My friend told me to sign up here, so im gonna start by finding some people with interests that are the same as me. Also, anyone here play socom 2 and/or are waiting for socom 3?

The latest wrestling games have really sucked. The best wrestling game ever is Wrestlemania 2000 for N64. The 2nd best is Smackdown: Here comes the Pain for PS2. Besides those, I haven' t played a decent wrestling game since.

It' s all about the Fire Pro series.

Omg, how dare you forget WWF No Mercy? Fire Pro WRestling series? Kings of Colloseum? and Smackdown: HCTP was my favorite of the smackdown franchise. Though, SVR did introduce online play, something that even WM21 can' t pull off despite its gigantuon XBL features.

Wrestling games are pretty much in the same state as Wrestling shows nowadays --- mediocre as hell..

There were a few decent releases over the years with the last good offering being Day of Reckoning... There were some that tried to label the game as a watered down version of Smackdown vs. Raw but in the end, despite Day or Reckoning not containing as many features, it still did the most important thing better, It played better. The wrestling engine of Day of Reckoning was superior in meee opinion.

King Of Colloseum looked awful graphically but had a pretty sweet grappling system, better than Day of Reckoning and Smackdown vs. Raw, unfortunately the flow and pacing of the game wasn' t as smooth as the aforementioned titles.

In general I honestly was never a fan of the Smackdown games, always thought the engine was a bit too flawed.

As far as 2D styled wrestling goes, definitely the crown goes to the Fire Pro series.

As far as 3D wrestling titles go I still adore Giant Gram and Giant Gram 2000..

In response to above poster:

You' re right, Day of Reckoning is good, but I only have a PS2 so I can' t really say much to its extent. Smackdown is successful though. If Yuke' s can drop the horribly dry and empty gameplay, start from scratch, and remake it into one of the greatest commercial wrestling game engines, then I' d lift a Brow. But after SVR, I don' t trust them with my money anymore. They keep dishing out the same crap every year. The reason past installments were so successful was because of the huge leap forward in features and gameplay. Examples given:

Smackdown 1 to Smackdown 2 - Addtion of new matches, an ever lasting season mode, a CAPPV mode that kept ratings, a good solid CAW mode, and more

Smackdown 2 - Smackdown Just Bring it - Better graphics, entrances for the first time in the smackdown game actually taking place in the arenas. A more refined CAW mode, The season mode did suck, yet it provided lots of unlockables, but the music was annoying. Refined gameplay.

Smackdown Just Bring it - Smackdown Shut Your mouth - Even more refined gameplay, more moves, Even better graphics, a more focused CAW mode, a good story mode that stuck to the current happenings, while adding in some original stories as well, more match modes! Not to mention, the first year that Hell in a Cell was actually exciting to play

Smackdown Shut Your Mouth - Smackdown Here Comes the Pain - The graphics bumped up.. EVEN MORE. A good season, which wasnt ever lasting, but in a sense was. Kept records of your most recent 2 hundred matches. ELIMINATION CHAMBER! BLOOD FOR A FIRST TIME! LEGENDS! BODY DAMAGE METER! omg Smackdown Here Comes the Pain was the game to have out of the series.

The along came SVR. CAW graphics improved greatly, but kind of poorly done. You couldn' t change the face structure much, and we still had painted on clothing. Then we had the most repetitive season mode in Smackdown history. The voice overs ruined them. Everything was so linear, almost no choices that could be made during season. Everything was chosen for you. Very short. Everytime you started a new season, default champs were crowned. Oh and speaking of champs, CABelt / CAPPV mode was useless. There was no PPV rankings, not even a history of PPV shows, The belt could be put on the line, but there was never a REAL champion for the belt. (They had the logic that YOU were the champion and you should battle it out with friends). What if none of my friends have this game? Then, why stop there? why not let us do it in even more matches other than 1v1' s? Why not let us take it online? CABelt mode was just useless. The legends were great this year, considering the fact that they all FINALLY had their real entrances and music. the challenge mode was decent, yet too easy. Online mode is what saved the game for me.

So yea, that' s basically how SVR is such a disappointment. Oh and did i forget to mention the pointless B&P matches and PLB matches they spent time on? Blegh. That time could' ve been used to redefine the stale gameplay. I mean seriously, who gets up 3 seconds after a top rople suplex? SVR took a step BACKWARDS in the series, and unless Yuke' s takes their head out of their rear end for the next one, i definately wont be buying another smackdown game.

I mean seriously, who gets up 3 seconds after a top rople suplex?

That' s probably one of if not THE biggest issue I had with the Smackdown series.. The " rubberband" AI, the crazy amount of punishment the characters will take and then bounce right back up just 2-3 seconds later.

At least with the Giant Gram games Sega managed to provide an arcade wrestling game with some sim mechanics to help balance things out. Dammit I LOVE Giant Gram Sega, please make a next-gen update!! Even better, create a PSP update!!

OH and Welcome to Kikizo

Thanks glad to be here

Also, whats this Giant Gram ive been hearing about? what console is it on?

Giant Gram and Giant Gram 2000 were Sega' s Japanese wrestling games released in Japanese arcades and on the Dreamcast console.

Rumble Roses! The stories are crap. The wrestling is serviceable, bordering on good. The fan service is off the chart!

I mean, who really wants to sit there watching (and playing with) sweaty men in tight shorts all day?

^^ Now, that' s thinking of it immaturely. Seriously, wrestling is not just the action. It' s the stories. Wrestling is an everlasting soap opera / novel / interactive experience. Sure, it may not be as hot as it was back in the day, but some people like me still appreciate it.

Though I am a casual wrestling game (games only!) fan, I did enjoy the XBOX titles under the ' Legends of Wrestling' franchise.

I prefer the older wrestlers like Andre the Giant, The Hulk, etc. and most games today focus on the newbies (boo!).

Me personally I don' t care about the characters in the wrestling games, I' ll take a solid wrestling title with generic no-name wrestlers over a game with just an OK wrestling engine and a bunch of popular characters ANY day of the week..

I just want some good wrestling action...

I just want jiggly hoo-hoos!