(CONTINUED) So, here's the thing. If you're looking for something that plays like the N64 AKI stuff, this isn't it. There are passing resemblences to that system, but the refinement and deliberate pace of those games is not here. HOWEVER, I don't think I've ever played a wrestling game that features this much lunacy and chaos. Controls are absolutely loose and a little floaty (my one real complaint is actually that I'd love to see the animations get a little more snap and impact), but I very much regard this as a feature since it also means that moves and actions just kind of flow into one another. It's button mashy in a satisfying way. Plus, the game played out in such an unpredictable way that it was impossible not to be entertained.
"Buggy" isn't the right word here. 2K18 was buggy - the framerate was pretty bad, wrestlers would glitch out, there was a fair amount of sound popping, created characters would look wrong in-match, etc. These are all things that universally detract from the experience. But Wrestling Empire? I would just describe this as loose. It seems to regard any event in the match as fairly fluid in that one situation can potentially move into any number of other situations, which makes it unpredictable. Definitely falls into the "it's not a bug, it's a feature!" category for me. It has an ton of charm in its chaotic approach to gameplay that absolutely mimicks what's fun about pro wrestling in the first place (something that modern wrestling also forgets too often these days).
Also, as an aside on the look of the game: it definitely isn't goig to win awards for its graphics. The screenshots will tell you everything you need to know about this, and I doubt Mdickie would try telling you he is an artist. That said, there are little touches I am definitely impressed by. Taking a second look at the wrestlers will reveal a surprising amount of detail in their textures, right down to animated faces. Blood will splatter onto the ring canvas. Wrestlers have a ton of customization options for outfits it seems. And, as this review points out, gameplay remains smooth and responsive throughout. I've long wondered what would have happened if the attitude of developers had been to sacrifice intense graphical fidelity in favor of aiming to get more stuff on screen running at peak performance. Judging from that battle royal video posted, I would say I greatly prefer this option.
I apologize for the long post (hopefully my passion for the subject matter comes through). If you skim to the end, I'll leave you with this. The Switch has slim pickings for wrestling fans. We have 2K18, which is a buggy mess. We have something pretty lackluster in Battlegrounds (which probably could have learned a thing or two form Mdickie). And we have Boxy Pro Wrestling, which is definitely charming but is probably too simple to really scratch the wrestling itch for a lot of people. After one match, I'm going to say that Wrestling Empire is probably the best wrestling game you can get on the Switch right now. If you can get around some of the presentational shortcomings, I think you're in for a treat. I cannot wait to try this out with friends, and I look forward to Career Mode.
Just wanted to throw my two cents in here! I've been both a wrestling fan and gamer for about 30 years now. I have watched a lot of wrestling and have played a huge amount of wrestling games from both sides of the Pacific. In particular, I'm one of those people who holds the AKI wrestling games in a rarified air (especially the N64 Virtual Pro Wrestling titles). That said, I have never given much time to Mdickie's games. I decided to rectify this with Wresting Empire hitting the Switch.
Thus far, I've only played one match, which turned into a chaotic brawl between lookalikes for Randy Savage and IRS (my heart has the softest spot for late 80's/early 90's WWF). Let me describe how things went down. Savage enters the arena, and immediately starts hugging and kissing his manager, Miss Elizabeth. I realize that I'm in control of Savage, so we start making our way down to ringside, and I inadvertantly start walking on top of the guardrail, which is how I ultimately get to the ring. Once I get there, I realize that IRS has grabbed one of the ringside cameras and is filming my every move.
Savage is currently some kind of champion, so the match starts off with him holding the title belt over one shoulder. IRS quickly uses his camera as a weapon, and knocks Savage to the ground. He then grabs the belt, puts it on his waist, and starts posing to the crowd. The nerve of the guy! Savage gets back to his feet, and the two end up in this tumbling brawl on the mat that sort of resembles the old dustball fights you might see on Looney Tunes. Weapons have magically appeared in the ring, so I scrabble over to a broken table and start wailing away on IRS. By now, Elizabeth has chased IRS's manager Ted Dibiase into the ring, and starts hitting him with a pipe. It really kind of feels a little like I'm playing River City Ransom.
At some point, the action spills out of the ring. Having lost my grip on the table, I spot a grating of some kind and grab that to counter the chair IRS is coming at me with. Fortunately, I manage to club the chair out of his hands. The match is set to end when one wrestler's health expires, and as you might expect, Savage has made short work of IRS's life bar with all of these weapons. If Dibiase had been officially wrestling Elizabeth, he would have lost too - she was an absolute maniac.
So, not sure if these are "secrets" so much as glitches, but here goes. First, when you head up the stairs going from the first to second floor, there's a patch of ceiling in the staircase that has no collision. You can therefore jump through the ceiling onto a higher point on the stairs. Second, if you use the wing cap to fly to the second highest roof outside the castle, the back wall of the tower can be run up, allowing you to reach the very top of the palace. These are probably well known now, but it was really cool to discover these back in 1997.
This is probably my favorite series of games ever created. Not just wrestling games, but games period. To this day, I feel a hole in my gaming life where new AKI wrestling games aren't filling the void.
There are actually six games total in this series (eight, I suppose, if you count WCW vs The World and Virtual Pro Wrestling on the PSX). World Tour, Revenge, WrestleMania 2000, and No Mercy hit Stateside, of course. However, Japan had the best deal with Virtual Pro Wrestling 64 and Virtual Pro Wrestling 2. VPW64 was like a super version of World Tour - it featured about 60 additional wrestlers (including almost all the World Tour roster), Revenge's edit mode, and additional moves not seen in World Tour. VPW2 was probably the best of the bunch. A truly amazing base roster of over 100 wrestlers, a fun season mode, and I'd argue the best Create a Wrestler in the series (tons of additional outfit pieces, including a mask editor). I proudly own all of these games, and heartily recommend the Japanese games to any interested in the series!
And, to each some of the other comments, it really was awesome to be a wrestling fan in high school. I had been a fan for years prior, so suddenly I shared a hobby with basically everyone (but knew more about it that anyone else). At a pep rally in 10th grade, the band that was playing music for the event hit the opening of the New Age Outlaw's theme. The entire gym shouted back, "Oh, You Didn't Know?" Good times.
Comments 4
Re: Review: Wrestling Empire - A Love Letter To Pro Wrestling That Falls Foul Of Hilarious Bugs
(CONTINUED)
So, here's the thing. If you're looking for something that plays like the N64 AKI stuff, this isn't it. There are passing resemblences to that system, but the refinement and deliberate pace of those games is not here. HOWEVER, I don't think I've ever played a wrestling game that features this much lunacy and chaos. Controls are absolutely loose and a little floaty (my one real complaint is actually that I'd love to see the animations get a little more snap and impact), but I very much regard this as a feature since it also means that moves and actions just kind of flow into one another. It's button mashy in a satisfying way. Plus, the game played out in such an unpredictable way that it was impossible not to be entertained.
"Buggy" isn't the right word here. 2K18 was buggy - the framerate was pretty bad, wrestlers would glitch out, there was a fair amount of sound popping, created characters would look wrong in-match, etc. These are all things that universally detract from the experience. But Wrestling Empire? I would just describe this as loose. It seems to regard any event in the match as fairly fluid in that one situation can potentially move into any number of other situations, which makes it unpredictable. Definitely falls into the "it's not a bug, it's a feature!" category for me. It has an ton of charm in its chaotic approach to gameplay that absolutely mimicks what's fun about pro wrestling in the first place (something that modern wrestling also forgets too often these days).
Also, as an aside on the look of the game: it definitely isn't goig to win awards for its graphics. The screenshots will tell you everything you need to know about this, and I doubt Mdickie would try telling you he is an artist. That said, there are little touches I am definitely impressed by. Taking a second look at the wrestlers will reveal a surprising amount of detail in their textures, right down to animated faces. Blood will splatter onto the ring canvas. Wrestlers have a ton of customization options for outfits it seems. And, as this review points out, gameplay remains smooth and responsive throughout. I've long wondered what would have happened if the attitude of developers had been to sacrifice intense graphical fidelity in favor of aiming to get more stuff on screen running at peak performance. Judging from that battle royal video posted, I would say I greatly prefer this option.
I apologize for the long post (hopefully my passion for the subject matter comes through). If you skim to the end, I'll leave you with this. The Switch has slim pickings for wrestling fans. We have 2K18, which is a buggy mess. We have something pretty lackluster in Battlegrounds (which probably could have learned a thing or two form Mdickie). And we have Boxy Pro Wrestling, which is definitely charming but is probably too simple to really scratch the wrestling itch for a lot of people. After one match, I'm going to say that Wrestling Empire is probably the best wrestling game you can get on the Switch right now. If you can get around some of the presentational shortcomings, I think you're in for a treat. I cannot wait to try this out with friends, and I look forward to Career Mode.
Re: Review: Wrestling Empire - A Love Letter To Pro Wrestling That Falls Foul Of Hilarious Bugs
Just wanted to throw my two cents in here! I've been both a wrestling fan and gamer for about 30 years now. I have watched a lot of wrestling and have played a huge amount of wrestling games from both sides of the Pacific. In particular, I'm one of those people who holds the AKI wrestling games in a rarified air (especially the N64 Virtual Pro Wrestling titles). That said, I have never given much time to Mdickie's games. I decided to rectify this with Wresting Empire hitting the Switch.
Thus far, I've only played one match, which turned into a chaotic brawl between lookalikes for Randy Savage and IRS (my heart has the softest spot for late 80's/early 90's WWF). Let me describe how things went down. Savage enters the arena, and immediately starts hugging and kissing his manager, Miss Elizabeth. I realize that I'm in control of Savage, so we start making our way down to ringside, and I inadvertantly start walking on top of the guardrail, which is how I ultimately get to the ring. Once I get there, I realize that IRS has grabbed one of the ringside cameras and is filming my every move.
Savage is currently some kind of champion, so the match starts off with him holding the title belt over one shoulder. IRS quickly uses his camera as a weapon, and knocks Savage to the ground. He then grabs the belt, puts it on his waist, and starts posing to the crowd. The nerve of the guy! Savage gets back to his feet, and the two end up in this tumbling brawl on the mat that sort of resembles the old dustball fights you might see on Looney Tunes. Weapons have magically appeared in the ring, so I scrabble over to a broken table and start wailing away on IRS. By now, Elizabeth has chased IRS's manager Ted Dibiase into the ring, and starts hitting him with a pipe. It really kind of feels a little like I'm playing River City Ransom.
At some point, the action spills out of the ring. Having lost my grip on the table, I spot a grating of some kind and grab that to counter the chair IRS is coming at me with. Fortunately, I manage to club the chair out of his hands. The match is set to end when one wrestler's health expires, and as you might expect, Savage has made short work of IRS's life bar with all of these weapons. If Dibiase had been officially wrestling Elizabeth, he would have lost too - she was an absolute maniac.
Re: Video: Five Super Mario 64 Secrets You May Have Missed - Part One
So, not sure if these are "secrets" so much as glitches, but here goes. First, when you head up the stairs going from the first to second floor, there's a patch of ceiling in the staircase that has no collision. You can therefore jump through the ceiling onto a higher point on the stairs. Second, if you use the wing cap to fly to the second highest roof outside the castle, the back wall of the tower can be run up, allowing you to reach the very top of the palace. These are probably well known now, but it was really cool to discover these back in 1997.
Re: Nintendo 64x64: WCW/nWo Revenge
This is probably my favorite series of games ever created. Not just wrestling games, but games period. To this day, I feel a hole in my gaming life where new AKI wrestling games aren't filling the void.
There are actually six games total in this series (eight, I suppose, if you count WCW vs The World and Virtual Pro Wrestling on the PSX). World Tour, Revenge, WrestleMania 2000, and No Mercy hit Stateside, of course. However, Japan had the best deal with Virtual Pro Wrestling 64 and Virtual Pro Wrestling 2. VPW64 was like a super version of World Tour - it featured about 60 additional wrestlers (including almost all the World Tour roster), Revenge's edit mode, and additional moves not seen in World Tour. VPW2 was probably the best of the bunch. A truly amazing base roster of over 100 wrestlers, a fun season mode, and I'd argue the best Create a Wrestler in the series (tons of additional outfit pieces, including a mask editor). I proudly own all of these games, and heartily recommend the Japanese games to any interested in the series!
And, to each some of the other comments, it really was awesome to be a wrestling fan in high school. I had been a fan for years prior, so suddenly I shared a hobby with basically everyone (but knew more about it that anyone else). At a pep rally in 10th grade, the band that was playing music for the event hit the opening of the New Age Outlaw's theme. The entire gym shouted back, "Oh, You Didn't Know?" Good times.