411Mania’s Countdown to Wrestlemania XXVI 3.25.10: WrestleMania: The Video Game

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WWF WrestleMania

It should come as no surprise that the first video game based on the concept that brought wrestling to the American mainstream was released on the console that brought gaming to the American mainstream. The first WrestleMania-based video game, creatively titled “WWF WrestleMania”, was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1989. Featuring exactly six wrestlers and only one match type, the game wasn’t exactly top of the line. The game featured a lot of ‘arcade’ elements, such as energy bars and collectable powerups. However, the game did have some nice touches, such as a time limit and a crude form of mometum (in the form of characters hulking up). Interestingly enough, the video game that Randy “The Ram” Robinson plays with a local boy in the movie The Wrestler was heavily based on this game.

WWF WrestleMania Challenge

The next wrestling game released for the NES was a huge step forward. WWF WrestleMania Challenge, which was released in 1990, included many new features. The perspective was shifted from the WWE-style hard camera setup to a diagonal angle that allowed for players to move with far more depth. The roster was expanded, and, more importantly, tag team and even six man tag team matches were added. What made these modes even more memorable that you could bring in an NPC partner to double-team your opponent. Furthermore, besides pinfall, you could now win or lose matches by disqualification and countout. They even included a generic character to represent “you”. It’s still a far leap from create-a-wrestler of course, but it’s the first game to offer players any kind of oppertunity to place themselves in the game rather than playing with existing characters.

WWF WrestleMania (PC version)

The next WrestleMaia-based game was also titled WWF WrestleMania and was released in 1991 on the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and DOS-based systems. The first attempt to bring an action-based wrestling game to the PC market was a somewhat lackluster effort, as it was basically a stripped version of an arcade game released two years earlier. The game featured only half the playable wrestlers that were offered in the first WrestleMania game on the NES, but it did feature rare video game appearances of The Mountie and The Warlord as opponents. Like the arcade game, the player was given credits, something that was pretty out of place in a wrestling game. Still, the game had some historical value simply for being the first WrestleMania game to feature a steel chair, which unfortunately didn’t draw a DQ when used.

WWF Super WrestleMania

With a new generation of home consoles came a new generation of WWF video games. Released for the SNES and Sega Mega Drive, the 1992 game Super WrestleMania was a huge leap forward compared to the NES and PC games we’ve seen so far. Interestingly enough both versions had their own distinct features, to the point where they were basically two different games. They had separate rosters with ten wrestlers for the SNES version and eight wrestlers for the Genesis, with only Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage and Ted DiBiase appearing on both. The Genesis also featured expanded movesets with signature moves and a WWF championship mode. All in all, the games were definitely a step forward from the eight bit era, but we still had quite a ways to go.

WWF WrestleMania Steel Cage Challenge

But that doesn’t mean the eight bit era was over, as the same year saw the release of WWF WrestleMania: Steel Cage Challenge for the NES, Sega Master System and Game Gear. Both the NES and Sega versions of the game featured ten wrestlers, with each system getting a handful of exclusive characters. As the name might imply, the steel cage made its debut on the consoles here. However, the eight bit consoles were rapidly becoming obsolete. The game had no finishers or signature moves and horrible controls. The regular features such as championship and tag team championship modes were still there, but it simply wasn’t enough anymore to make the game stand out.

WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game

WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game was released in 1995 and was the first truly multi-platform WrestleMania game, being released for the Arcade, Mega Drive/Genesis, SNES, PlayStation, Saturn, DOS and Sega 32X. With its digitized graphics and controls limited to two punch buttons, two strike buttons and a block button, all matches being two out of three falls and the chance to wrestle a palette-swapped version of yourself, the game was more like a fighting game than a wrestling game. Special moves such as The Undertaker swinging an actual tombstone and Doink’s boot suddenly growing three times as big didn’t exactly help either. The game allowed the player to challenge for either the intercontinental or WWF championship in a series of one on one, one on two and one on three matches, with a big eight man gauntlet match to cap it all off in WWF championship mode. The various home releases were all limited by their own hardware, with the SNES featuring a limited roster, no voice commentary, slowdown problems and a limit of three characters on the screen at once. The Genesis version had a limited color palette and limited commentary. The 32X version was closer to the arcade version in terms of audio and video quality but featured a 30 fps framerate rather than the standard 60 fps. The three CD-ROM versions (Saturn, PlayStation and PC) were most faithful to the arcade original.

WWF WrestleMania 2000

From there on we wouldn’t see another WrestleMania game for four years. WWF WrestleMania 2000 was released for the Nintendo 64 in 1999, and was based on the WCW/nWO Revenge engine. The game featured more than fifty wrestlers, all of whom were fully customizable. The game bought all the comforts of the 3D era of gaming to the WrestleMania franchise, with features like triple threat matches, blood, create-a-wrestler modes and the Royal Rumble match. Still, it was quite a step back compared to the WWF Attitude game that preceded it, with most of the tag modes and some create modes missing. Still, the game was worth playing simply because it was based on the best wrestling game engine released at that point (that, and the fact that Pat Patterson and Terri Runnels were playable characters). Of course the successor to WrestleMania 2000 would comgine this incredible engine with all the extra stuff from WWF Authority. Then they added a bunch of extra features and created WWF No Mercy.

WWE WrestleMania X-8

WWE WrestleMania X-8, which was released for the Gamecube in 2002, was the first game of the next generation of consoles, and it was the very picture of mediocrity. The roster was alright, although a handful of wrestlers on the actual card itself were missing. The match types were fairly typical. The game’s main gameplay mode was Path of a Championship match, in which players attempted to capture the WWF Championship, WWF Intercontinental Championship, WWF European Championship, WWF Light Heavyweight Championship, WWF Hardcore Championship or World Tag Team Championships. They all were laid out essentially the same, with a player first wrestling a series of singles matches, then some triple threat and fatal fourway matches before finally getting a title match. There’s a Battle for the Belts mode, in which players can battle for fictional belts whose only form of customization is the ability to change strap colours, and a limited create-a-wrestler mode. All in all the game wasn’t truly bad, but it was definitely hindered by the lacking moveset, the absence of a proper story mode and the poorly designed character animations.

WWE WrestleMania XIX

WrestleMania XIX, which was released the following year, did feature a story mode, although it certainly was, for lack of a better word, unique. In the game’s story mode, you play a wrestler that just got fired by Vince McMahon. After getting kicked to the curb quite literally, you get approached by Stephanie McMahon, who enlists your help to topple her father’s empire so she can take over, offering you a chance to get back at Vince and get a new contract. To do so you have to take out various WWE assets, brawling with nameless security guards and construction workers, as well as the occasional superstar. The fights can get quite brutal, as you’re often instructed to throw people off high areas or into traffic. A nice feature was the fact that your performance was rewarded with money which allowed you to purchase various unlockables. Still, the revenge mode, in which your wrestler essentially became a mass murderer, made very little sense in a wrestling game. It wasn’t bad, just… different. Still, the game is definitely a strong improvement over WWE WrestleMania X-8.

WWE WrestleMania 21

Of course anything is better than WrestleMania 21, the last WWE game released for the Xbox. Somehow, the creators of the game had managed to get pretty much everything wrong. The graphics were sub-par and glitchy. The controls were awful. The online mode was made almost unplayable by lag. The story mode was ridiculous. Hell, the game even featured the wrong WrestleMania arena, as you’ll have to wrestle in the WrestleMania XX arena rather than the one that the game is named after. All in all, the less that’s said about this game, the better.

WWE Legends of WrestleMania

The last game on our list is WWE Legends of WrestleMania, which was released in 2009. The game was surprisingly good, considering how awful the Legends of Wrestling games had been. The game featured almost 40 playable wrestlers, with the only glaring omission being the lack of Randy Savage. The game featured a Legend Killer mode, which basically pits your chosen wrestler against ten wrestlers distributed over several tiers. The Relive mode was, in my opinion, the best feature of the game, as you not only worked through legendary WrestleMania matches, but actually got rewarded for repeating memorable spots from those matches. Then there was the Rewrite mode, which is similar to the Relive mode, putting you in the shoes of the loser and giving you a chance to change history. Finally there’s the Redefine mode, which allowed you to compete in existing matches with the wrestler of your choice and an added stipulation. All in all the game was pretty good. I personally disliked the simplified controls, although one could argue that it actually fitted the more retro spirit of the game. The final product was definitely very polished.

All in all, the list of WrestleMania-based video games is a very mixed bag. Some are pretty good for their time (WrestleMania Challenge, WrestleMania 2000, Legends of Wrestlemania) to fairly bad (Steel Cage Challenge, the PC version of WrestleMania) to absolutely horrid (WrestleMania 21) to downright weird (the WrestleMania Arcade game, WrestleMania XIX). For some reason, the WrestleMania name has never become a full-fledged franchise like SmackDown or Raw. I’d love to see the annual WWE game get the WrestleMania name tacked on, along with a release date around January, right at the start of the road to WrestleMania, in stead of the November release we get now.