Sven Mascarenhas joins us to celebrate the history of wrestling video games, from Mat Mania to Smackdown Vs. Raw 2007. We discuss the inherent challenges in making a wrestling video game, which ones got it right and which ones got it so very wrong, plus Bret Hart: Canadian video game hero, my class action lawsuit against Acclaim, the life altering THQ/AKI series, the Wrestlefest announcer, the No Mercy bug, does WCW Superbrawl exist?, and so much more. Total match time: 71:06. Listen to this and a winner is you!
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To listen to this show, right click to download the mp3 file here, subscribe to the RSS feed @ http://www.thecubsfan.com/joe.xml, or add it to your iTunes Podcasts by clicking here. If you’ve missed an edition, click on the microphone icon in the upper right hand corner of this post to see all of the ones we’ve done so far, or scroll to the end of this post.
Sven’s list of The Top 100 Games Of All Time is over at the DVDMB, and you can contact him there.
Please visit http://www.joeversustheworld.com for an index of old episodes. If you use a non-iTunes podcatcher, check out Bryan Alvarez [being Bryan Alvarez] (07/12)
10: Mike Coughlin [MMA] (07/01)
9: Dr. Keith Lipinkski [Japan, general wackiness] (06/27)
8: Tanvir Raquib [ECW, parallel dimensions] (06/17)
7: American Balloon [his career] (06/10)
6: Justin Shapiro [RAW, ROH] (06/03)
5: Albert Ching [Judgement Day, ECW] (05/28)
4: Vince Verhei [everything] (05/21)
3: Matt Foy [ROH] (05/14)
Bonus: Hogan Knows Best recap (05/08)
2: Justin Shapiro [WWE] (04/29)
1: thecubsfan [lucha] (04/22)
Me me me me! I played WCW SuperBrawl! I remember…not much except renting it from Blockbuster and having a bitch of a time figuring out how to do finishers. And just laughing at the sound clips on the wrestler select screen. Yep. Oh, and I found a ROM, so here you go, but only if you find it and own it first!
http://www.romnation.net/srv/roms/43470/snes/WCW-Super-Brawl-U.html
Also, nothing for NATSUME CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING? Snakie, quit snaking around, or I will kick your butt!
I’ve always been partial to the first Wrestlemania game on Gamecube, just because the hit detection was so weird (you could break up finishers, if your move hits a third person they go down) it made for the greatest multiplayer game ever.
I really enjoyed the historical perspective on all the games, though it really should been called the history of American wrestling games.
It would be great to hear a follow-up inserting all the Japanese games into the timeline as once the Playstation and N64 came out, all the half-decent games were based on the engines of successful Japanese franchises. One Japanese game that wasn’t mentioned, and oddly was never used as the basis for another wrestling game was the All Japan Women game. It was sparse as far as extra features, but the graphics were great, the control system was simple, yet effective and there were all kinds of moves I’ve never seen duplicated in other games (Pyramid Driver, Ocean Cyclone Suplex).