Best Wrestlng Video Game

When I was a kid most wrestling arcade games were pretty lame. Just a lot of random button mashing. When Nintendo and Sega came out there didn't seem to be any good wrestling games from what I remember. Honestly, the first wrestling game I ever liked and had to have was when N64 came out with NWO vs WCW World Tour. That game was amazing, and it was the first wrestling game I ever played that had a good system of controls for different wrestling moves, as well as 'special / finishing ' moves. They had weapons, blood, secret characters to unlock. It was very exciting. Then they came out with the follow up and it was much better. It even had a way of winning the championship belts. 

WWE was caught behind on this and it took them some time to catch up. Prior to this, WWE games in my opinion were boring and lame. Sorry to say. However, I'm not sure if they ripped off the WCW games or took over the company that made them, who knows lol, but soon the WWE games were the best around and they had basically taken that WCW game and copied / improved it. The first WWE game I bought to replace my 2 WCW games was Wrestlemania 2000. It was a great game. It wasn't topped for quite some time, and I think the best Nintendo wrestling game of all time, was actually the last N64 game I ever bought... No Mercy! This game was epic, it had all the same move controls, same weapons, and many more. They also added a feature so you could fight backstage with several backstage areas. Unlike today's wrestling games, you didn't have to select a backstage match, any match could go backstage. It was great!

That was the end of N64 and pretty much the end of Nintendo lol, I mean GameCube sucked and Wii is for kids under 10, lets face it haha. PS1 had no decent wrestling games or any games for that matter lol. By the time PS2 and Xbox were out, WWE had won the wrestling war and they were the only wrestling company around. They divided into 2 brands, Raw and Smackdown. Xbox would come out with Raw games, and PS2 would come out with Smackdown games. I had PS2 because I thought, and still think, that Xbox is a shitty knock off of PlayStation, much as Sega was a shitty knock off of Nintendo lol. So since I had PlayStation I got Smackdown games. I liked "Here Comes The Pain" because it had the best roster in any wrestling game ever. This was right after Wrestlemania 18 when all the past superstars like Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash has returns, and when stars like Goldberg and Scott Steiner had come to WWE, but most of all it had a new superstar named Brock Lesner! 

However, since PS2 was new the games were pretty basic and it was only a matter of time before the quality improved greatly. Around this same time, Xbox had failed lol, and it would be a while before they would try again with the 360 (which I also think sucks haha). As a result, WWE moved Raw and Smackdown games to PS2. I remember how excited I was when PlayStation came out with the first Raw vs Smackdown game! It had all the stars of both shows and all the qualities of all the previous PS2 games. Still, am I the only one that finds the Xbox and PlayStation games (at least for wrestling) lack the detail and control systems N64 games had? You could do so many detailed moves on N64 but on PS2, the first wrestling games really didn't offer much control options. 

Anyways, Raw Vs Smackdown became the trademark game, even thought I thought and still think it should be called "Bragging Rights" since that is the name of the PPV when Raw fights Smackdown! Regardless, each year there is a new updated game. I don't understand why wrestling games cant have roster updates the way other sports games do. For my hockey game NHL 10 I can update each teams rosters constantly online. Why can't I do the same with wrestling games?

The best PS2 wrestling game was 2009's because it had the best roster, the most up to date controls, and features, and a few extras that no others had such as the King of the Ring tournament mode which I liked the best and wish they would bring back! (Side-note: why isn't the King of the Ring a PPV anymore? It was one of my favorites. The last one was when Brock Lesner defeated Rob Van Dam in the finals. That year they made the stipulation that they winner got a title shot at SummerSlam, which I thought was a great idea. Brock went on to win the title at SummerSlam from The Rock). 

For 2010, I had switched to the new PS3. I think 2009 was available on PS3 but I didn't get my PS3 until 2010 came out. I was actually disappointed by 2010 and wasn't sure if 2011 would be any better. When I first got 2011 I actually thought it was worse than 2010 and even considered selling it. It had a smaller roster, less options, the controls seemed worse, and most of the titles could not be defended (that just confuses me, why would they do that?) However, then I spent some time playing it and realized it was the best wrestling game of all time!

You can add in your own music from your PS3 and set it as the entrance music for any superstar you wish. You can also edit each wrestlers move set list to give them better moves, and you can change their entrance, not just the songs, but the lights, pyro, basically ever aspect of the game is free for you to create. Also, instead of trying to win and unlock wrestlers, you can buy everything online. So instead of spending 3 months trying to beat the whole game and find all the secrets, I was able to go online the day I got the game and spend like $10 and buy every extra feature for the game. Why can't they have updates like that for sale, new wrestlers that have come out since then should be for sale online! They want to force us to buy 2012 but wouldn't they be able to make just as much money selling each wrestler and arena individually?