WWF WRESTLEMANIA 2000/NO MERCY (N64) Released: 2000

And now we return to the other two-thirds of the “Holy Trio.”

I’ll be honest with everybody, I’m not a Zelda fan, and Super Mario 64 left something to be desired for a diehard Mario nut like me.  The PS1 had Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, and Symphony of the Night, and I was huge into the PS1, so my interest in the Nintendo 64 in 1999 was waning and I had nearly given up on the system.  It all changed with WrestleMania 2000.  I was always more into the WWF than I was WCW, mainly because the WWF had Undertaker, who has been my favorite wrestler since I was about 5 years old (if you ever watch one of my matches, you may notice a few moves of his that I rip off).

When you compare WrestleMania 2000 and Revenge, they look like the same game, only with different wrestlers.  Well, look again my friend.  WM 2000 had everything fans of Revenge had been asking for:  a better story mode, gimmick matches, the ability to create not only wrestlers, but entire stables and championship belts.  The Create-A-Wrestler mode was the best and easiest that you had ever seen in a game before or since.  Creating his appearance was only the beginning.  Not only could you create your entrance, but you could also create your entire move set.

The company I wrestle for, the Northern Wrestling Federation (nwfwrestling.com), runs an annual show called Fanfest, which is basically a picnic type event where fans get to spend the day with the wrestlers before watching our version of WrestleMania.  This past summer was the third year we’ve done it, and we have the usual activities you would see at an event like this:  corn hole, a dunk tank, karaoke, and so on.  This past year, they made a deal with a local game store to set up some video games.  They brought in an arcade cabinet of some WWE game, they set up Rock Band (where me and some of the wrestlers put on a stellar performance of “Livin’ On A Prayer“), and one of our wrestlers brought in his N64 and his version of No Mercy, where he created every wrestler on our roster.  It kind of felt good that I was the most picked wrestler among the kids.

No Mercy is a direct sequel to WM2000, the game featured a bigger story mode, the ability to create female wrestlers, and the ability to individually edit every wrestlers four outfits.  Fans often debate which game is superior, similar to the way we also debate between Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World (*cough* Super Mario World).  But honestly, arguing about this is trivial.  Both games are incredible, and its really just about personal preference, can’t we just be happy that we were given two amazing games? (*cough* No Mercy.)

WRESTLEMANIA THE ARCADE GAME (ARCADE, SNES, GENESIS, 32X, SATURN, PS1, DOS) Released: 1995

This was another game I played to death on the SNES.  In the original arcade game, you were given 8 characters, in the SNES version, they got rid of Bam Bam Bigelow and Yokozuna, reducing the number to 6: Undertaker, Bret Hart, Doink, Shawn Michaels, Lex Luger, and Razor Ramon.

Everything about this game is as over-the-top as the sport it portrays.  Wrestlers glow when doing special attacks, certain moves require the wrestlers to jump several dozen feet in the air, and when attacked, items fall out of the wrestlers similar to the way they do in the latest version of Punch-Out on the Wii.

The digitized graphics are about as good as you’re going to get for the time; you can’t get much more authentic than having the actual wrestlers portray themselves, complete with posing.  I didn’t play it a whole lot in the arcade, but the SNES version doesn’t look very different.  Each wrestler had their own stage, a la Street Fighter.  You get what you would expect, Doink has a circus themed level, Undertaker’s is a crypt, etc.

There were two different story modes, you could either choose to do the Intercontinental Title mode or the World Title mode.  In the IC mode, it consisted of a series of singles matches, followed by 2-on-1 matches, and culminated with a 3-on-1 match.  The World Title mode, as would be expected, it a bit more difficult.  Starting with four 2-on-1 matches, two 3-on-1 matches, and it ended with a gauntlet match.  You began the match in a 3-on-1 match, and every time you defeated an opponent, he was replaced with a new wrestler, so not only were the odds still very much against you, but you then had to deal with fresh opponents with full life bars.

I really don’t have a lot of complaints about the game other than the limited roster.  Even for a game as good as this one, 6 is still a small amount of wrestlers to select from.  I found it odd that they opted to get rid of Yokozuna and Bam Bam Bigelow, and decided to keep Doink and Shawn Michaels.  Yokozuna and Triple B were certified main eventers at the time.  Some of you may say that I’m wrong about Shawn Michaels, but at that point Shawn had yet to establish himself as a headliner.  He wouldn’t do that for another year.  Regardless, this game is still fun to throw in every now and then, and it’s still one of my all-time favorites on the SNES.

WWF SUPER WRESTLEMANIA/ROYAL RUMBLE/RAW (SNES/GENESIS) Released: 1992, 1993, and 1994

Wrestling games have the same bad habit that sports games do:  They’re the same thing every year.  This couldn’t be more true than with this trio.  Notice that I didn’t say that these games were bad, but they were just too similar for me to buy all three.  The one I chose was Royal Rumble.  How much did I play this game?  Well, it’s been over a decade since I’ve played it (SNES version), and I can still list every character in the game in the order they appeared on the select screen from left to right:  Randy Savage, Mr. Perfect, The Undertaker, Bret Hart, Tatanka, Krush, Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, Yokozuna, Lex Luger, and Ted DiBiase.  FACE!

The Genesis version swapped 5 wrestlers, taking away Mr. Perfect, Ric Flair, Tatanka, Ted DiBiase, and Yokozuna in favor of Hulk Hogan, “The Model” Rick Martel, IRS, Jim Duggan, and Papa Shango, a far inferior roster, but solid nonetheless.

It wasn’t really anything spectacular.  Standard 16-bit wrestling action.  You got pretty much what you would expect.  Although, I must say, I spent a lot of time at the wrestler select screen just so I could listen to the wrestler’s entrance themes, because they were the actually themes and not just 16-bit renditions.  It was the first time I had ever seen that done, and it nearly blew my mind.  You had your standard singles matches, tag matches, and they even threw in 3-on-3 matches.  The funny thing about 3-on-3 matches was that, rather than have one member of the team in the ring, and the other two on the outside, instead you only had one, and you could literally transform your one partner into the other one with the Select button.

There was no ability to save champions, so during story mode (if you can call it that), you go through 11 matches, and at the end of the 11th match, a guy walked into the ring and lifted a belt above his head.  That was it, that was all you got for your 30 minutes of hard work.  Your character doesn’t even get to hold it, just some random *******.

Like most wrestling games that came before it, every wrestler had the same moves other than signature moves, but I don’t remember a time that Shawn Michaels’ signature move was a back suplex.  Head butts, body slams, vertical suplexes, and hip tosses are all over the place in this game.  Regardless of the move you perform, Vince McMahon and Bobby “The Brain” Heenan can be seen in the background acting like they‘re witnessing a woman giving birth to a wild boar.  I never thought a video game NPC could overact, but LJN pulled it off.

Obviously, the main attraction in this game was the Royal Rumble mode.  You select a character, and proceed to try and outlast the entire roster and be the last man standing at the end.  You can get 6 men in the ring at a time, which is impressive considering the amount of technology available at the time.  My only complaint is that the only way to eliminate someone from the Rumble is to shoot them off the ropes and hip toss them out of the ring or use an atomic drop near the ropes and throw them out on their *****.  Once again, it’s fine for the technology, but I’ve been a wrestling fan for almost my entire life, and been in the business for half a decade, and I’ve never seen anybody get hip tossed or atomic dropped out of a ring.

WWF SUPERSTARS (ARCADE) Released: 1989

This game was released in arcades after Pro Wrestling on NES, but this was the first wrestling game I ever played.  The graphics remind me of a more cartoonish version of the recent Legends of WrestleMania, the characters are depicted as larger than life, because that’s the way we remembered them as kids.  It also features something very common in the late 80s:  COLOR!  Does anyone else remember when games had color?

The character selection was standard fare for WWF circa 1989: Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Big Boss Man, Honky Tonk Man, Jim Duggan, and Randy Savage.  The story mode requires you to choose two wrestlers as a tag team, and after winning three matches, you then get to face the team of Ted DiBiase and Andre the Giant.  If you win, you’ll be rewarded with your team’s faces being slapped on the cover of a newspaper, praising the new Tag Team Champions.  The story mode continues in a similar fashion as Ghosts N Goblins, where you basically just go through the game twice without being defeated to truly win.

The game featured a pretty simplistic move set.  Every wrestler had standard strikes, running attacks, top rope moves, etc.  The grappling system gave you three options: an irish whip, or two different moves specific to each character.

Instead of the wrestlers making boring entrances, they took a page out of the WrestleMania 3 playbook and had each wrestler being carted to the ring on tiny wrestling rings.

When I was a kid, if I happened to find myself in an arcade, this was the game I tried to find.  If that particular arcade had it, then it’s the only game I played until I ran out of quarters.