Now we’re getting into the “Holy Trio.” There are three games that are the reason for owning a Nintendo 64 for me. Not to say that I don’t love Mario Kart and Starfox and Goldeneye, but when it comes right down to it, Revenge, WrestleMania 2000, and No Mercy are the three games I sunk the most hours into on the system. Goldeneye may be the Godfather of console FPS games, but it’s hard to go back and play. These wrestling games, however, are the golden standard for professional wrestling games even today. I’ll go on record and say that even with today’s ever-evolving graphics and gameplay mechanics, no wrestling game will ever top these masterpieces, and you can still go back and play them to this day and it’ll be like you never put them down.
The Christmas that I received a Nintendo 64 was one of impatience. As a kid, every year you know the one big present you’re going to receive, and I knew that the N64 was my big present that year, and I asked for two games, one of which was Revenge. I opened it up, acted surprised, and rushed my family to hurry up and open presents so I could run upstairs to hook up my N64 and spend the rest of the day playing Revenge.
In wrestling games that came before Revenge, you were given a finite number of wrestlers to choose from, and it always consisted of the top stars. Revenge, however, gave you the entire WCW roster, and it also threw in a bunch of wrestlers that didn’t even exist, the best of which being THQ Man. I was so obsessed with this game that whenever I would have to go somewhere, I would bring the strategy guide along just so I could read the bios of the various wrestlers and memorize their move sets.
Very rarely did my champions ever change. Kevin Nash was my World Champion, Scott Hall was my United Stated Champion, Chris Jericho was my main cruiserweight, Hall and Nash would keep the tag belts, and Diamond Dallas Page and Mortis would share the Television Title. Everything about this game was fun, but there was one certain match that stood out: the 40-Man-Battle-Royal. This was the match that my friends and I wasted many a Saturday night playing. It was a challenge among our friends to try and win the battle royal with the most ridiculous characters. By God, I was determined to win a battle royal with Dr. Frank. Brikowski, Dake Ken, and Maya Inca Boy were also among the often selected characters.
The most epic match I can remember was a 40-Man-Battle-Royal in which we changed the rules to where the only way to eliminate your opponent was by knocking him unconscious. I started the match with Buff Bagwell, and in a match that lasted 2 and a half hours, I was still standing with Buff Bagwell at the end. How? Because I’m a professional ass kicker.
This game also has the most incredible/awful opening sequence in the history of video games. Why would Sting just be standing in the middle of nowhere, at night, in a thunderstorm, waiting for a trucker?
Although the game didn’t have a superstar creator, you were given the ability to edit any superstar in the game. This lead to some rather humorous moments. One particular friend of mine decided to give every character in the game an Eddie Guerrero “Cheat to Win” shirt. I, on the other hand, edited the non-WCW wrestlers to make them look like wrestlers that I knew. Maya Inca Boy was given an nWo shirt and became Dennis Rodman, Brikowski became Steve Blackman, Hawk Hana became the late Yokozuna, and Dake Ken was given blue trunks and was switched to Ken Shamrock.
I struggled to comprehend just how wrestling games could get better. I mean, seriously, Revenge had Lodi. Freakin’ LODI. But they did get better, and then they got better again. But not until 2000.
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