History of Wrestling Games

I still love a good ole’ wrestling game to play and with the latest outings from 2K i’m left amazed by the graphics but still facepalming to the gameplay, why can’t they do certain things that were done in early 2000 on a far less superior console. With these games beautiful visuals the game still appears to be an issue for me. A good saying in the gaming community is you can’t judge a game just on it’s graphics, the gameplay needs to be there to keep you engaged otherwise you’re just standing there looking at painting in an art gallery that you have no idea the meaning it just looks nice.

So let’s go through what i think lets these games in this genre down,

• Poor Commentary
• Tough physics
• Poor Online modes
• Bugs

These game have had so many good points but the developers decide to take them out and update with something new every year, WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2007 was the first that allowed you to fight in the crowd and was awesome, something new to the table then they take it out, now the only way to get into the crowd is by glitching the game…also not hard.

The Commentary…where do i start with that. Year in year out it just does not flow with the match they have OMG moments now the commentators just react like they fell of the sofa whilst looking for the remote. Really lets it down they should react like the match has just been turned on its head, i mean if you throw your opponent of the top of a Hell in a cell it’s just “meh” nothing like good ole’ JR shouting about Mankind “As god’s my witness, he is broken in half” you really feel the moment and it changes the match…well not anymore.

Wrestling over the years has changed dramatically from the days of Hulk Hogan and the late Ultimate Warrior who was a hero to me in my younger days were gracing the squared circle in the 80s and early 90s to the Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart’s technical prowess in the 90’s and the foul mouthed Texas Rattlesnake in the late 90’s. Wrestling was at it’s peak in the so called Attitude era with R rated storylines and blood oozing from the wrestlers after their battle. To now having the likes of John Cena and Brock Lesnar bringing a huge mix of dominance and charisma to the sport, it is entertainment after all. The games have kept up with all the change in the sport with the Brand Split in 2004 which resulted in the WWE Smackdown brand being called WWE Smackdown Vs Raw and had been for seven years until the idea started to get a little stale which then made them resort to changing to the year of release so WWE ‘12 and then on. at a stage where the brand was complacent with sales dropping and the liquidation of THQ in 2012, this led to 2K Sports taking the license over.