Game Review: WWF Royal Rumble (2000)

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Publisher: THQ
Developers: Sega and Yuke's
Genre: Wrestling
Series: N/A
Released: August 1 2000 (US) and September 22 2000 (UK)
Certificate: 15+ (Nowadays 16)
Consoles: Dreamcast (also Arcade)

When wrestling fans reminisce about the golden age of wrestling videogames, the year 2000 is a vintage one to look back upon. We had the first two SmackDown! games as well as the incredible No Mercy. Sure, we also had WCW Backstage Assault which was, quite frankly, woeful, and two ECW games, but it's the WWF titles which first come to mind.

One WWF game which is easy to forget, however, is Royal Rumble. An arcade game which was later released on Sega Dreamcast, Royal Rumble is almost always overshadowed by the more famous WWF games on PS1 and N64. Mind you, there's a good reason why: Royal Rumble is nowhere near as good as any of its three counterparts from that year, but that isn't to say that it's a completely bad game.

Royal Rumble feels like a demo more than a full-on game. For starters, there are only two match options: a singles match and a Royal Rumble match (obviously). The traditional singles option provides you with a manager/partner, whether you want one or not, and who interferes upon your command (via a whistle which is more closely associated with a shepherd than a WWF wrestler). You can't leave the ring during matches, and at random points, the lights go out and you can find yourself within a steel cage (with which you can't interact) or one of a number of backstage areas (which fortunately allows for you to interact with weapons and props). It all sounds so random, but considering that this was primarily an arcade game, the rapid-fire pace to proceedings and the catering towards players with short attention spans does make sense.

Still, that's no excuse not to even have basic matches like tag team, nor does it explain why for a game based on the Royal Rumble - the classic 30-man annual tradition - there are only 19 characters, plus two hidden names (Vince and Shane McMahon), which inevitably means some notable omissions (including Billy Gunn, Christian and The Radicalz amongst others). There are WWF videogame debuts for Tazz and Kurt Angle, and Rikishi pops up too, but in order for a Rumble match to achieve the goal of 30 participants, characters have to re-enter the bout. No, there isn't an option to create a character, or anything else, so you'll have to accept that the likes of Edge or Matt Hardy will return even after you've eliminated them. You can have Rumbles of 60 or 90 entrants, but this obviously increases wrestler repetition. At least characters have alternate attires to make things a little bit different.

The gameplay and graphics were very similar to the SmackDown! games from around that time, but the 128-bit power of the Dreamcast means that things are taken a step further and so these visuals are the best yet (well, at least until the first WWF game on PS2 the following year). Speaking of graphics, this is the only WWF/WWE game to date which allows for nine on-screen characters, by far the most redeeming aspect of this title. The camera cuts are more akin to later SmackDown! titles like Just Bring It, making this game a little ahead of the curve in that regard, and moves are fairly easy to execute, even if the difficulty levels are unnecessarily challenging. The menu also had a countdown clock to pick your wrestlers which seemed to be arcade-focused; this could occasionally be frustrating, but the fact that it used a Rumble-style timer for this was pretty cool, I guess.

On the downside, there is only one arena (a strange hybrid of Royal Rumble 1999 and Raw), there are no real entrances besides a quick snap of a wrestler's arrival in a manner similar to a subliminal television advertisement, and the in-game audio is poor; with no commentary or ring announcements, the game strangely foregoes the decision to include music during matches nor does it include much in the way of crowd reactions. Also, when wrestlers enter the Rumble (and sometimes two or three enter at once), we aren't given the authentic countdown, the buzzer or their respective theme songs. The only time that we hear entrance themes is during post-match celebrations, and even they are short. (Between this, the wrestlers walking in front of their videos in the SD games and the abrupt ending to intros in No Mercy, what was THQ's problem with wrestler entrances in 2000?) Perhaps the oddest aspect of this game concerns the marketing: the game has an opening video with highlights from Rumble 2000 surrounded by a red hue, and the Rumble match option uses the 2000 version of the event logo, yet the box art, the title screen and the logos used within the arena all relate to the 1999 edition.

I mentioned earlier that Royal Rumble feels more like a demo than the finished product, and that remains the best way I can describe this game. As an arcade experience or as a quick way to fill 5-10 minutes, or for a nostalgic trip down memory lane, this works and will likely entertain. But for anyone seeking a proper wrestling title, a chance to relive authentic WWF action, or something which at least feels like it has full and proper attention paid to its development, Royal Rumble does not succeed, and in terms of how it compares to its competitors on the other consoles, it'd be like comparing a small, money-losing independent with the then-red hot WWF.

To be honest, the Sega Dreamcast and even Sega as a whole often felt doomed, and Royal Rumble is a perfect example of why the platform did not succeed. At a time when the WWF product was cool and hip, and a game bearing its initials was guaranteed to sell by the truckload, RR feels like a simple cash-in rather than a chance to really target fans of the product with a logical, innovative and exciting game. Even if Royal Rumble had received another six months of development, it wouldn't have mattered because the Dreamcast ceased production in 2001. Which means that because this was the only original WWF game produced for the console (a port of Attitude was released but it featured no changes, bar the strange decision to remove the Owen Hart tribute), Royal Rumble was the best option for Dreamcast owners because it was the only option for them.

Summing this up, if you played this in an arcade then you'd get a kick out of it. It's far from terrible from a gameplay or a graphical standpoint - I'd sooner play and look at this than the later Raw games on Xbox - and having nine characters on screen gives this some credibility even to this day. But that's as far as it goes when it comes to really putting Royal Rumble over. If you do have a Dreamcast, I'd suggest tracking this down and giving it a few plays for the sake of nostalgia or for curiosity purposes, but other than that, you're better off putting your money towards something else. Besides, if you really wanted to relive the Attitude Era that much, you could always just subscribe to the WWE Network! Or play either No Mercy or one of the early SmackDown! games. Or you could decide that you do want to play Royal Rumble, which is fine; just don't expect a lot from it.

Overall Rating: 5/10 - Average

WWF War Zone

Image Source: Game

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Publisher: Acclaim Sports
Developer: Iguana West and Probe Entertainment (GB)
Genre: Wrestling
Series: N/A
Released: August 11 1998 (US) and August 21 1998 (UK)
Certificate: 15+ (Nowadays 16)
Consoles: N64, PS1 and GB

The modern era of wrestling videogames truly began with WWF War Zone.

From the late 1980s onwards, the WWF, as well as WCW, had aimed to provide a videogame product for its fans. They were very limited and not exactly advanced when it came to top-level graphics or large-scale rosters; prior to 1998, WWF WrestleFest is arguably the only game that is still remembered fondly by fans. More to the point, WrestleMania: The Arcade Game, released in 1995, and In Your House from the following year only slightly resembled the WWF product at the time, and serious gamers must have wondered at the time if there would ever be a respectable WWF game. WCW/nWo World Tour in 1997 brought the genre to life, and WCW/nWo Revenge took things even further upon its late 1998 release. Still, despite the ratings perhaps suggesting otherwise, the WWF remained the most recognisable wrestling organisation in the world, and so it would take a landmark WWF game to truly kick the genre into high gear.

That finally came in 1998 with War Zone. Given the WWF's renewed popularity due to its recently-introduced Attitude, it was inevitable that there would be a videogame to accompany the new-look WWF, and since a new generation of gaming consoles had yet to receive a WWF title worthy of the platforms, the stars all aligned to give us War Zone, which would finally allow gamers to truly relive WWF action with better graphics and more options than ever before.

The roster consisted of sixteen wrestlers, but what a line-up it was. Clearly chosen in late 1997 (and by the way, how bizarre is it that there wasn't one WWF game released in 1997?), the crew included Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Kane, Mankind, The Rock, Triple H, Goldust, Ken Shamrock, Faarooq, The Headbangers, Owen Hart, Bret Hart, British Bulldog and Ahmed Johnson (the last three had departed the WWF by the time of its release). Also noteworthy were the first ever hidden characters in a WWF game, those being Dude Love and Cactus Jack, along with a few fictional characters. Each wrestler had two attires (Austin and Goldust had four), and just as exciting as the plethora of debuting performers (this was Austin's first WWF game, although he had previously appeared on a WCW game when he was Stunning Steve) were the fact that all wrestlers had full move sets, theme songs (which were midi versions on Nintendo 64) and even voices, occasionally blurting out their catch phrases or selling moves through grunts and groans. Considering what WWF fans had been receiving in previous games (Diesel wasn't on WrestleMania: The Arcade Game, and he had reigned as WWF Champion for most of the previous year), this was huge, and a big part of its appeal at the time. Revenge may have had more grapplers, but they didn't have Austin, Rock, Michaels, Undertaker etc.

The gameplay was hit-and-miss. The thought process was logical, as the intention was to make players earn the bigger moves through increasingly tough button combinations. But it only made matches harder than they needed to be; the button combo system was fun at the time, but it was only when future games opted for one button per move that people realised how awkward this could be. Still, it remained miles better than what the likes of In Your House had offered in the ring; and they certainly didn't offer moves such as the Stone Cold Stunner, the Mandible Claw or the weapon-based attacks using the likes of chairs and televisions.

Speaking of which: a Weapons match was amongst the options on offer. As well as standard bouts, we had a Steel Cage match, a Royal Rumble and a Gauntlet. This may all sound very simple, but this was 1998, when previous games had been based around one match type, so to have a small-scale version of WWF stipulation matches all in one place was pretty cool. The Acclaim team had planned to also provide a Ladder match, but they were unable to work the mechanics of the match into the game without compromising one's entertainment, so the decision was made to not include it. The only big downside was the inability to pick your opponents, meaning that you could only put on the match that you really wanted if you were playing against a friend.

The game's biggest draw was probably the Create A Wrestler feature. This wasn't the first game to boast the option, but it was definitely the game that popularised it, especially with 30 save slots for created characters and costume items relating to wrestlers not on the game, such as Taka Michinoku and Marc Mero. Again, it may sound very simple, but if you were a wrestling fan in 1998, this feature was the coolest thing ever. Every single wrestling game of value has included the Create A Wrestler feature since, which should demonstrate how influential this was.

There was a single-player mode named Challenge whereby you worked your way up the WWF ranks, defeating the top ten names with a wrestler of your choice until you won the Intercontinental Championship and finally the WWF Championship. Title wins were greeted with magazine front covers, and you would have to navigate through the occasional grudge match with a previously-defeated adversary, usually with a big stipulation attached. It was a basic premise, but it was effective, and each wrestler had a different unlockable item if you completed Challenge with him, so for instance, winning Challenge with Mankind unlocked Cactus and Dude, whilst winning with Shawn or HHH would provide items with which to create female wrestlers. The downside was that, due to save data issues, you had to immediately save the game after finishing the mode, otherwise your hard work was all for naught. That's 1998 gaming for you.

Elsewhere, a Training facility allowed you to practice moves in a gym environment, allowing you to improve your skills without having to take unnecessary chances in the likes of Challenge. Vince McMahon and Jim Ross provided commentary. The graphics were based on actual filming of the performers executing their moves in a specific setting, meaning that the graphics looked very realistic, for the performers at least (the arena, modelled on Raw Is War, was good but nothing to shout about; a WrestleMania ring would be unlocked as well, if you had the patience of a saint to win Challenge and then beat everyone on the roster again). Entrances consisted of quick poses at the top of the aisle, which was slightly disappointing. A Rankings system kept a note of wins and losses, and which wrestlers could boast the best records. The WWF Attitude logo watermark was present on the screen during singles matches. There were crowd chants and occasional hecklers, as well as widespread booing for those who kept repeating moves. Finally, the PlayStation version opened with a full video promoting the Attitude product, even if the content of the game then seemed outdated by comparison (the WWF of mid-1998 was very different to even the WWF of late 1997).

By 1998 standards, War Zone was fantastic fun. It must be said that Revenge, released the same year, totally outclassed it from a grappling standpoint, and also boasted a much larger roster. However, War Zone was a WWF product and, for that reason, it had the biggest impact in officially making wrestling videogames cool. Everything was fresh, from the line-up to the graphics to the Create A Wrestler option, and whilst it all seems very simple and limited in 2017, back in 1998 this was one fantastic package which completely blew away any WWF game which had come before it. Attitude would move things along even further, before THQ got the WWF licence in 1999 and things began to develop tenfold, eventually reaching unimaginable levels in terms of replicating the actual product. Nevertheless, it all had to start somewhere, and although wrestling games had been around for some time, War Zone was the first to take things seriously and treat the wrestling fan/videogamer crossover with respect, delivering a product that also happened to be very entertaining. The rating below is by the standards of the time, rather than by modern benchmarks, but if you can appreciate it for what it is, nearly 20 years later, War Zone remains one of the most fun wrestling games ever, and a vital chapter in the history of wrestling - and especially WWF/WWE - videogames.

Overall Rating: 8.5/10 - Excellent

WWF Attitude

Image Source: GameXchange

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Publisher: Acclaim Sports
Developer: Iguana West
Genre: Wrestling
Series: N/A
Released: July 31 1999 (US) and September 3 1999 (UK)
Certificate: 15+ (Nowadays 16)
Consoles: N64, PS1, Dreamcast and GBC

The sequel to the best-selling WWF War Zone game, WWF Attitude looked to improve upon virtually everything that was memorable in War Zone, as well as adding several new features. At the time, it received a lot of praise, and coming at the very peak of the iconic Attitude Era, it remains fondly remembered by fans who bought the game at the time. But does Attitude still hold up today, more than 17 years later?

Let's begin with the roster: with more than 30 characters when including hidden wrestlers, Attitude was the first WWF game to feature enough talent for a full-on, 30-man Royal Rumble. Along with the top WWF names like Steve Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker, Kane, Mankind, Triple H and others, the game provided the console debuts for many classic Attitude names such as The New Age Outlaws, X-Pac, Chyna, Sable, Edge, Christian, Val Venis, Faarooq, Bradshaw and more. Interesting characters included The Big Boss Man, Dr. Death (who had left the WWF long before Attitude was released) and Vince McMahon, who was hidden on the game. Since this was during the era when gamers relied on cheats sections in magazines to discover how to unlock content, and since said magazines at the time weren't averse to throwing in all sorts of potential unlockables regardless of whether or not they were actually true, there were several rumoured unlockable characters which ended up being red herrings, most notably Test and even Big Show, who was never scheduled to be on the game having arrived in the WWF too late to join the party, so to speak. So, although the game was released in the latter half of 1999, the roster was a fairer reflection of the (incredibly popular) crew of late 1998.

Create A Wrestler was back and more in-depth than ever, although it had a flaw that I will explain later when covering another aspect of the game. More notable was the debut of Create A PPV, whereby you could create a card of up to eight matches featuring those on the roster in a series of bouts similar to real-life supershows such as WrestleMania and SummerSlam. It might sound basic now, but this was innovative back in 1999. Even better was the unofficial Create An Arena option, a superb feature which allowed you to customise basic parts of an arena, using a limited yet relevant collection of logos for major WWF PPV events and television shows. It's amazing that no other WWF/WWE game would include the feature until WWE '12, more than a decade later, and that the mode has arguably only began reaching its true potential in the last few years, considering that it first made it onto a WWF/WWE title nearly two decades ago.

The game provided the debut for many match types, such as Last Man Standing, First Blood, I Quit (which was more like a Submission bout, admittedly), Finisher, Two Out Of Three Falls and format variations such as a huge four-way tag consisting of four teams. Even though four characters remained on-screen at one time, Attitude was able to include match types that haven't been seen even in modern titles, such as 4-on-4 Survivor Series bouts. It's strange in hindsight that nobody questioned how the likes of Hell In A Cell and Ladder matches weren't included, although Acclaim's decision to use actual video footage of the WWF stars, which was modified using computer technology to end up as a playable videogame, likely made such match types almost an impossibility to include in the game, at least at that point. Alongside Raw, there were arenas for House Show and a "PPV" venue, even though all were three were similar and, whilst realistic, didn't quite resemble their actual incarnations.

The game revamped its single-player mode as Career, which saw you climb the WWF ranks and win the top titles on PPV events, whilst unlocking wrestlers and arena parts, as well as War Zone-style "bonuses", along the way. Overall, it was an improvement on Challenge mode in War Zone, featuring more matches and generally being a stronger experience (you competed on House Shows to begin with, then Heat, then Raw, and finally PPV events). However, some matches were ridiculously hard; in particular, three-on-one Falls Count Anywhere Handicap matches, with you as the lone wolf for lack of a better term, was basically a way for you to lose, so difficult was it to pull out a win in these situations.

Other notes: commentary was provided by Shane McMahon and Jerry Lawler; Shane filled in for Jim Ross, who was recovering from Bell's Palsy at the time, although it's interesting that JR's actual temporary replacement Michael Cole wasn't drafted in for the task (Shane's commentary was limited to Heat). The Nintendo 64 game had proper entrance themes for the first time, which was a vast improvement on the (admittedly funky) midi versions on the N64 version of War Zone. Wrestlers had full entrances for the first time, and Triple H even did his full pre-match promo which included calling out "that fat-ass sitting on the couch", referencing the player. Wrestlers had pre-match comments mostly consisting of catch phrases, many involving swearing or innuendo (Goldust's line of "On your knees, bitch!" and "Kiss my golden ass!" probably wouldn't be included in a modern-day WWE 2K game). An Everyone/Teen option allowed you to toggle between a family-friendly and an adult-orientated experience, which was a nice touch. All of the genuine characters had up to four attires, but they were much easier to access on the PS1 version (actually, they were almost impossible to access on the N64 version, now that I think about it).

Finally, the game was dedicated to Owen Hart, who sadly died a few months before Attitude was released, but after his character had been locked down for the game. Despite this dedication, Owen has never returned to a WWF/WWE game since, for understandable reasons. It's debatable as to whether we'll see Owen back in a game someday, but until then, Attitude marked the videogame farewell for Owen, and we get a nice reminder as to how much he meant to so many with his dedication as the game loads.

On the downside, the control scheme hadn't been changed to make it more user-friendly; if anything, it was less user-friendly this time around, and at a time when the WWF product consisted of many crazy bumps and big-time finishers, with a major reduction on the focus of actual wrestling, it was annoying to see two out of every three exchanges begin with a hammerlock or something similar which was hardly seen on Raw throughout the entire year, never mind a few times per match. Blood was in the game but was used almost comically, as characters would receive some amusingly deep cuts in strange areas such as their hands or their knees, despite wearing long tights. Career mode, as stated, could be pretty frustrating for a variety of reasons, most notably the difficulty of multiplayer bouts and the occasional bug whereby save data would be removed, after completing a lengthy and exhausting single-player mode. The memory of the game also hindered Create A Wrestler (I said I'd come back to it!), since the game took up so much data that you could barely save a handful of characters, despite there being a decent number of slots available. Weapons were difficult to handle, and despite some references to backstage brawling when the game was being hyped up, this ended up being a fantasy as backstage areas were nowhere to be seen, allowing WCW Mayhem to become the first game to offer this feature later in the year.

Perhaps the biggest flaw was the aforementioned lack of improvement with the control scheme, mostly due to the success of the wrestling engine in WCW/nWo Revenge. Revenge and its predecessor World Tour, produced for WCW by THQ, both provided a simple, logical and addictive gameplay experience, which included one- or two-button controls for virtually everything. It's understandable that War Zone would be outclassed in this area, because World Tour was only moderately successful upon its 1997 release and Revenge came out after War Zone did, but for Attitude not to adjust its approach to the in-ring product, almost a year after everyone was raving about the gameplay on Revenge, is pretty strange. This probably explains why the WWF chose not to renew its licence with Acclaim after Attitude was released, and chose to partner with none other than THQ. The change would be massively successful for the WWF and THQ, with WrestleMania 2000 and SmackDown! kicking off an incredible era which continues, albeit to less praise, to this very day. Acclaim, which had been producing WWF games for a decade prior to Attitude, would enter into an agreement with ECW and produce two games for that organisation, and they would provide three Legends Of Wrestling games in the early 2000s before the company would ultimately fold.

Still, despite the negatives, on the whole Attitude gave fans a strong end to the Acclaim era. Ignoring the (already) outdated control scheme, Attitude improved upon War Zone in almost every way possible, and don't forget the general sludge that WWF fans had to bear in the years before War Zone. Therefore, Attitude still seemed like the best wrestling game yet upon its release, even though it didn't meet many fans' expectations. Had the THQ era not begun immediately afterwards with WrestleMania 2000, Attitude might be remembered more fondly, but at the time it was treated like a true main eventer, and although it hasn't aged well, Attitude remains a milestone in the history of wrestling videogames, and a good climax to the final era before the THQ era for WWF/WWE videogames.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10 - Good

WWF WrestleMania 2000

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Publisher: THQ
Developer: AKI Corporation, Asmik Ace Entertainment (Natsume for GBC)
Genre: Wrestling
Series: N/A
Released: October 31 1999 (US) and October 12 1999 (UK)
Certificate: 15+ (Nowadays 16)
Consoles: N64 and GBC

It's hard to imagine in the modern wrestling world where one WWE videogame is released each year, and has been published by 2K Sports since 2013 (and THQ for a long time before that), but in the autumn of 1999, two major WWF games were released by two different publishers. Acclaim released the much-anticipated WWF Attitude in August/September of 1999 but, by then, the WWF had already agreed a deal for THQ to become its new videogame developer. Wasting no time, WrestleMania 2000 would be their first game, and it would hit stores in time for the final Christmas season of the millennium (which makes it sound really grand, doesn't it?).

This would mark the end of an era and the beginning of a new one; the Acclaim period had seen the WWF grow and improve its videogame output, but even the latter titles like War Zone and Attitude, whilst fun at the time, were far from flawless games and were mostly acceptable due to the WWF branding (see the subsequent ECW Hardcore Revolution, which was essentially an ECW version of Attitude, which didn't get great reviews). THQ, on the other hand, had built up a great deal of goodwill with its WCW games World Tour and, in particular, Revenge, which was released in late 1998 and, from a gameplay standpoint, blew any of Acclaim's titles away. So, one can understand why the WWF would enter into a working relationship with THQ, and why fans were hyped when news came out that THQ would be developing a WWF game, WrestleMania 2000 as a Nintendo 64 exclusive, for the first time.

In the end, WM 2000 ended up being the strongest wrestling game to date at that point. The gameplay was almost exactly the same as that of Revenge, but a certain number of WWF elements, and features seen in previous WWF titles, were mixed in, along with some new innovations not seen in a WWF game before, all of which gave fans a pretty strong package, and a fine way to sign off the millennium.

The wrestling gameplay was simple but very effective: in contrast to Acclaim titles where they tried to use its wrestling control scheme in the context of a real fight by having the more important moves requiring more complicated and tougher controls (which is understandable, or at least it was at the time), in WM 2000 (and Revenge before that), moves almost entirely revolved around the "A" button. A quick press from a tie-up executed basic moves, and holding the button down for a few seconds while the opponent was stunned allowed you to execute more powerful moves. The HUDs were colour-based, with green representing 100% health and 50% momentum at the start of every match, and building up to the red level which would gradually increase in speed until the word SPECIAL covered the HUD, creating a short window of time when you could execute a finishing move by using the toggle stick (a smart gamer would hit the finisher twice or even three times during this period, depending how long it took to hit the move, for example, a Stone Cold Stunner was much quicker than a People's Elbow). In contrast, for the weakened opponent, their HUD would change colour to light blue and then dark blue, which eventually led to DANGER covering their HUD. If you were in the DANGER zone, chances are that you were about to lose, whereas SPECIAL suggested that you were one big move away from victory. It was all so simple, yet it worked perfectly, and although the system had already been used in Revenge, it had not been seen by hardcore WWF fans, meaning that Federation followers were wowed by the gameplay in WM 2000, making it very hard to return to the Acclaim control scheme.

Elsewhere, this was the first WWF game to feature a full Season-style mode, known as Road To WrestleMania. You played through a year of WWF action with the occasional storylines, with victories on TV leading to PPV title matches, and with a character's status determining their fate for the most part (so Steve Austin, The Rock and co were in the main events, the likes of Mideon and Viscera were further down the card etc). As with the control scheme, its success lied in its simplicity, especially compared to the Career mode in Attitude which was hit-and-miss on occasion (remember the unexpected and incredibly tough 3-on-1 Handicap matches in Attitude's Career mode?). Of course, it would be topped in future games, but the mode (which featured occasional cut-scenes and storylines, such as the Test-Stephanie McMahon partnership and Jim Ross calling WrestleMania with Jerry Lawler) was a lot of fun at the time, and was the best single-player mode on a wrestling game to date at that point.

The match types were a bit sparse: besides the usual singles and tag bouts, there was only Triple Threat, Hardcore and Steel Cage options, alongside Royal Rumble and King Of The Ring. Since this was in the days before the likes of Hell In A Cell and Ladder bouts were seen in WWF/WWE games, though, this can be forgiven slightly, and the gameplay made up for the lack of stipulation bouts on offer. This was the first WWF game to offer authentic arenas (War Zone and Attitude's versions of the WWF Raw venue looked similar to the real thing, but they didn't boast the small touches and banners that the same arena did in this game): Raw, Heat, Royal Rumble 1999, WrestleMania (a strange hybrid of the WM XV and WM 2000 sets), King Of The Ring 1998, SummerSlam 1998 and Survivor Series 1998 were all here, complete with pre-match background shots like those used on television (this was the first game to provide that feature). Inside the arenas, the fans had signs specific to the wrestlers for the first time (including multi-part "R-O-C-K" letters for you-know-who).

The roster featured all the big WWF names of the day, including Chris Jericho who had only debuted in the company a couple of months earlier (his character model from WCW/nWo Revenge was presumably reused here), so the final roster total of 57 was the highest ever in a WWF game at that time. Full entrances were here, from the motions to the music to the never-before-seen-in-a-game entrance videos (even if they did consist of a few highly pixelated screenshots; and the theme songs weren't of the highest quality either, although Revenge didn't have any actual entrance music). Although the character models looked almost cartoonish, it didn't make a difference presentation-wise, because everybody looked authentic, more so than in any wrestling game ever. And whilst Revenge lacked a true Create A Wrestler option (you could adapt wrestler attires which helped), the feature was prominent in WM 2000, if a little basic, so you could create the likes of Kurt Angle and The Dudley Boyz in no time, as well as being able to customise every aspect of an existing wrestler's attire, aside from their move sets.. A Create A PPV option (which allowed for a whopping 15 matches) and a mini Create A Championship option (you used one of the existing titles and gave it a new name) were the icing on the cake. Oh, and who remembers the cool five-minute opening video to the game which recreated scenes from actual television within the game, such as the Ministry "sacrificing" Stephanie only for Stone Cold to make the save?

(One last thing: there were five wrestlers on the cover of the game, but Steve Austin was not one of them; and he would only appear on the covers of a few more games in the future, despite still being massively popular in spite of his neck injury. Strange, eh?)

For all the hype that Attitude received and for the praise that Revenge rightly earned, WrestleMania 2000, with less hype and an almost-ignored level of promotion and feedback, blew both games out of the water: it outclassed Attitude greatly in the ring, it built upon the weaker areas in Revenge, and added its own unique touches and a star-studded roster from the apex of the Attitude Era to close out the millennium in grand fashion. WrestleMania 2000 was the best wrestling game ever at that time, but its own areas for improvement would be matched and then some by its highly-regarded successor No Mercy. Nevertheless, for what it's worth, WM 2000 was awesome, and a perfect snapshot of wrestling's greatest ever era.

Overall Rating: 9/10 - Outstanding

WWF No Mercy

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Publisher: THQ
Developer: AKI Corporation and Asmik Ace Entertainment
Genre: Wrestling
Series: N/A
Released: November 17 2000 (US) and December 15 2000 (UK)
Certificate: 15+ (Nowadays 16)
Consoles: N64

WWF No Mercy, the successor to WrestleMania 2000, was released in late 2000, on a console which didn't allow for character models with polygons greater than 64-bit and which didn't possess any level of video streaming. The roster has greatly changed and even the company name has been different for nearly 15 years. Plus, HD gaming was a long way off, and the feature set was basic compared to modern titles. So how is it that No Mercy remains so revered as possibly the greatest wrestling game ever? Well, I shall explain.

Firstly, its two main single-player modes were excellent for different reasons. Championship saw you pursue any one of seven titles as literally anybody on the game, and follow various story paths and lifelike plotlines (some of which directly mirrored reality, from the APA protecting you to a replica of the WWF Championship storyline heading into WrestleMania 2000). Crucially, whilst there were some matches that required you to win in order to continue, many offered alternate paths based on specific results. And to complete the mode in its entirety, you would have to lose matches in order to unlock these various endings. Sure, there were no voiceovers, but it was phenomenally entertaining and the use of on-screen text actually explained the mode's flexibility. It was a standard-bearer for such modes with literally tons of replay value.

The other main mode, Survival, was more simple but no less entertaining. It was basically one long Royal Rumble with everybody on the game entering, and with your goal being to stand tall as the winner. Even if you didn't win, you would be rewarded (as I will explain shortly), but it was a great feeling when you did manage to win the whole thing. Surprisingly simple yet incredibly addictive (and occasionally very frustrating too, to be fair), it's a wonder that no other game has included Survival since. These two modes alone would have made No Mercy a cracking game, but we're only just getting started.

The roster was a vintage collection of Attitude Era stars, which included all the top names (except Big Show), loads of newcomers (such as Kurt Angle) and almost every non-wrestling personality in the WWF at the time; even one of The Godfather's Hos was a playable character. It also had the first use of Legends in the form of Andre The Giant, and parts were available to create some faces not on the roster, like Gangrel and Mideon. With the largest roster to date in a wrestling game, and featuring almost everybody who could have been included at the time, the roster was a who's who of Attitude Era characters.

There were several new match types that its predecessor WM 2000 didn't boast, such as Special Referee, Iron Man and Ladder. Meanwhile, this was the first game to include full arenas for the B-level PPVs (No Mercy, Backlash and Armageddon), which with SmackDown! also being a new inclusion gave us ten full arenas in total. And it was the first WWF game on Nintendo 64 to include backstage brawling, with five simple yet very effective areas, all of which boasted room-specific props such as a pool table in the bar and the 18-wheeler truck in the parking lot.

The improvements didn't end there. A new SmackDown Mall shop option gave way to hundreds of unlockables (you earned cash for the shop in Championship and Survival, with you earning more money based on your performances in those modes). There were now 18 slots for Create A Wrestler, but as you could totally customise up to four attires, it essentially meant a whopping 72 characters to potentially make (plus you could assign different entrance themes to each attire, which you couldn't do in WM 2000). You could now put opponents through an announcer's table at ringside, even if the commentators themselves weren't present at ringside (although Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole were all unlockable characters to use during matches). There were new weapons, including a bazooka, a huge slab of cheese and Mick Foley's first book. The graphics looked cooler and darker, giving a real mood to areas like the bar which had some LED features. Create A Wrestler was more in-depth, and items were named to make them easier to find. Wrestler faces looked more lifelike, even if some (such as Triple H) were a bit iffy. All titles which were claimed in Championship mode could now be defended in Exhibition once a story had been completed. There were new post-match celebration scenes, such as Rikishi dancing with Too Cool. And whilst the gameplay didn't really change, it was tweaked slightly to make it a little more realistic than in the previous game; but since it was already outstanding, the wrestling engine completed one amazing videogame package.

There were some flaws, though. The promise of blood being included came true, but blood effects were then removed (presumably by mistake) when fixing a data error, meaning that wrestlers would react as if they were bleeding even though they weren't. There were more new matches in its friendly rival SmackDown! 2 Know Your Role such as Hell In A Cell, Table and TLC. The small-scale Create A Championship option was quietly removed, whilst Create A PPV remained but was not improved in any significant way. And entrances would inexplicably end when a wrestler went past the stage, despite initial screenshots suggesting that the game would have full entrances (so, for example, Steve Austin would use what he describes as the "BMF" walk when coming out, but we wouldn't see his turnbuckle poses), which wasn't helped by the entrance videos being more pixelated than they were in WM 2000. (Also, although it didn't affect the N64 title, a planned Game Boy Color port of the game was eventually cancelled prior to its scheduled release.) As you may have guessed, though, the downsides were absolutely overwhelmed by the positive aspects of the game.

The superb single-player modes, the incredible gameplay and fighting engine, the big-name roster and the other new features and improvements all created one fantastic wrestling game, one that has arguably only been reached or surpassed on one or two occasions by any game since, purely from the standpoint of a fun, exciting and entertaining title. Future wrestling games would offer larger rosters, greater feature sets and even more options from an in-ring standpoint, such as more strategic submission grappling and crowd brawls, but in terms of an overall package, WWF No Mercy remains an all-time classic title. It wasn't quite flawless, but it was as close to perfection as one would expect; if the modern WWE 2K titles were as good as No Mercy, no fans would ever be complaining. A phenomenal wrestling game that all diehard fans should play.

Overall Rating: 9.5/10 - Classic

WWF SmackDown!

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Publisher: THQ
Developer: Yuke's
Genre: Wrestling
Series: SmackDown! (It would become SmackDown vs. Raw and WWE in future)
Released: March 2 2000 (US) and April 14 2000 (UK)
Certificate: 15+ (Nowadays 16)
Consoles: PS1

And so comes the time to review the game that started the entire SmackDown!/SmackDown vs. Raw/WWE flagship videogame series, the very first entry - the original SmackDown! As strange as it may sound now, fans weren't quite sure what to expect from SD, since it was the first WWF game to be produced on PlayStation by THQ. Acclaim had lost the WWF licence in 1999 to THQ, and whilst the highly-lauded WrestleMania 2000 had hit the Nintendo 64, that game had been developed by AKI, whereas SD would be developed by something of an unknown quantity in Yuke's.

Rumours about the game, which would reach stores in the spring of 2000, ranged from a hybrid of WWF and Japanese talent to a reduced focus on actual wrestling to (and this was a frightening propsect) a virtual repeat of the largely-panned WCW Thunder game, since WM 2000 bore more than a passing resemblance to WCW/nWo Revenge (I should mention that THQ had been publishing games for WCW, and their success earned them the WWF licence). As the hype progressed, the announcement of certain new features suddenly had fans excited, since the end product would apparently be something totally different from previous wrestling titles. In the end, whilst the game didn't quite match expectations in certain key areas, it nevertheless delivered a thrilling overall package, one which blew away any previous wrestling games on the PSOne console, and ultimately began the most successful wrestling videogame series ever.

SmackDown! featured a few dozen WWF names from the corresponding time period, which as luck would have it was the Attitude Era, meaning that all the heavy-hitters that you would expect were here. Steve Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker, Mankind, Kane and Triple H led the way, along with Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon, D-Generation members Chyna, X-Pac and The New Age Outlaws, and the fairly recent acquisitions from WCW, Big Show and Chris Jericho. Add to that some popular mid-carders like Val Venis, The Godfather, Al Snow, Hardcore Holly and D'Lo Brown, and the first WWF videogame appearances for The Dudley Boyz, and you have a respectable line-up for the first game of the series. The downside is that WM 2000 quite a few more performers (including Shawn Michaels), and the use of hidden characters was questionable, as I will explain later. Plus, unlike WM 2000 or even the recent Acclaim titles, none of the wrestlers had proper alternate attires. Nevertheless, for fans who had only been able to play War Zone and Attitude, the roster should have been fairly satisfying. Incidentally, it is rumoured that Jeff Jarrett and Goldust would have been included had they not departed the company for WCW in mid-to-late 1999, and as it turned out, Jarrett has not appeared on a WWF/WWE game since his controversial defection.

The graphics almost resembled hand-created drawings, as the general look of the game appeared to be sketchy in the most literal term. The colour seemed a little off in places, if not incomplete for the likes of ring ropes. However, they were still impressive for the time (the wrestlers looked fairly authentic, and this was the first game that allowed wrestlers to change facial expressions, such as Chris Jericho sporting a cocky grin), and they were very different from the more blocky, colour-heavy and almost cartoonish visuals in WM 2000. Bear in mind that we're judging the game from the standards of the late 20th/early 21st century, so anybody who picks up SmackDown!, or even WrestleMania 2000, today would be very disappointed if they were expecting graphics on the level of, say, WWE 2K17. But by the standards of the era (and don't forget that we were in the dying days of the 64-bit era back then), the graphics were adequate. What's more, the arenas were more lifelike than they had ever been in the Acclaim games, as I will now explain.

Whereas War Zone and Attitude development teams had filmed the action from inside a lifelike Raw arena, which looked good but wasn't quite on par with the real setting, Yuke's appeared to design the backgrounds from scratch, as they had captured every minor detail of the Raw and SmackDown! venues, such as the big screens and even the WWF.com sign above the entrance way at Raw. The same applied to arenas in WM 2000, but partly because the action would be shown on the Titan Tron and Oval Tron screens, they looked a little more authentic here. These were the only two full arenas included: they were ring mats for the big five PPVs (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King Of The Ring, SummerSlam and Survivor Series), but a generic PPV "aisle" was the entrance way if you chose to grapple at those venues (although you could switch between aisles and rings, so for example you could put the Raw aisle to a WrestleMania ring). Also, the ring mats sported event logos which is very rarely used in the WWF/WWE; it had been a WCW and to an extent an ECW tactic, but very rarely did it apply to the WWF/WWE, making the rings a little less authentic than in reality. This is just a minor thing, though, and whilst WM 2000 had the full arenas for the main PPV shows, SmackDown! had, well, SmackDown!, the newest WWF show which debuted on a permanent basis too late to make it into the N64 title, and overall, PSOne fans shouldn't have been too disheartened.

Plus, chances are you'd be more interested in where you'd end the fights rather than where you'd begin them, because this was the first WWF game to include backstage fighting, based on the popularity of Hardcore battles that could end up anywhere on WWF television at the time. Attitude had apparently looked to include this feature but it was ultimately dropped, and WCW Mayhem, produced by EA Sports, had actually been the first wrestling game to include backstage areas (which were pretty decent). But SD was the first WWF game to go down that route, and whilst it had fewer areas than Mayhem did, the rooms on SD were far more interesting because they ahd interactive hotspots, like ramming an opponent into a drinks machine which would produce a soda can to use as a weapon, and there were unique props to use such as Pierre (Al Snow's deer-head mascot) and a huge watermelon. Why a watermelon, you ask? Well, one of the areas was a huge kitchen, which boasted a huge table to fight on that contained household food items. Add to that the cool SFX such as a car alarm going off if you rammed a wrestler into it, and the fairly easy transitions between rooms during Hardcore bouts, and you end up with a very entertaining option that is greatly superior to the same feature in Mayhem, as well as offering something totally different from WM 2000 and something which made SD stand out in its own right.

The most notable aspects of the game, though, were its gameplay and control scheme. The action was fast-paced, perhaps too fast, but it had an arcade feel to it whilst not compromising the attempt to resemble the actual in-ring product rather than adding cool-looking yet unrealistic effects that previous wrestling games had, such as The Undertaker using thunder in WrestleMania: The Arcade Game. Wrestlers would hit moves very quickly, and recover quickly to absorb or dish out more punishment, which back in the rapid-fire Attitude Era was a very welcome change from the slow-paced combat in the Acclaim games. Speaking of which, games like War Zone required  a combination of several buttons to execute even the most basic moves, whereas SmackDown! focused almost all of its wrestling around the Circle button, with a direction and Circle allowing you to perform the vast majority of the moves. L1 was used for finishing moves, and once you reached a certain level of momentum, you could hit a finisher at any point, and you could store several finishers for later use, a feature absent in WM 2000 where you had a window of opportunity to hit one or two finishers, depending on how adventurous you were feeling. It may sound familiar and simple now, but back then the one thing that most wrestling games were missing was an actual good wrestling engine. WM 2000 had taken big strides forward, admittedly by recycling the Revenge engine, but SmackDown! took things to a whole new level, and set a new standard by delivering the most exciting and easy-to-use wrestling system ever in a game. Add to that how all of the authentic moves were in, along with minor touches such as The Rock removing his elbow pad for The People's Elbow, and it's safe to say that at that point in time, SmackDown! delivered the most entertaining gameplay to date in a wrestling title.

The innovations didn't end there. As well as the standard Single, Tag Team, Steel Cage and Royal Rumble matches, SmackDown! delivered match types that were new to WWF titles. There were ECW-style innovations to multiplayer bouts, since Three Way Dance and Four Way Dance are different to Triple Threat and Fatal Four Way, and the backstage areas obviously changed Hardcore matches in wrestling games forever (especially since you had the option to begin the match from one of the backstage areas), but of greater note were the first appearances for Special Guest Referee and I Quit matches. The former had become a major part of Attitude Era shenanigans, and since you could pick any wrestler to be a referee and you could deliver fast/slow counts and even attack the participants, this was a huge slice of fun, whilst the I Quit match lacked voiceovers (which matters in a stipulation bout requiring someone to say "I Quit"), but the visuals of an opponent giving up along with the ability to take these scraps backstage too, and with the infamous Mankind-Rock I Quit showdown still fresh in mind, this was another fine addition to the game. Some may have expected a little more from the game match-wise, but it was still more than what WM 2000 was offering, and the match selections would grow enormously in the second SD title.

Create A Wrestler was in, although it had some flaws as I will explain, so the most notable feature was Create A PPV, which was also relatively simplistic, except for one part: the fact that your matches and shows would achieve ratings, pushing you to create more engaging action in the future in an attempt to achieve higher ratings down the road, which was a nice and underrated tool to have. All of the theme tunes and entrance videos were up-to-date, and this was the first game to have the entrance videos play to a TV standard rather than a couple of blurry images for the videos in WM 2000. There were no voiceovers, but an unseen referee would give sound effects such as one-two-three counts in a bizarre Texan drawl, and the crowd provided a fairly good atmosphere in line with the similarly fast-paced BGM playing during matches and menus. A Rankings system illustrated which wrestlers were of the highest level, and which wrestlers were in line for title shots (incidentally, you could put a title on the line in any Exhibition match providing that the right contenders were in the bout, and every WWF title except for Light Heavyweight was in). And an extended version of the actual SmackDown! intro opened the game.

The downsides were that entrances were very short and consisted of a wrestler walking in front of their entrance video for a brief period, rather than coming down ther aisle in the usual fashion. Royal Rumbles were extremely tricky and not very realistic, and the one match type in the game which fans were better advised to avoid. Loading times were pretty lengthy across the board, and speaking of Rumbles, there were loading times before each entrant which wasn't exactly satisfying. Most notably, though, the much-hyped Season mode was a let-down: promising real-life storylines and authentic action, the mode (which also had a Pre-Season chapter) consisted of only monthly shows, where you actually may not even be wrestling on them, so you could go several months of the Season without competing. The cut-scenes were brief and, although decent for the time, they didn't come close to resembling the storylines on WWF television. Items could be unlocked easily enough, but the unlockable wrestlers had to be created from scratch in what was a basic Create A Wrestler option. Worse still, you could unlock parts for almost a dozen grapplers (including alternate parts for Steve Austin and The Rock), but you could only design up to four wrestlers which, for obvious reasons, was woefully inadequate (not least that it prevented you creating any other wrestlers if you wanted to design those with hidden parts). It was a shame that for all of its innovations and exciting additions, the game was a big disappointment in a major area, which would be improved upon in SD 2, but arguably wouldn't reach its true potential for several years, at least in the SD series. WrestleMania 2000 definitely bested SmackDown! here.

To judge the game fairly, you have to judge it by the standards of the time. Compared to every other title in the series, it's obviously light on wrestlers, matches and modes. The graphics were basic, there were some limitations, and Season mode was a big let-down. However, by 2000 standards, it was still better than any other wrestling game on PlayStation that had come before it, and it did deliver an incredible and exciting combination of fast-speed paction, easy controls and entertaining moves and weapon attacks, along with the endless fun of the backstage warfare. It was great by 2000 standards, although it would be easily squashed by its sequel, which built upon almost everything that this game had to deliver a truly amazing game. In the end, whilst it may have fallen a little short of the massive hype, and whilst WrestleMania 2000 was a stronger overall game, WWF fans should have still been more than satisfied by the very first SmackDown!, and it would have become an essential title to own if you were watching WWF television at the time. If nothing else, you could rejoice that the days of barely lifelike wrestling from the early 1990s, unrealistic action from the mid-1990s and awkward controls from the late 1990s were finally over, because THQ had delivered two games on two consoles which succeeded in different ways. Things would get even better with SmackDown! 2 and No Mercy as 2000 neared its end, but in the meantime, whether you opted for WrestleMania 2000 or SmackDown!, you were bound to have a lot of wrestling-related fun. And if you did decide to go for the PlayStation option, you probably would have had, and still today probably would have, a whale of a time playing SmackDown!

Overall Rating: 8/10 - Very Good

WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Publisher: THQ
Developer: Yuke's
Genre: Wrestling
Series: SmackDown! (It would become SmackDown vs. Raw and WWE in future)
Released: November 21 2000 (US) and December 1 2000 (UK)
Certificate: 15+ (Nowadays 16)
Consoles: PS1

In hindsight, wrestling fans - or more accurately, WWF fans - were spoiled in 2000. Whereas in modern times we're lucky to get one truly great wrestling videogame in a generation, in the year 2000 we were treated to three. As well as the first SmackDown! title, the autumn/winter treated us to both No Mercy and the subject of this review, SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role. Although a shade inferior to No Mercy, SmackDown! 2 was still one hell of a game, and it was a superb end to the life cycle of wrestling titles on the PSOne. In contrast to the usual annual trend of releases, this came just months after the first SD (making 2000 the only year to have two releases of the flagship series), and it was the first game in the series (but not the last) to have different covers between the UK and US regions, as shown on the right; the UK image sits at the top, with the US image midway through. (Speaking of which, the reverse artwork shows The Undertaker in his Ministry-era attire, but it was his up-to-date American Bad Ass character who featured in the game, despite his Kid Rock theme not being included.)

Since this came in the latter stages of the Attitude Era, the roster consisted of many key players from that unforgettable time. Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, The Undertaker, Kane and others featured, but more notable was the incredible number and depth of new faces who hadn't featured in the first SD title. Kurt Angle, Tazz, The Radicalz, Rikishi, Too Cool, Trish Stratus, Lita and more than a dozen others made their series debuts in Know Your Role, with Shawn Michaels thrown in for good measure. Big Show was a notable absentee, although he was secretly thrown in as an unidentified character during occasional Royal Rumbles. With a roster total of 67 that wouldn't be matched again in the series until SmackDown vs. Raw 2007, and wouldn't be topped until two entries later with SvR 2009, this was a great snapshot of the Attitude Era, bettered only by the even larger line-up on the aforementioned No Mercy. By the way, who could have predicted that this would be the last game in the entire series, even at this early stage, to include Chyna?

Another step-up from the previous SmackDown! game concerned the match types on offer. Whilst SD did introduce some cool stipulation bouts, they were dwarved by those on offer in SD 2. This game marked the debut for the following matches: Hell In A Cell, Ladder, Table, TLC, Casket, Iron Man and Slobber Knocker, as well as a gimmick-themed King Of The Ring tournament. Needless to say, those who play out a virtual promotion on wrestling games had loads of options available to them. In particular, the HIAC match allowed players to leave the cage, fight up to the top of the structure and hurl their opponents off it and/or drive their adversary through the roof. Some of these match types would obviously be improved in future games, but nevertheless this was a fantastic number of stipulations, and was one key area where Know Your Role trumped No Mercy. It was also, strangely, the only wrestling game to date that featured a traditional Casket match (besides the one-off, cut-scene based match during Showcase mode in WWE 2K15).

Image Source: Moby Games

In addition, those who loved taking their scraps backstage were in for a treat. The first SmackDown! introduced backstage fighting to WWF games, but Know Your Role took things to another level by offering around a dozen areas. These included a basic backstage hallway, a boiler room, a restaurant, Vince McMahon's VIP suite, a car park (where you may even get knocked down by a car, as daft as it sounds) and even WWF New York. That being said, although some rooms offered nice interactive spots and weapons, they are perhaps less fondly remembered than the simple yet effective kitchen area in the first SD (which included a giant watermelon) or such rooms as the bar area in No Mercy, with its cool lighting effects and bone-crunching pool table. Nevertheless, nobody will have been disappointed by the backstage universe on Know Your Role, which was a great homage to the Hardcore division that could see its matches literally end up anywhere.

There were some new create options available, too. Create A Wrestler allowed for up to ten creations and was more in-depth than in the previous game, and you could now create a stable, a move set, a taunt and a manager (the latter option making its only ever appearance in this one). Create A PPV remained, complete with its TV-style rating figures, and you could now hold up to eight matches on a customised card. Speaking of PPVs, there were now ring mats for all 12 annual supershows (which were very updated, since they included logos for cards as recent as Unforgiven 2000), although none of them had an authentic aisleway; only SmackDown! and Raw had their full arenas included. That being said, each aisleway would show the action on their big screens with more colour and definition than ever before.

Most notably, the Season mode was more refined, allowing for weekly shows and monthly PPVs where you would be wrestling, compared to the match- and card-lite version in the previous game. The cut-scenes were more authentic, and they matched actual storylines, such as Shawn Michaels refereeing an Iron Man main event at Judgment Day. You could challenge for any title and end up anywhere on the card, depending who you picked. And the unlockable characters came in their proper form, rather than as a bunch of parts for Create A Wrestler (plus they would be unlocked at logical times based on real events, so for example at Backlash you unlocked Steve Austin, who had made a one-off appearance during an injury lay-off at Backlash 2000). You could also unlock creation parts, match types and backstage areas, too.

The game wasn't perfect, though. Starting with Season, there were long loading times for basic cut-scenes, some of which were as simple as a wrestler arriving at the arena. In addition, you had to manually skip every match on a Season show that you didn't want to wrestle in, which is fine, but doing so took nearly half a minute each time. Therefore, each show would take at least 10-15 minutes to play through, so you can imagine how many hours were needed to finish the mode as a whole. In addition, entrances remained basic (a wrestler walking in front of their Titan Tron video, and with the intros lasting mere seconds), the wrestling engine and control scheme hadn't changed at all (which again was fine, although it made the game feel like an update rather than an evolution to the first SD title, and it meant that some matches like Slobber Knocker were extremely tricky due to the rapid-fire pace of matches), and whilst there were announcers tables at ringside with 2D images of Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler, and the Spanish announcer's team, there was no actual commentary on offer. The game-opening video was a longer version of the SmackDown! intro video, and did contain some use of actual wrestler phrases, but they were the only identifiable use of voiceovers in the entire game. Finally, whilst the graphics were fine for the era and were very bright and colourful, they were still a step down from the more blocky, realistic wrestler graphics found in No Mercy.

Overall, though, there was way more to like than to dislike about SD 2. Granted, it would be easily bested by future entries in the series such as SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain and SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006, but by the standards of the time (and remember that prior to the first SD, the best PS1 wrestling games had been the slightly antiquated War Zone, Attitude and WCW Mayhem titles), this was tremendous, and an ideal videogame accompaniment to the on-screen shenanigans of the hugely popular Attitude Era. Had the near-perfect No Mercy not been released around the same time, this would be even more fondly remembered but, even when you take this into account, Know Your Role was great, and still marked one of the high points of WWF/WWE wrestling games. In fact, given its massive sales figures based partly on its excellent gameplay, the success of this game was probably a major reason why the flagship series would remain on future PlayStation consoles and ultimately continue to this very day.

Overall Rating: 9/10 - Outstanding

WWF SmackDown! Just Bring It

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Publisher: THQ
Developer: Yuke's
Genre: Wrestling
Series: SmackDown! (It would become SmackDown vs. Raw and WWE in future)
Released: November 18 2001 (US) and November 16 2001 (UK)
Certificate: 15+ (Nowadays 16)
Consoles: PS2

The year 2001 was massively significant in wrestling: ECW collapsed for financial reasons, and WCW - which was on the verge of its own self-destruction after a deal for Fusient to purchase the company was killed off - was purchased by the WWF, taking American wrestling from having three major wrestling organisations to just one. The impact of this changed the business forever, and nearly sixteen years after the famous Raw-Nitro simulcast, the industry has never truly recovered, making 2001 arguably the most important, and perhaps most devastating, year in wrestling history.

Something which is understandably forgotten in the wake of those major events is how another wrestling boom period ended in 2001, partly due to the above: in the year 2000, there were a whopping six wrestling games based around a major company. Sure, only two were great - and one of those, No Mercy, was perhaps the best wrestling game of all-time - but nevertheless, wrestling fans who enjoyed playing videogames had plenty of choice. Contrast that to 2001: the end of WCW and ECW also meant the end for their videogame histories (ECW had just two games, to be fair), and due to the transition between videogame console generations, Nintendo did not have a wrestling game for the first time in years (one had been scheduled but was later cancelled; I will take a fantasy look at this almost-title, WWF Backlash, in a future article). Add to that the sudden death of the Sega Dreamcast, and the fact that the Xbox wouldn't arrive until 2002, and therefore the only new wrestling game was WWF SmackDown! Just Bring It, the first wrestling title for the PlayStation 2 console.

Mind you, the previous two SD titles - SmackDown! and SmackDown! 2 Know Your Role - were both stunning entries for their time, in particular KYR, which was second only to No Mercy in terms of being the best wrestling game to date at that point. So, hopes were high that on the more powerful PS2 console, Just Bring It would be even better, fixing the issues with Know Your Role while adding a ton of improvements. Unfortunately, while it went some way towards achieving the former, it didn't quite succeed at the latter, resulting in a game which wasn't actively bad, but was undoubtedly a disappointment.

Let's handle the positives first: as you would expect, Just Bring It boasted the best graphics on a wrestling game ever at that point, easily trumping the visuals for Know Your Role. The wrestlers looked more lifelike, the arenas looked more colourful, and the moves looked more authentic. Of course, judged against future titles, JBI's graphics would nowadays look simplistic, but they were a huge step up from even the most recent wrestling games. This was particularly noticeable via the new camera angles during matches, with TV-style camera cuts during big moves (even while other moves were happening in the background), and during entrances, which were finally included in their proper form, boasting full motions in a proper setting as opposed to wrestlers walking in front of a screen, complete with authentic theme tunes and entrance videos. The entrances for Triple H and The Undertaker were especially impressive for the time, since their intros marked the first use of theme tunes performed by third parties in a wrestling game. The vast majority of the entrance themes in the game were authentic, and you could now listen to them for a full minute rather than just during entrances or on a frustratingly-short loop, plus they were of the highest audio quality, unlike those in previous games. What's more, some wrestlers (such as Steve Austin) had two themes to choose from, and you had the option to switch them as you wished.

Just Bring It was the first game in the series to allow for eight on-screen characters during matches. Strangely, there was no eight-man tag option, but there was an 8-Man Battle Royal stipulation, and the presence of so many characters at once also created fun moments during the (still very tricky) Royal Rumble match. Whilst Sega Dreamcast's Royal Rumble game allowed for nine on-screen grapplers, the use of eight was still a massive step up from the limit of four in Know Your Role and No Mercy, yet it's a mystery as to why no WWF/WWE game since JBI has allowed for eight fighters at once. There were new match types - Street Fight, Last Man Standing and Three Stages Of Hell, plus some additional formats for existing stipulations - and the backstage world was, well, ginormous. Around a dozen different areas were available, and whilst some were suitably small - such as a locker room containing the APA Office - others, particularly the initial backstage lobby, were massive; characters looked like dwarves if you put them on opposite sides of such rooms. They also boasted interesting props, such as plate-glass windows and popcorn machines. In terms of complete positives in the game, other nice additions were the enhanced Create A Move Set option, where you could completely customise move sets for both created and actual stars, and a checklist of hidden "cards" to represent unlockable items.

So, why the disappointment with Just Bring It? Some were a result of certain features being a mix of good and bad; for instance, this was the first game of the THQ era to feature colour commentary, which was handled by Michael Cole and Tazz. Unfortunately, this sound-on-paper addition was a mistake because the commentary was laughably bad, mixing random words with varied pitches and tones, which only made the announcers look like fools, not to mention that Cole was still in his annoying teenager announcer phase and Tazz had only begun announcing full-time a few months earlier which didn't help matters (Howard Finkel provides ring announcements but is never credited, although he at least sounds, well, normal). More crucial was the roster, which lacked the WCW/ECW names who joined the WWF as part of the Invasion storyline since they arrived too late to make it in, whilst also lacking a lot of current WWF names, meaning that the overall line-up was around a third smaller than in Know Your Role. The only newbies were William Regal, Raven, Molly Holly, Jerry Lynn, Rhyno, Tajiri, Spike Dudley and, erm, Fred Durst (yes, the lead singer of Limp Bizkit, whose inclusion here was presumably a compromise for their song Rollin' to be used as The Undertaker's theme during his entrance).

Story mode was meant to fix the issues with Season mode, which was generally not very well-structured or well-presented. Fortunately, loading screens were very brief during the mode (across the game, loading times were short except when saving data, which would take an age to do), and the cut scenes looked and felt authentic, plus they were entertaining and up-to-date, one example being a re-enactment of Kurt Angle's milk truck gate-crashing. You entered into feuds, you could roam backstage between matches to conduct interviews or recruit a tag team partner, and you could pop into Commissioner Regal's office or Vince McMahon's suite to ask for a title shot. You could even try to defeat the Hardcore Champion if you spotted him, using the 24/7 rule. So, what was the problem?

Well, it was just too short. The storylines were dictated by which championship you aimed to capture, but your chase would last no more than three or four matches. The way in which you could switch between title stories was designed well, but fans were looking for epic tales to rival classic feuds such as Steve Austin vs. The Rock, whereas the mode in this game would focus solely on, say, the final week before their big PPV showdown. If you entered the mode as a champion, or if you wished to try and defend the title successfully, it would consist literally of just one match with the title at stake; if you won, that mini-story was over. And that was it. So, despite the positives of the mode - such as TV-style intro videos for Raw and SmackDown! shows - overall it still didn't match expectations, and it wouldn't until Season mode in Shut Your Mouth the following year.

The other issue with the game was that, whilst the in-ring action was slowed down ever-so-slightly, this was by no means an evolution for the series; it was essentially SmackDown! on PS2 with some new features, and some aspects taken away, rather than a whole new experience as had been promised and expected. Fans had been led to believe that this game would blow away past titles, but if anything, as an overall package, it was the weakest SmackDown! game so far. This seems to be a trend whenever the series debuts on a new console, but as stated earlier, there were no alternative wrestling games in 2001, meaning that fans either bought this or made do with their games from 2000 (mind you, since one of those was No Mercy, would that really be such a bad thing?).

Other notes: you could fight in the crowd in small areas near the ring, although it was dropped for the next game in the series. Some wrestlers now had two finishers, or two versions of a finisher such as Triple H's Pedigree. Although the generic PPV aisle remained with quasi-authentic ring mats for most PPV events, there were now full arenas for WrestleMania, InsurreXtion and Heat, as well as the brand new SmackDown! venue alongside the original oval-tron SD setting and Raw. There were minor celebration scenes after matches, and there were new weapons, perhaps the daftest yet funniest being Moppy, Perry Saturn's old "sidekick". There was now a referee in the ring at all times, which was none other than Earl "You screwed Bret!" Hebner. You could now create 12 wrestlers, which admittedly was paltry compared to previous WWF titles on the Nintendo 64. The other create options which debuted in Know Your Role were dropped, except for Create A Taunt. The memory for the game itself took up more than half of the 8 MB memory cards available for the PS2 console, which could be very frustrating depending on your games collections. And a montage of in-match clips opened the game, along with Michael Cole saying "WWF SMACKDOWN! JUST BRING IT!" in the height of his then-nerdish voice.

If you had never played a wrestling game before, then you would probably have loved Just Bring It; as noted earlier, it isn't actually a bad title from a gameplay standpoint. It was easy to pick up and play, fairly easy to master, and it had plenty of bells and whistles for a new fan to be impressed by. Plus, it undoubtedly brought some exciting new parts to the series, some of which haven't been seen since. However, if you had played Know Your Role or even No Mercy and had understandably gone into this one expecting something extraordinary, then the game's limitations and flaws will have swung things in the opposite direction. And if you didn't own a PlayStation 2 - well, you had a long wait before the next wrestling game that you could play. Ultimately, the new console generation of wrestling games would belong to the SmackDown! series with the next few games establishing a high standard of excellence in the wake of what would be even more disappointing titles on Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube (seriously, although some parts of JBI were a let-down, the game is still miles better than the first Raw game was on the original Xbox, as I will outline in a future review).

In the end, SmackDown! Just Bring It symbolised the WWF that same year and its WCW/ECW Invasion storyline; there was now only one game in town (literally), and fans expected the world and then some, only for some missing elements and held-back aspects to result in an end product that was only adequate at best. Nevertheless, just like the 2001-era WWF in comparison to today's WWE, some fans would much rather have Just Bring It than the modern-day 2K titles. Still, within the series as a whole, Just Bring It comes in somewhere near the bottom.

Overall Rating: 7/10 - Respectable

WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Publisher: THQ
Developer: Yuke's
Genre: Wrestling
Series: SmackDown! (It would become SmackDown vs. Raw and WWE in future)
Released: October 31 2002 (US) and November 15 2002 (UK)
Certificate: 15+ (Nowadays 16)
Consoles: PS2

After three SmackDown! games which had plenty of positives but also a fair number of negatives, the fourth title in the series was the first to bring everything together. Every area that had been lacking was addressed, whilst the elements which had been lauded by fans remained in place, resulting in one hell of a wrestling game. It was also the first SmackDown! game since the WWF changed its name to WWE, and once again a SD game had two different covers between the UK and US versions, as you can see here.

Shut Your Mouth benefitted from the huge influx of former WCW and ECW talent in the preceding twelve months. Whilst the Invasion came too late for the previous game Just Bring It to include the key players, this was not an issue for SYM, which saw series debuts for Booker T, Rob Van Dam, Diamond Dallas Page, Billy Kidman, The Hurricane and legends such as Hollywood Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Kevin Nash, as well as newcomers like Brock Lesnar and Randy Orton. When you combine that with all of the usual big names, you end up with a roster that is stacked with star power. Granted, Scott Hall's firing meant that he missed out, and some even complained that Steve Austin remained in the game after his June 2002 walkout, even though an eventual return was inevitable (fools). However, the 60-strong line-up not only easily bested the previous year's roster, but was an all-time great selection of talent during a memorable time in WWE history.

Match-wise, the Lumberjack bout was a new if somewhat hidden addition, and there were variants on existing stipulations such as Captain Fall Tag and 6-Man Tag Table. That being said, you could no longer have eight characters on-screen, and bizarrely this has never returned to a WWE game since. The gameplay and controls hadn't changed, but there were new weapon moves particularly with steel chairs: a basic chairshot had more impact than in past games, and the Van Daminator was amongst the chair-based moves on offer. Foam hands were unlockable weapons, and wearing them while posing as the relevant superstar (such as Hogan) made for some amusing visuals.

The ring entrances were the most authentic yet, such as Kurt Angle being greeted with chants of "You Suck!" (some wrestlers had multiple themes, and certain tracks lasted longer than the usual minute, although a couple were inaccurate presumably for licensing reasons). You could also now attack your opponent after the match with certain button combinations (although your adversary would occasionally repel your assault in a cool twist), and for the first time all PPV arenas were included in full, along with the UK PPVs, updated Raw and SmackDown! venues and Heat too. You could even climb the stages in some of the areas, such as the giant throne at King Of The Ring, which allowed for some great aerial attacks. Incidentally, this was the first SD game to have the Royal Rumble arena, and so this began the tradition of only being able to play Rumble matches from an actual Rumble arena, a limitation which amazingly continues to this day.

Image Source: Amazon

The backstage universe had been altered and was arguably the best yet. The rooms weren't as big as the frankly huge areas seen in Just Bring It, but it was cool to roam around the entire inside lobby of the arena, loosely based on Madison Square Garden. Rooms such as the boiler room and the parking lot had new interactive props like smoke pipes and mini-dumpsters. Once you left the arena, the fun continued with several areas such as a train station (one of my favourite backstage areas ever, if only due to the cool transition of carrying on a brawl on the train as it transports you to the next place) and Times Square/The World (formerly WWF New York). Add to that the unique weapons in certain rooms and some winter versions of outdoor places that allowed you to have snowball fights, and you would have to be the dullest of wrestling purists not to have tremendous fun with this aspect of the game alone.

Perhaps the best part of the game was Season mode. After several attempts where the main story mode was either too limited, too slow due to unnecessary loading or too short, the team finally got it right in Shut Your Mouth. After a customisable Draft between SmackDown! and Raw (the first game to feature such an option), you took your character into various storylines, feuds and matches, with the ability to interfere in other people's bouts if you wished. You could walk around the entire backstage universe between matches (there were neat door-opening and door-closing transitions between areas), and there would usually be at least one wrestler who you could chat to, from a friendly chat to a mini-confrontation. It often ended up being Reverend D-Von babbling on about his funding, unfortunately, but there were other examples to be found, and some even provided minor voiceovers to deliver their catch phrases. You could also end up on Heat if you kept losing, and you were given the opportunity to compete on UK-only PPVs too. There were loads of unlockables, and you had a monthly selection of items to choose from, enduring replayability as it would take years to unlock them all. Add to that how you could challenge for any titles, commentary explaining some storylines, and the use of real-life moments (ranging from the nWo invasion to minor things like Stone Cold pretending to join SmackDown! as an April Fools joke on Vince McMahon, right down to Vince's blue clipboard), and it's easy to see why one could have a ton of excitement and entertainment with this. It was one of the best single-player story modes ever in a WWE game.

In addition, Create A Wrestler was more in-depth than ever and you could now design up to 32 characters, with template designs ready for John Cena, Jamie Noble and Christopher Nowinski. You could view the actual wrestlers when modifying their repertoires in Create A Move Set (no broken sample move sets this time, thankfully). Theatre was back with highlight reels, one of which was based on Rob Van Dam (there was also a Credits video again, which had some deliberately amusing clips where the development team had clearly tinkered with the characters a bit). There were clips of various performers on the main menus. There were special camera angles available during finishing moves. The graphics were amazing for the time, although they have obviously been topped since then. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler were now the announcers and were a big improvement upon Michael Cole and Tazz in Just Bring It, even if their announcing consisted more of soundbites than actual play-by-play. And the official SmackDown! intro opened the game; there are few ways to get players ready to use a wrestling game than with loads of rapid-fire clips backed up by Marilyn Manson's The Beautiful People. Seriously, watch that intro again and tell me if I'm wrong.

It speaks volumes that there is almost nothing negative I can say about this game. By the standards of the time, certainly, it was exceptional, and definitely the best SmackDown! game to date at that point. And yet it's often overlooked due to the game which would follow it - Here Comes The Pain - since that would improve upon almost everything in Shut Your Mouth whilst adding a lot more. Nevertheless, SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth was one hell of a wrestling game, and one that I would recommend to any longtime WWE fan.

Overall Rating: 9/10 - Outstanding

WWE SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Publisher: THQ
Developer: Yuke's
Genre: Wrestling
Series: SmackDown! (It would become SmackDown vs. Raw and WWE in future)
Released: October 27 2003 (US) and November 7 2003 (UK)
Certificate: 16
Consoles: PS2

I've definitely been looking forward to writing this retro game review ...

Ask any longtime wrestling fan what the best videogame of the genre to date is, and there's an excellent chance that they will say WWE SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain. And with good reason: the fifth game of the annual SmackDown! series was not only the best to date, but it offered a fantastic mix of in-depth grappling, massive names, a plethora of matches and options, tremendously entertaining backstage areas and an exciting, unpredictable Season mode, all of which combined to form a truly exceptional wrestling game. Its most immediate predecessor, SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth, had been another strong entry, but HCTP built upon everything that SYM did well and improved it, as well as fixing some of the weaker areas in SYM and adding new content along the way.

For starters, the roster size had increased, with series debuts for Goldberg, Rey Mysterio, Scott Steiner, John Cena, Batista, Shelton Benjamin, Charlie Haas, Victoria, Eric Bischoff and others joining the wealth of big names already present such as Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, Shawn Michaels and loads more. Even more importantly, though, this was the first WWE game to officially include Legends, inspired by the Legends Of Wrestling series of games by Acclaim. There were 11 in total, and the retro crew consisted of a vintage Undertaker, Roddy Piper, Ted DiBiase, Sgt Slaughter, Jimmy Snuka, Hillbilly Jim, The Legion Of Doom, Iron Sheik, Nicholai Volkoff and George "The Animal" Steele. Granted, the Legends didn't have their entrance themes nor their proper entrances (the old-school WrestleMania mini-rings were used for their intros, which was a bit cool to be fair), and some may argue that the choice of Legends was a bit questionable, but many of the absolutely massive names were still competing on some level, and as it was the first time out for Legends, it wasn't a bad line-up at all. The roster could have been even better, since Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior were removed for different reasons, and the character models for several then-current WWE wrestlers hadn't been completed in time. Nevertheless, even as it was the roster was fantastic, and one of the best all-round line-ups ever assembled in a WWE game, at least at that point in time.

The match options were also improved. "Special" (gimmick) matches were now Main Events, and there were three new stipulation bouts. The best was definitely the Elimination Chamber, introduced at the previous year's Survivor Series, which was perfectly recreated in the game, from the hard-hitting SFX of moves interacting with steel and chains to the option of ramming opponents into and through the glass pods to the ability to climb pods and the chain-link walls for aerial attacks. It was one gigantic gem, and could literally provide hours of fun. The Bra & Panties match was less dramatic but would have satisfied fans who enjoyed these Diva-centric bouts (this was well before WWE went PG and many years before the Women's Revolution in WWE). Lastly, the First Blood match was another welcome addition to the game, and as the name implies, this was the first game in the series whereby the wrestlers (of the male gender, anyway) could be, to quote Jim Ross, busted wide open.

Nevertheless, the biggest change from a match standpoint concerned the actual in-ring action. An enhanced wrestling engine meant that matches were ever-so-slightly slower and now had a greater focus on actual wrestling mechanics. There were now sixteen front-move options, compared to four in previous games, and were defined by signature moves, power/cruiser moves, submissions and strong attacks. There was also a new Submission bar, which was very difficult but made for some very dramatic moments as a tap-out seemed a certainty, only to be avoided at the last second. And the HUDs now had a mini-skeleton to represent body damage, so if your adversary remained blue then they were relatively fresh and healthy, but should they reach red, they are essentially one big move away from losing (and if their heads were red, they were likely to begin losing blood). Add to that how all this was incorporated whilst keeping the control scheme basic and easy to learn, and you have by far the best grappling mechanics and gameplay ever seen in the series, perhaps second only to that of WWF No Mercy in the history of wrestling games, if not the best ever period.

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But perhaps the most fondly-remembered element of HCTP was its Season mode. Building upon the well-received Season in SYM, the mode now featured more branching storyline options than ever before, some of which were written by the actual WWE creative team, with others being a homage to classic plot devices used in the past. You had loads of options which could take you down various paths, and there was a lot of flexibility in regards to how storylines would pan out, especially dependent on whether you won or lost crucial matches. You could use any male performers in the mode, and could challenge for up to eight different titles (this was the first game to include the World Heavyweight and United States Championships). Add to that the ability to confront your General Manager with title shot requests or similar demands, the chance to sneak attack wrestlers between matches (although you could no longer randomly roam the backstage universe, sadly), the chance to build up your attributes (particularly useful if you were playing as a created wrestler) and the use of cool presentation techniques such as old-school talking head comments to promote the Royal Rumble match, and the end result is a tremendous single-player experience which, despite some storylines occasionally repeating, would never, ever get old. Some say that the mode, or a version of it, has never been topped since. It did lack voiceovers, but in a way this was a good thing as future games which did have voiceovers would ultimately provide far fewer story options. Interestingly enough, some reviewers complained at the time that the mode became too repetitive after the first year, but take it from me: if you wanted a single-player mode to really provide the thrills and spills of actual WWE television, you would be lucky to find a better option than the Season in Here Comes The Pain. Truly fantastic.

Amazingly, the list of improvements didn't end there. As implied above, wrestlers now have attributes and points for different areas such as Stamina and Strength, meaning that for the first time you could accurately see who were the best and worst characters to use in the game (previously, The Rock was the best wrestler to use because, well, he was The Rock). The game was also very up-to-date, as Evolution was an influence in the game, and Kane already had his unmasked attire. Shopzone replaced the traditional unlockable system and provided dozens of hidden items to purchase, such as alternate attires, loading screens and arenas. Speaking of which, there were now 20 venues to choose from, although the "B" versions of Raw and SmackDown! were no different from the originals, making their inclusion rather pointless. Create A Wrestler was more in-depth than ever before, there were now two referees to represent the brand extension, and whilst there were fewer backstage areas than in previous games, they all had stand-out features and were all very entertaining to fight in (one room had a breakaway wall, whilst you could somehow hang off the edge of a helicopter in the middle of Time's Square). Wrestlers would pose during menus, even if the lighting would fade upon them after a few seconds. The SFX were better and more authentic than ever, as were the rowdy, chanting crowd (who were now completely 3D rather than a mix of 2D and 3D models). And this was the first game not to be focused on The Rock, as Brock Lesnar's tagline (well, Tazz's tagline for Brock) Here Comes The Pain formed the title, Lesnar was the strongest wrestler in the game (his F5 looked devastating), and there were two alternate covers for the UK and US regions, both of which made Lesnar look like the beast that he was and is.

There were some downsides to the game. As stated, there were fewer backstage areas, and commentary and ring announcements were also absent, a weird omission since they would return the following year, never to be dropped again. Several theme musics were incorrect or outdated, such as Rob Van Dam and Kane. There were no new create modes, although there had been talk of bringing back Create A PPV and Create A Championship (both of which would appear the following year). Theatre was gone, with a secret rap video by John Cena after the Credits being the only video footage on the game besides entrance clips. Certain entrances didn't last very long at all (rising star Randy Orton's entrance lasted mere seconds, and his character model hadn't been updated in line with his Evolution membership). And as stated, Season would become familiar once you entered year two, as amazing as the first year of the mode was. Nevertheless, if ever the positives of a wrestling game outweighed the negatives, it was in this particular title.

It's hard to believe that, at the time, some considered Raw 2 on Xbox to be as good as HCTP, if not better. Having played Raw 2, I can tell you that there is no comparison; it would be like comparing Brock Lesnar circa 2003 to his replacement once Brock shockingly quit WWE in 2004, John Bradshaw Layfield. In fact, WrestleMania XIX on Gamecube was better than Raw 2, but even this game was blown away by the sheer volume of options and entertainment provided by HCTP.

Whenever a new WWE 2K game is released, it is compared to Here Comes The Pain. That in itself illustrates how damn good this game was. It wasn't absolutely perfect, but it was very, very close. To me, only WWF No Mercy and WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006 are in the same league as HCTP, and within this all-time top three of WWF/WWE wrestling games, you really could put any of the games in any order. Here Comes The Pain is amongst the elite of wrestling games, creating a bar that no WWE title in the last decade has been able to reach (hopefully it will be surpassed in the future, although I'm not getting my hopes up), and if you don't believe me, get playing it on your PlayStation 2 and you'll soon find yourself realising why Here Comes The Pain is one of the greatest wrestling games, if not the greatest wrestling game, ever made.

Overall Rating: 9.5/10 - Classic