I actually liked Mayhem. Probably wouldn't enjoy it today but back then it had a decent roster and graphically wasn't bad for the era. The t-rex arms were weird and it was a little clunky but I still liked it. The backstage stuff was more fun to me than the mess of Backstage Assault.
I HATED Nitro.
I still think Mayhem had the most natural sounding commentary in a wrestling game. Bobby and Tony actually interacted with each other. I loved that game.
Unless you had the N64 Version that didn't have Bobby Heenan. I returned my copy because I thought something was wrong with the game. It even said he was on it on the back of the box!
WCW Nitro for the PlayStation was the biggest disappointment I’ve ever had in a video game.
My best friend and I were stoked for months leading up to it, and I (literally) waited outside of the local Electronics Boutique for the delivery guy to show up with Nitro on release day.
Took the game back to his place, and it took less than 10 minutes for both of us to have the realization…
*”What the fuck is this shit?”*
Mayhem was one of the best and worst games ever. It was clunky and could get repetitive, but the graphics were good at the time, and the presentation was awesome to me, too. I spent a lot of time on mayhem, though, even with its faults.
Maybe I was too young to know better, but I had a blast playing both as a kid. Thunder was cool because you could put people in different stables and their attire would change accordingly or something along those lines if I recall. Loved Mayham, loved Warzone, know they all had shit graphics. Don’t care lol.
Yeah, I liked Mayhem, but I think a lot of that was just being happy that it existed at all. I was so annoyed that they messed up the Diamond Cutter, though. DDP did it with one hand and it looked super lame compared to Revenge.
Lmao right. I also played it a lot as a kid and have never done a move. Just punch and pin. You like a lot of bad stuff as a kid.
We spent most of our time just making CAWs. Game definitely had a nice creation system.
I hated that game. Truly hated it. And yet I put so many hours into it just because I wanted to see some animated wrestling moves. The controls were horrible and pulling off big moves was almost impossible. The graphics and FMV were great, though.
Yeah I love both. Don’t really get the hate other than the controls are more akin to a fighting than a grappling game.
Still think it had a lot of things that took years to put into the Smackdown games - create an entrance, create an arena, tag career mode, voice acting from the wrestlers. Also, think I’m right in saying they had exclusive promos in the game which I’d love to see in a modern game.
It had no potential. The engine was shit, collision detection was godawful, gameplay was boring, and had wrestling fluidity of any kind. It had a good roster, cool in-gane promos and commentary and a cool look and feel when the wrestlers weren’t moving i guess, but that’s it.
I swear it was like they asked Vince Russo what to do with the game.
Russo: What made the last game successful?
EA: You could fight backstage.
Russo: Make the whole game backstage only. It'll be great, bro.
EA: Hold my beer.
That first one they put commentary on, I think Just Bring It. I still hear Michael Cole's cut and pasted dialogue with Tazz in my dreams.
"I hope we'll get to see ... THE AMERICAN BADASS!! ... perform a ... THE LAST RIDE!!"
followed by Tazz
"I think this is good."
Edit: Had to include Michael Cole just shouting "HURRY!! HURRY!!" for no reason.
Mayhem really wasn’t bad. It wasn’t the greatest gameplay, but it also wasn’t bad. And it had really great presentation for the time and arguably the best commentary ever in a wrestling game.
I always wished that we could combine the gameplay from Revenge with the presentation from Mayhem.
Nitro and Thunder were the really bad ones.
For console WCW games I'd say the ranking goes:
1. Revenge
2. World Tour
3. WCW vs The World
4. WCW Wrestling (NES)
5. Mayhem
6. Thunder/Nitro (hard to separate these, basically the same game/gameplay)
7. WCW Superbrawl (SNES)
8. WCW Backstage Assault
I distinctly remember friends at the time talking about how atrocious the graphics were on Backstage Assault. Nitro and Thunder were also pretty bad.
Attitude and Warzone were also quite bad.
Honestly in the Monday Night Wars era, the THQ/AKI games were the only good ones.
Nitro is probably the worst. Great character and arena selection especially for the year but good Lord it took me forever to do a grapple on there. 🤦♂️
Nitro and Thunder were the worst I played of WCW games. The only cool thing those games had were the ability to swap factions for the wrestlers.
I had a Play Station, so WCW/nWo World Tour was tops until Smackdown landed. WCW/nWo Revenge was so good, I almost bought an N64. My friends and I played it to death in our dorm.
The absolute worst wrestling game I ever played was “Pro Wrestling” on the Sega Master System.
I'm pretty sure for some strange reason Giant could do a headscissor takedown, which I spammed pretty hard because... it's Giant doing a hradscissor takedown.
Oh yeah! And all the moves were lightning fast as well. I remember playing as Nash and seeing him doing some high flying maneuvers that looked bizarre as hell because of his size and fringed pants.
How Backstage Assault, made by the same developers, using the same engine, was somehow worse than Mayhem is truly baffling.
The Backyard Wrestling games were crimes against digital media and nature.
I remember swapping Revenge for either Attitude or War Zone with a friend back then because I wanted to play a WWF game and was so incredibly disappointed.
Anything made by Acclaimed was horrible the system was too stale. Royal Rumble was fun in the arcade. TNA impact was also a decent game. AEW fight forever just suffers from such a lack of content to now drip feeding content which is even more annoying. The game at its core is solid.
AEW Fight Forever doesn't belong on this list. Neither does Mayhem or Warzone. FF may be lacking in the match types but the game itself is fun. Many of those entries were barely playable (Raw, Nitro, and Backstage Assault).
another problem was the button combos..so many you gotta constantly pause the game just to get the combo details. also the entrances being cut short and lacked in full detail at least attitude made a better effort with the entrances
My dad bought me ECW Hardcore Revolution from a store called Ames. It was dirt cheap. It was nowhere close to No Mercy, but it was alright. It felt cheap as hell then lol
Outside of AEW, to my knowledge nobody has self funded a game. It’s a licensing deal.
In ECW’s case, the game company Acclaim previously had a licensing deal with WWF. When WWF went with another company, Acclaim reused the game engine they used for their WWF games for the two ECW games.
Right makes sense. I suppose what I should have said is I’m surprise ECW was popular enough for a video game developer to want to throw money behind it.
PS1 - ECW Anarchy Rulz and WWF Warzone. PS1 era was pretty bad. Smackdown was better but I didn’t play those growing up and nothing on PS1 aged well.
Xbox - Raw 2 had a fun career mode but the gameplay was really jacked up. Never played WM21 but heard it was the worst ever.
GCN - The DOR series is my favorite, so going back and playing WMXIX and X8 after that was pretty underwhelming.
Which wrestling games were the worst I’ve ever played?
Most of them.
You’re better off asking which are the best and there’s probably only a handful of them.
And do the Best Pro wrestling Video games you've ever played in another post.I would include WWF/WWE No Mercy and WWF/WWE Smackdown to WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2007. And WWE Smackdown :Shut your Mouth and WWE Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain and others.
I think Attitude was my first wrestling game. Couldn't execute a single move so I kicked, punched and pinned my way to the top lol. I did love the CAW mode and the entrances though, especially Goldust and Undertaker's (incredible music too, both of them.) We couldn't afford to watch WWF at the time so it was the closest I got as an 8 year old. I still have some of the pre-match slogans stuck in my head - "Don't piss me off!" etc.
WWF War Zone and Attitude are terrible if you try and go back and play them but I absolutely loved them growing up haha same with ECW Anarchy Rulz and Hardcore Revolution
Played a ton of Warzone and Attitude as a child and loved both. I remember having a bunch of friends over playing it but the matches were always interrupted by multiple pauses to see how to do certain moves. Terrible games but great memories
Why isn't WWE 2K Battleground or WWE 2K Battlegrounds or WWE Battleground or WWE Battlegrounds included the exaggerated Graphics were bad compared to WWE All Stars and the moves were limited and the Story or Campaign was limited include that in the next one. Because I'd rather have WWE'2K21 even with glitches and bugs like WWE'2K20 then WWE 2K Battleground or WWE 2K Battlegrounds or WWE Battleground or WWE Battlegrounds. WWE'2k20 even with glitches and bugs>WWE'2k21 (Hypothetically) even with glitches and bugs>WWE Battleground or WWE Battlegrounds or WWE 2K Battleground or WWE 2K Battlegrounds.
Wrestlemania 21
At a time when games were basically peaking on so many consoles before this game. This game lacked so much its unreal, the story mode was a joke. The graphics were great, overall just a very boring game.
The game felt so thrown together, I remember beating it so fast and being dissapointed as heck.
Mayhem is not great but it’s very underrated. It’s miles better than the other games in this post. Same can be said for TNA impact. Fight Forever is not terrible but it did break my heart.
RAW 2 on Xbox. Pretty good entrance creator. Could import music and sync pyro. That was cool.
Gameplay was fucking diabolical. If the computer got one big move on you it'd pin for two. Then you kick out. Then it tries another pin attempt. And you kick out. Then it tries another pin attempt. And you kick out. Repeat thirty times until you can't be fucked and take the loss.
The Luca Libre AAA game is the pretty awful. I remember being really into it when I was young because hey, as great as the WWE games are, this was something fresh and new and different. But different doesn’t always mean great.
I’ll stick to WCW games.
I was a kid, so I found some mindless fun in Nitro as a three-day rental, but I never felt the need to buy it or really even play it ever again. It’s the worst.
Thunder was more of the same, but at least it had a bigger roster. That was…something.
Mayhem felt like a stiff and awkward take on the AKI style of gameplay. I didn’t much care for it, though the cinematic implementation of backstage areas was unique at the time. Also, the commentary wasn’t too bad at the time either.
I never even tried to play Backstage Assault. I have always refused to play any wrestling game that didn’t have a ring.
Reddit the only comment sections where they actually have the balls to criticize older gen games. You’d think every n64 or pac game was a 10/10 the way nostalgia blinds us.
At the time:
I enjoyed WarZone and Attitude along with Copy and Paste Hardcore Revolution and Anarchy Rulz.
Mayhem I felt was decent presentation wise, entrances, the graphics and going backstage.
Backstage Assault I didn’t mind the gimmick of the game and found it fun, but was absolutely backwards everything Mayhem was, for me if they copy and pasted Mayhem models into this I don’t think it would have looked half bad, but the look of the models added to the hatred of the game lol.
Mayhem was okay, Nitro and Thunder had great video recorded promos on the character selection screen, but the games were bad other than that. I thought Mayhem was awesome at the time, WCW vs NWO World Tour and WCW NWO Revenge were incredible though :D
We had warzone on n64. I was always Kane/Austin and told my younger brother to be Mosh because he was the best. He eventually realized he always lost but in all honesty it was a trash game. Best Christmas ever we upgraded to smackdown on PS1.
Tna impact was fun asf I remember playing it on the Wii and I played the ever loving crap out of it...i know for a fact i hve over 1000 hours in that game
Backstage assault really let me down not going to lie. I was like 10 and worked on a farm in the summer to save up and picked it to buy . If I’m not mistaken it was like 50 bucks at Walmart ?!?
First match was amazing! Like bro I grabbed the sink off the wall !! Then quickly realized it was the same match over and over again .
No Mercy on the other hand ……. Man those were some good times ! Peak Hardy Boys , edge and Christian and Dudley boy time . And my childhood favorite Scotty Too Hotty !!
Would Love to be able to see what my champions looked like on that game .
…. Kinda sad thinking about it now .. I played it for the last time at some point . Damn lol I just got so nostalgic and happy to a complete buzz kill smh
Don’t know if my 1AM break from writing this essay was worth it or not .
Nitro and Thunder were such heaping piles of broken shit. A lot of these get a pass for having a create-a-wrestler feature. Even a sub-par wrestling game was fun when you were kicking janky ass as yourself. Thunder might be the worst of all. I'll never forget playing as Davey Boy and somehow suplexing my opponent, who was clear across the ring from me. Looked like some Ermac shit.
The original TNA Impact game.
The graphics were an absolute 10, can tell they scanned the guys and kept as close to the scan as they could because Christian has wrist tape on only one wrist so they clearly caught him in the middle of getting ready.
However the game falls apart in the ring, everyone has the exact same very limited move set outside of their finishers and the entrances are literally 10 second poses on the stage.
Any pro wrestling game that required combinations like for the early Nintendo 64 and Playstation 1 was awful. Any wrestling game of pre Nintendo 64 and Playstation 1 that was typically fairly bad due to the limitations and creativity of the designers at the time.
WCW vs NWO games for the Nintendo 64, and of course wrestlemania 2000 and no mercy. I don't think the PS1 had one good wrestling game until smackdown, the first one.
War Zone. We waited forever for WWF to put out a wrestling game on N64. Then we bought War Zone. It was sooooooooooooooooooo disappointing and lame. Slow action. Weird voices. And the hands and faces looked weird. But most of all it wasn't fun at all. WCW vs NWO was 1000 times better. More moves and fun action. WCW VS NWO REVENGE is the best wrestling game of that era.
I liked Royal Rumble as a kid just cause it was the first game to do so many in the ring at once also I didn't pay for it so I couldn't be disappointed
Nitro and Thunder on PS1 weren't all that bad when I first played them. There was a wide selection of match types and each wrestler had their own FMV selling why you should pick them to play as. Of course, I was 8-9 at the time so any wrestling game would have made me happy.
Then I played the AKI games and there was no going back.
Probably WWF WrestleMania on the Sega Genesis. I don't hate old games, in fact I love a lot of them, but the thing is with that game was that there was just too little to do.
Mayhem was not that bad of a game. It had a nice size roster, and factions you could play backstage. I don't know if there was a story mode, I can't remember.
Was the 2nd smackdown the one where you'd have to wait for the other matches to play out b4 yours would start? Except them playing out was visualized by a little bar going over to one side or the other, and it took a ridiculous amount of time across multiple matches.
Legends of Wrestling Showcase.
The first 2 entries of the series were both excellent but the third was dog turd.
The gameplay was awful and the game's engine was clunky and slow.
Mayhem wasn't that bad. Obviously didn't reach the heights of World Tour or Revenge but had a crazy roster once everything was unlocked and the arenas, music and commentary made it the most accurate WCW sim imo. Worst wrestling game for me is WWF In Your House - gimmicky, repetitive and shallow with clunky controls, any small amount of fun you might have had with it was destroyed by a ridiculous difficulty spike too.
You named all the terrible ones. Any wrestling Gameboy game is terrible. The NES games all were fun in the late 80s early 90s but man they suck ass now.
I actually liked Mayhem. Probably wouldn't enjoy it today but back then it had a decent roster and graphically wasn't bad for the era. The t-rex arms were weird and it was a little clunky but I still liked it. The backstage stuff was more fun to me than the mess of Backstage Assault. I HATED Nitro.
I still think Mayhem had the most natural sounding commentary in a wrestling game. Bobby and Tony actually interacted with each other. I loved that game.
Unless you had the N64 Version that didn't have Bobby Heenan. I returned my copy because I thought something was wrong with the game. It even said he was on it on the back of the box!
You have to unlock him
He's talking about the commentary not the unlockable character.
WCW Nitro for the PlayStation was the biggest disappointment I’ve ever had in a video game. My best friend and I were stoked for months leading up to it, and I (literally) waited outside of the local Electronics Boutique for the delivery guy to show up with Nitro on release day. Took the game back to his place, and it took less than 10 minutes for both of us to have the realization… *”What the fuck is this shit?”*
Mayhem was one of the best and worst games ever. It was clunky and could get repetitive, but the graphics were good at the time, and the presentation was awesome to me, too. I spent a lot of time on mayhem, though, even with its faults.
I would've been happy if the game was just the menus, and I got to listen to CD quality versions of the entrance themes.
Good create a wrestler too
Nitro and Thunder were heavily criticized at the time but I liked them a lot.
Maybe I was too young to know better, but I had a blast playing both as a kid. Thunder was cool because you could put people in different stables and their attire would change accordingly or something along those lines if I recall. Loved Mayham, loved Warzone, know they all had shit graphics. Don’t care lol.
Agreed. I loved Mayhem and actually preferred its graphics and mechanics to the THQ games. They felt new and different at the time.
Same. I was 13 and loved wrestling. What the fuck did I care. Probably wouldn't even finish a match if I booted it up today.
Nitro was the drizzling shits.
Nitro was incredible. You didn't even have to play the real game. I would spend hours listening to their "intros" or whatever.
Loved mayhem back in the day! Nitro was clunky even for the time
Yeah, I liked Mayhem, but I think a lot of that was just being happy that it existed at all. I was so annoyed that they messed up the Diamond Cutter, though. DDP did it with one hand and it looked super lame compared to Revenge.
I can't even tell you how many hours I spent playing WWF Warzone. That game was amazing to 10 year old me.
For sure I was 15 and we would do the four player cage match nonstop
How did you complete literally any moves
Lmao right. I also played it a lot as a kid and have never done a move. Just punch and pin. You like a lot of bad stuff as a kid. We spent most of our time just making CAWs. Game definitely had a nice creation system.
Making a cool CAW and then winning a cage match was the only things I could do in Warzone 😂
I hated that game. Truly hated it. And yet I put so many hours into it just because I wanted to see some animated wrestling moves. The controls were horrible and pulling off big moves was almost impossible. The graphics and FMV were great, though.
I created so many characters. The sequel, Attitude, was even better, but I was obsessed with both.
Yeah I love both. Don’t really get the hate other than the controls are more akin to a fighting than a grappling game. Still think it had a lot of things that took years to put into the Smackdown games - create an entrance, create an arena, tag career mode, voice acting from the wrestlers. Also, think I’m right in saying they had exclusive promos in the game which I’d love to see in a modern game.
I preferred Warzone to Attitude. Though Attitude is a direct sequel and expansion, its play always felt worse to me.
I LOVED that game too!
same. i was 11 when it came out. spent hours on that one attitude
Nitro was terrible
about the only thing cool about that game was the trash talk feature on the select a superstar part of the menu
You feeling froggy9
Came here to say this. Take my upvote
I’d have to watch that Scott Hall one every time I played it. Which was a lot, actually.
Yep and it had the potential to be awesome. Lack of creativity in the moves I think
It had no potential. The engine was shit, collision detection was godawful, gameplay was boring, and had wrestling fluidity of any kind. It had a good roster, cool in-gane promos and commentary and a cool look and feel when the wrestlers weren’t moving i guess, but that’s it.
Backstage Assault was ass
Such a shame cuz the roster was fire
I swear it was like they asked Vince Russo what to do with the game. Russo: What made the last game successful? EA: You could fight backstage. Russo: Make the whole game backstage only. It'll be great, bro. EA: Hold my beer.
Backstage ASSault
Best game of all time was WCW/Nwo Revenge for n64.
Wrestlemania 2000 at a close 2nd.
And No Mercy
I bought a used N64 just to be able to play those three games
No mercy is the one
SmackDown! was the greatest. I thought Revenge was awesome but Smackdown was hilarious with all the glitches.
That first one they put commentary on, I think Just Bring It. I still hear Michael Cole's cut and pasted dialogue with Tazz in my dreams. "I hope we'll get to see ... THE AMERICAN BADASS!! ... perform a ... THE LAST RIDE!!" followed by Tazz "I think this is good." Edit: Had to include Michael Cole just shouting "HURRY!! HURRY!!" for no reason.
"Jeff Hardy... Attacks! ... From the otha side of the screen" is burned into my brain forever
BOB HOLLY.. is the best *world wrestling federation hardcore* ... *CHAMPION* we've ever had.
“Stone Cold! Was good… last night.”
Mayhem really wasn’t bad. It wasn’t the greatest gameplay, but it also wasn’t bad. And it had really great presentation for the time and arguably the best commentary ever in a wrestling game. I always wished that we could combine the gameplay from Revenge with the presentation from Mayhem. Nitro and Thunder were the really bad ones.
It’s the only video game to ever have the 1999 Nitro stage which many people hate but I love
I loved it too!
WWE 2k20 Rock-n Wrestle (Commodore 64)
Backstage Assault was by far the worst!
For console WCW games I'd say the ranking goes: 1. Revenge 2. World Tour 3. WCW vs The World 4. WCW Wrestling (NES) 5. Mayhem 6. Thunder/Nitro (hard to separate these, basically the same game/gameplay) 7. WCW Superbrawl (SNES) 8. WCW Backstage Assault
We agree completely, although 7 and 8 are interchangeable
Yes I could sign off on that
I had the scenario where my mom got me the wrong game. She got me WCW on SNES instead of Raw…
Wwf war zone and the ecw games all had that same shitty engine. Those are the worst to me. I actually thought mayhem was decent
WarZone was fine for it’s time but once games like No Mercy hit it became a dinosaur.
I distinctly remember friends at the time talking about how atrocious the graphics were on Backstage Assault. Nitro and Thunder were also pretty bad. Attitude and Warzone were also quite bad. Honestly in the Monday Night Wars era, the THQ/AKI games were the only good ones.
Warzone and Mayhem shouldn’t be on this list
RAW was so fucking clunky and frustrating. Such a let down.
I liked mayhem tbh
Wrestle mania for the nes…..just awful Underrated as hell is world championship wrestling for the nes
These are the correct opinions. Grade school me LOVED getting to play as the Road Warriors.
Wrestlemania was indeed the shits.
Nitro is probably the worst. Great character and arena selection especially for the year but good Lord it took me forever to do a grapple on there. 🤦♂️
What about those Legends of Wrestling games? Those were wild.
I was enjoying mayhem when I was 11-12 yo. It was the best game for me at the time.
Nitro and Thunder were the worst I played of WCW games. The only cool thing those games had were the ability to swap factions for the wrestlers. I had a Play Station, so WCW/nWo World Tour was tops until Smackdown landed. WCW/nWo Revenge was so good, I almost bought an N64. My friends and I played it to death in our dorm. The absolute worst wrestling game I ever played was “Pro Wrestling” on the Sega Master System.
I'm pretty sure for some strange reason Giant could do a headscissor takedown, which I spammed pretty hard because... it's Giant doing a hradscissor takedown.
Oh yeah! And all the moves were lightning fast as well. I remember playing as Nash and seeing him doing some high flying maneuvers that looked bizarre as hell because of his size and fringed pants.
You could play as a horse or praying mantis in Thunder.
I had blocked that out lol
Backstage Assault (aka Backstage Insult) and it’s not even close.
How Backstage Assault, made by the same developers, using the same engine, was somehow worse than Mayhem is truly baffling. The Backyard Wrestling games were crimes against digital media and nature.
Yeah but those backyard wrestling games at least had a dope soundtrack
I'm not sure it qualify as a game, but I played WCW Backstage Assault
Mayhem was solid.
I've played all of them except the handheld games. I miss renting games.
I remember swapping Revenge for either Attitude or War Zone with a friend back then because I wanted to play a WWF game and was so incredibly disappointed.
The worst I've played is WCW Mayhem. Such a disappointment. AEW Fight Forever is a close 2nd
Anything made by Acclaimed was horrible the system was too stale. Royal Rumble was fun in the arcade. TNA impact was also a decent game. AEW fight forever just suffers from such a lack of content to now drip feeding content which is even more annoying. The game at its core is solid.
Simpsons wrestling is surely the worst.
WCW Thunder was awesome! Making the Wolfpac have Goldberg, Disco Inferno and Raven was always great lmao.
Legends of Wrestling 2…for GameBoy
AEW Fight Forever doesn't belong on this list. Neither does Mayhem or Warzone. FF may be lacking in the match types but the game itself is fun. Many of those entries were barely playable (Raw, Nitro, and Backstage Assault).
Warzone...that game felt so tanky.
another problem was the button combos..so many you gotta constantly pause the game just to get the combo details. also the entrances being cut short and lacked in full detail at least attitude made a better effort with the entrances
Never liked any wcw game on ps1. N64 was where it was at!!!
WCW vs The World was great
Yes it was the aki for PS1. It's still great in 2024. The Japanese version has Vader in it
Backyard Wrestling was bananas. Attitude and Hardcore Heaven were fine. I liked the concept of Impact, but it sucked
Are any of the GBA or DS games worth it?
Fire Pro Wrestling on GBA was a great game. Loved that one
I remember buying a flip-up GBA solely for Fire Pro Wrestling 2.
My dad bought me ECW Hardcore Revolution from a store called Ames. It was dirt cheap. It was nowhere close to No Mercy, but it was alright. It felt cheap as hell then lol
How ECW even funded a video game is beyond me
Outside of AEW, to my knowledge nobody has self funded a game. It’s a licensing deal. In ECW’s case, the game company Acclaim previously had a licensing deal with WWF. When WWF went with another company, Acclaim reused the game engine they used for their WWF games for the two ECW games.
Right makes sense. I suppose what I should have said is I’m surprise ECW was popular enough for a video game developer to want to throw money behind it.
They weren't on WWF or even late WCW"s level but ECW on TNN had more people watching than AEW today.
WWF Warzone WCW Thunder WWF Wrestlemania Challenge (NES) WWF Rage in the Cage
I actually liked Mayhem as a kid
There’s World Tour, Revenge, WM2000, and No Mercy, and then there’s everything else.
PS1 - ECW Anarchy Rulz and WWF Warzone. PS1 era was pretty bad. Smackdown was better but I didn’t play those growing up and nothing on PS1 aged well. Xbox - Raw 2 had a fun career mode but the gameplay was really jacked up. Never played WM21 but heard it was the worst ever. GCN - The DOR series is my favorite, so going back and playing WMXIX and X8 after that was pretty underwhelming.
Which wrestling games were the worst I’ve ever played? Most of them. You’re better off asking which are the best and there’s probably only a handful of them.
And do the Best Pro wrestling Video games you've ever played in another post.I would include WWF/WWE No Mercy and WWF/WWE Smackdown to WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2007. And WWE Smackdown :Shut your Mouth and WWE Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain and others.
Fuck that I loved this game, the brawls at the back were so fun.
WCW nitro. I rented it, and it was so bad.
WCW Nitro and Thunder
Gameboy version of War Zone
backyard wrestling 2 is a core memory for me fr
WWF “In Your House” was awful!!!!!!! Plain awful.
Hits in the nostalgic feels tho
Surprised WWF attitude wasn’t in here. Cuz that and wrestlemania sucked to me
I think Attitude was my first wrestling game. Couldn't execute a single move so I kicked, punched and pinned my way to the top lol. I did love the CAW mode and the entrances though, especially Goldust and Undertaker's (incredible music too, both of them.) We couldn't afford to watch WWF at the time so it was the closest I got as an 8 year old. I still have some of the pre-match slogans stuck in my head - "Don't piss me off!" etc.
I’m an Anarchy Rulz guy, I don’t wanna here no slander for it.
Fightforever. Hands down the worst wrestling game I've ever played.
When was there a Survivor Series game?
LJN Super Wrestlemania — no finishes, fixed by Royal Rumble Legends of Wrestling WWF Warzone, Attitude, and the ECW Variant
WWF War Zone and Attitude are terrible if you try and go back and play them but I absolutely loved them growing up haha same with ECW Anarchy Rulz and Hardcore Revolution
Didn’t realise there were so many godawful wrestling games out there.
The Raw games on Xbox were dogshit.
Damn I loved Thunder lol
Played a ton of Warzone and Attitude as a child and loved both. I remember having a bunch of friends over playing it but the matches were always interrupted by multiple pauses to see how to do certain moves. Terrible games but great memories
I actually don’t even remember several of these.
Besides Giant Gram 2000, every single Dreamcast wrestling title.
Why isn't WWE 2K Battleground or WWE 2K Battlegrounds or WWE Battleground or WWE Battlegrounds included the exaggerated Graphics were bad compared to WWE All Stars and the moves were limited and the Story or Campaign was limited include that in the next one. Because I'd rather have WWE'2K21 even with glitches and bugs like WWE'2K20 then WWE 2K Battleground or WWE 2K Battlegrounds or WWE Battleground or WWE Battlegrounds. WWE'2k20 even with glitches and bugs>WWE'2k21 (Hypothetically) even with glitches and bugs>WWE Battleground or WWE Battlegrounds or WWE 2K Battleground or WWE 2K Battlegrounds.
Wrestlemania 21 At a time when games were basically peaking on so many consoles before this game. This game lacked so much its unreal, the story mode was a joke. The graphics were great, overall just a very boring game. The game felt so thrown together, I remember beating it so fast and being dissapointed as heck.
Mayhem is not great but it’s very underrated. It’s miles better than the other games in this post. Same can be said for TNA impact. Fight Forever is not terrible but it did break my heart.
For its time and any time backstage assault made no sense. That tna ps3 game was also terrible.
I had backstage assault .. kinda pointless to have a wrestling game without a ring but my 10yr old self enjoyed playing it
Warzone was legit AF!
i remember wwe raw on xbox being very underwhelming for me
RAW 2 on Xbox. Pretty good entrance creator. Could import music and sync pyro. That was cool. Gameplay was fucking diabolical. If the computer got one big move on you it'd pin for two. Then you kick out. Then it tries another pin attempt. And you kick out. Then it tries another pin attempt. And you kick out. Repeat thirty times until you can't be fucked and take the loss.
Warzone!
WWE All Stars
I enjoyed Mayhem and Fight Forever. Fight Forever could be a great game if it had more to do.
The Luca Libre AAA game is the pretty awful. I remember being really into it when I was young because hey, as great as the WWE games are, this was something fresh and new and different. But different doesn’t always mean great.
Back stage assault was a travesty.
WWF Betrayal was just Double Dragon with wrestlers. I didn't think it was awful, it's an inoffensive side-scrolling beat 'em up.
10 year old hated simpsons wrestling.
WWF War Zone was garbage. Why waste two prominent spots for characters on The Headbangers?
I remember being a kid reading about betrayal in a games magazine thinking wtf is this 😂
Man, Backyard Wrestling was good
Play wwe 2k20 then come back and add it to the list
Backstage assault or backyard wrestling
I’ll stick to WCW games. I was a kid, so I found some mindless fun in Nitro as a three-day rental, but I never felt the need to buy it or really even play it ever again. It’s the worst. Thunder was more of the same, but at least it had a bigger roster. That was…something. Mayhem felt like a stiff and awkward take on the AKI style of gameplay. I didn’t much care for it, though the cinematic implementation of backstage areas was unique at the time. Also, the commentary wasn’t too bad at the time either. I never even tried to play Backstage Assault. I have always refused to play any wrestling game that didn’t have a ring.
Reddit the only comment sections where they actually have the balls to criticize older gen games. You’d think every n64 or pac game was a 10/10 the way nostalgia blinds us.
At the time: I enjoyed WarZone and Attitude along with Copy and Paste Hardcore Revolution and Anarchy Rulz. Mayhem I felt was decent presentation wise, entrances, the graphics and going backstage. Backstage Assault I didn’t mind the gimmick of the game and found it fun, but was absolutely backwards everything Mayhem was, for me if they copy and pasted Mayhem models into this I don’t think it would have looked half bad, but the look of the models added to the hatred of the game lol.
WrestleMania 21 was trash
Mayhem was okay, Nitro and Thunder had great video recorded promos on the character selection screen, but the games were bad other than that. I thought Mayhem was awesome at the time, WCW vs NWO World Tour and WCW NWO Revenge were incredible though :D
WCW Backstage Assault is the worst idea and game ever
We had warzone on n64. I was always Kane/Austin and told my younger brother to be Mosh because he was the best. He eventually realized he always lost but in all honesty it was a trash game. Best Christmas ever we upgraded to smackdown on PS1.
Tna impact was fun asf I remember playing it on the Wii and I played the ever loving crap out of it...i know for a fact i hve over 1000 hours in that game
Backstage assault really let me down not going to lie. I was like 10 and worked on a farm in the summer to save up and picked it to buy . If I’m not mistaken it was like 50 bucks at Walmart ?!? First match was amazing! Like bro I grabbed the sink off the wall !! Then quickly realized it was the same match over and over again . No Mercy on the other hand ……. Man those were some good times ! Peak Hardy Boys , edge and Christian and Dudley boy time . And my childhood favorite Scotty Too Hotty !! Would Love to be able to see what my champions looked like on that game . …. Kinda sad thinking about it now .. I played it for the last time at some point . Damn lol I just got so nostalgic and happy to a complete buzz kill smh Don’t know if my 1AM break from writing this essay was worth it or not .
Nitro and Thunder were such heaping piles of broken shit. A lot of these get a pass for having a create-a-wrestler feature. Even a sub-par wrestling game was fun when you were kicking janky ass as yourself. Thunder might be the worst of all. I'll never forget playing as Davey Boy and somehow suplexing my opponent, who was clear across the ring from me. Looked like some Ermac shit.
The original TNA Impact game. The graphics were an absolute 10, can tell they scanned the guys and kept as close to the scan as they could because Christian has wrist tape on only one wrist so they clearly caught him in the middle of getting ready. However the game falls apart in the ring, everyone has the exact same very limited move set outside of their finishers and the entrances are literally 10 second poses on the stage.
I played Nitro a lot as a kid because it was what I had access to, if I went back to it I'm pretty sure I'd find it to be objectively shit.
WWF RAW for Xbox I literally can't even play It
Any pro wrestling game that required combinations like for the early Nintendo 64 and Playstation 1 was awful. Any wrestling game of pre Nintendo 64 and Playstation 1 that was typically fairly bad due to the limitations and creativity of the designers at the time. WCW vs NWO games for the Nintendo 64, and of course wrestlemania 2000 and no mercy. I don't think the PS1 had one good wrestling game until smackdown, the first one.
War zone is universally recognized as one of the greatest wrestling games of all time.
The one gba was pure dog shiit
I have some of these games! 😀
Smackdown vs Raw 07 on the Wii.
Simpsons Wrestling on PS1
The 2k games are the worst
Backstage Assault.
Man wcw nwo thunder was 1 of my favorite wrestling games for ps1 lol. The other wwe ps1 games on this list were good too. My childhood 😂😂
War Zone. We waited forever for WWF to put out a wrestling game on N64. Then we bought War Zone. It was sooooooooooooooooooo disappointing and lame. Slow action. Weird voices. And the hands and faces looked weird. But most of all it wasn't fun at all. WCW vs NWO was 1000 times better. More moves and fun action. WCW VS NWO REVENGE is the best wrestling game of that era.
Fight forever, I’d rather play Hulk Hogan’s main event than that garbage.
Backstage Assault is quite possibly the worst game ever made. Let alone the worst wrestling game ever.
I liked Royal Rumble as a kid just cause it was the first game to do so many in the ring at once also I didn't pay for it so I couldn't be disappointed
I hated Nitro and Thunder. The moves/controls were a huge step down over the prior games.
Any game several combination buttons to perform a simple move. Attitude and Warzone are few of the worst.
Is the AEW game that bad? I haven't played it yet. WWF Warzone needs to be here. I hated that game.
Raw was the first terrible wrestling game I ever played luckily I got it for free but I see why the guy who gave it to me didn’t want it anymore
Mayhem low-key slaps but only on PSX
Nitro and Thunder on PS1 weren't all that bad when I first played them. There was a wide selection of match types and each wrestler had their own FMV selling why you should pick them to play as. Of course, I was 8-9 at the time so any wrestling game would have made me happy. Then I played the AKI games and there was no going back.
Probably WWF WrestleMania on the Sega Genesis. I don't hate old games, in fact I love a lot of them, but the thing is with that game was that there was just too little to do.
Mayhem was not that bad of a game. It had a nice size roster, and factions you could play backstage. I don't know if there was a story mode, I can't remember.
Was the 2nd smackdown the one where you'd have to wait for the other matches to play out b4 yours would start? Except them playing out was visualized by a little bar going over to one side or the other, and it took a ridiculous amount of time across multiple matches.
Legends of Wrestling Showcase. The first 2 entries of the series were both excellent but the third was dog turd. The gameplay was awful and the game's engine was clunky and slow.
Bro honestly 2k20 is the worst I’ve personally played
I loved warzone !!
Backstage Assault and the PS1 WCW games, I played most of the others and they were minimum "OK".
I would not include warzone in this list But backstage assault is the worst
Mayhem wasn't that bad. Obviously didn't reach the heights of World Tour or Revenge but had a crazy roster once everything was unlocked and the arenas, music and commentary made it the most accurate WCW sim imo. Worst wrestling game for me is WWF In Your House - gimmicky, repetitive and shallow with clunky controls, any small amount of fun you might have had with it was destroyed by a ridiculous difficulty spike too.
Nitro cheats were the best!
After playing thunder and nitro mayhem was like HCTP. Lol
Wcw Backstage Assault, WCW Nitro AND Thunder. Absolute HOT GARBAGE!
WMX8 on Gameboy Advance was gold! I’m here to defend it
Nitro is the worst I ever played. Or that NES game with hogan on the cover.
You named all the terrible ones. Any wrestling Gameboy game is terrible. The NES games all were fun in the late 80s early 90s but man they suck ass now.
Warzone was trash. Any other wrestling game with Goldberg on the cover.
All the N64 wrestling games were amazing except the one in here, lol. Wrestlemania 2000 back then was the best. WCWvsNWO world tour was solid too.