes do, just a straight shot thru a series of matches with a story that isn't even Suda-level crazy.

[dragonzombie]

Super WrestleMania on Genesis has finishers unlike it's SNES counterpart. Royal Rumble expanded the moveslist. There's Rage in the Cage on Sega CD, 20 man roster with their own finishers and the cage match mode and FMV crap. My only problem with those games is the movesets are all the same. 

I don't think console WWF games got good until the N64/PS1 era. 

[username]

Yeah I think one has to understand that in terms of wrestling games released in the US... Warzone was one of the better ones at the time of its release. None of the other WWE games beforehand were rather good aside from maybe Wrestlefest (which was arcade only), it had possibly the first real Stateside create a wrestler and WCW/NWO World tour just beat it out (and while better the AKI games didn't become truly great in the US until Revenge came out). The controls while overly complicated make more sense in historical context as for the previous five or so years fighting games were king and hence one became used to having to memorize a bunch of button presses to perform moves. That said it has aged wretchedly and there is zero reason to revisit it.

[Kevin Wilson]

I'm so old, WWF Wrestlemania on NES was my first wrestling game. It wasn't good, I have no positives to report.

[Cliff Hanger]

22 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

I'm so old, WWF Wrestlemania on NES was my first wrestling game. It wasn't good, I have no positives to report.

I played that at a sleepover when it was brand new. It was basically incomprehensible to me, and I had never heard of Bam Bam or Honky, and DiBiase I had only heard of when the wrestling kids talked about it, I had no idea what he looked like. I was upset that we had rented that but I don't remember what I asked for and lost out on.

[Technico Support]

51 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

I'm so old, WWF Wrestlemania on NES was my first wrestling game. It wasn't good, I have no positives to report.

My lord that game was a pile of shit.  I remember picking that up at a now-defunct department store called Best.

I'm so old, Bop N' Wrestle on the C64 was my first wrestling game.

Edited April 2 by Technico Support

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

49 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

I'm so old, WWF Wrestlemania on NES was my first wrestling game. It wasn't good, I have no positives to report.

I have a positive to report!

They made Ted DiBiase's theme in that game "Girls in Cars", and if that can't make you smile, what can?