Ranking the PS1 Pro Wrestling Games Worst to Best

Playing through the PS1 Wrestling games has been an experience. I played some of the worst games I’ve ever played and some spectacular games I’ve never tried. There were also some amazing games and a few that I liked more than others.

I’ve watched as the WCW games took a serious nosedive in quality, and the WWF games improved considerably. In many ways, the WCW games followed the trend of the two companies at the time. The developers of the WCW games did try new things, but none worked out that well.

I changed my opinion on a few games as this list went on. Some that I thought were horrible ended up being okay. There were also a few games that I disagreed with other retrospective reviewers. I probably like WWF Warzone more than most, but it isn’t nearly as good as the best games on this list.

Bottom Line up Front: The Smackdown Games are the Best, and the WCW games took the bottom spots.

WCW Backstage Assault

Developer: Kodiak Interactive

Genre: Wrestling Arcade

Review Score: 40/100 (Metacritic)

This is one of the worst wrestling games I’ve played. The developers took one thing that could’ve been a fun match and made it the entire game. The worst part is that the game is too repetitive and boring.

There is no story in the game. Every match takes place in one of several backstage areas. Nothing takes place in the ring, and there are no options to do anything other than have a hardcore match. The graphics are hit-and-miss. WCW Backstage Assault is just a bad game.

In many ways, this reflects what was going on in WCW at the time—chaos for the sake of chaos. It reminds me of some of the games on the NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis. Several of those games were built around gimmick matches like Steelcage or Royal Rumbles. The difference is that those games also had regular matches.

WCW/NOW Thunder

Developer: Inland Productions

Genre: Wrestling Arcade

Review Score: 58/100 (GameRankings)

WCW/NWO Thunder is one of the worst games I’ve ever played. The only reason it is above Backstage Assault is that it tries to be a wrestling game. This is worse than WCW Nitro because there is more of it than Nitro.

Thunder feels like it is somewhere between an arcade game and a simulation. The controls are bad, but the graphics are good for the time. The developers tried to make this game better than WCW Nitro but only succeeded in adding more terrible things to an already bad game. Grapple moves, and a test of strength system were added, which just made the game worse.

 This isn’t just a lousy wrestling game; it is a bad video game. Inland Productions tried to make a good game, but they made a terrible one. I tried to find the good things in the game, but there wasn’t much to say. The controls and graphics got worse in this game than in WCW Nitro.

WCW Nitro

Developer: Inland Productions

Genre: Wrestling Arcade

Review Score: 6.5/10 (EGM)

This is an awful game, but I can almost forgive it because it was the first wrestling game from this developer, and the graphics are great for the time. However, the controls are awful and unresponsive at times. The developers also made some bizarre decisions, like not having grapple moves.

This game felt like a step backward for wrestling games. At the time, wrestling games were becoming simulations instead of an arcade experience. It also didn’t help that this game followed WCW vs. The World, which is much better.

I remember always seeing this game and WCW/NWO Thunder when I was buying games in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I didn’t play it because I was more interested in WWF at the time, and I was playing Warzone and Attitude. Now that I’ve played both games, I think they would’ve been regrettable weekend rentals.

The Simpsons Wrestling

Developer: Big Ape Productions

Genre: Wrestling Arcade

Review Score: 32/100 (Metacritic)

When I first played this game, I thought it was the worst wrestling game on the PS1. Little did I know that the WCW games would worsen considerably over time. The Simpsons Wrestling is an okay arcade game, but it isn’t as good as the other arcade wrestling games on the PS1.

The game can be a little cheap when you first start. It plays more like a beat’em up or a fighting game than a wrestling game. The controls are easy to learn, special moves are easy to do, and I wouldn’t say I like the graphics, but they aren’t too bad.

This isn’t as bad as I first thought. I wouldn’t say I like the game that much, but it is considerably better than WCW Nitro, WCW/NWO Thunder, and WCW Backstage Assault, which are much worse. This game has a charm that is missing from others on this list.

WWF In Your House

Developer: Sculptured Software

Genre: Wrestling Arcade

Review Score: 5.9/10 (GameSpot)

WWF In Your House is the sequel to WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game, but it wasn’t released in the arcades and wasn’t made by Midway. This meant the new developers didn’t benefit from using the digitization techniques that Midway had perfected, which makes the visuals worse than those in WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game.

In Your House feels like it is trying to be a fighting game. There is no crowd, and the ring is in themed stages, like in Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter II. The controls are okay, and the roster is fine. The game was released in the mid-90s, so the roster is limited by who worked for the WWF. Sadly, Savio Vega isn’t in the game.

This game doesn’t look as good as WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game. The gameplay is similar, but In Your House has more gameplay options. This was a fun game for a little while, but I would rather play WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game.

WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game

Developer: Sculptured Software

Genre: Wrestling Arcade

Review Score: 9/10 (EGM) I have no idea what game they played.

This was a little disappointing. This arcade game was good for the Sega Genesis and SNES but didn’t make a good PS1 game. I would’ve expected something to be added to the game for it to be of value.

Like the arcade, SNES, and Genesis games, the PS1 game has a tiny roster and only two game modes. The graphics look very good, which is what you should expect from the PS1. Unfortunately, nothing was added to the game, which made this a relatively shallow experience.

WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game isn’t a bad game. However, this is a bad port of the game because there isn’t all that great. The controls are good, and the graphics are good, but it isn’t anything special.

ECW Hardcore Revolution

Developer: Acclaim Studios Salt Lake City

Genre: Wrestling Simulation

Review Score: 55/100

This starts a block of four games that use a similar game engine. Little distinguishes these four games, so I leaned heavily on my experience with them. I felt that ECW Hardcore Revolution was the worst of the four games.

It is a reskin of WWF Attitude, which was part of the problem. It made the game feel like the WWF reboot of ECW in the late 2000s—it didn’t feel like an ECW game at all. Much like WWF Attitude, this game can be very hard.

I don’t think this is a bad game. It isn’t as good as Attitude or Anarchy Rulz, but I don’t believe this is a bad game. Maybe my standards aren’t as high as some people’s. I enjoyed the game, but I don’t think it feels like an ECW game. I’ll get this out of the way here: WWF Warzone, WWF Attitude, ECW Hardcore Revolution, and ECW Anarchy Rulz all have the same control scheme where you have to open a menu to see what moves are available.

ECW Anarchy Rulz

Developer: Acclaim Studios Salt Lake City

Genre: Wrestling Simulation

Review Score: 43/100 (Metacritic)

This is the most ECW wrestling game I’ve played. While it is still tame compared to the TV show, it is more extreme than the WWF games. Unfortunately, this game is still hamstrung by being based on the WWF Attitude.

Anarchy Rulz is a modified version of WWF Attitude, but it has the same control scheme. You have to open a menu to see what moves you can make. The graphics look okay for the most part. The blood in the game is sometimes a little odd, as wounds just appear on the character models.

I like this game a little more than Hardcore Revolution. They’re basically the same game, but there are more game modes in Anarchy Rulz. Having a stable career mode is cool, but it is still the same tedious career mode you find in ECW Hardcore Revolution and WWF Attitude.

WWF Warzone

Developer: Iguana West

Genre: Wrestling Arcade

Review Score: 80/100 (Game Rankings)

WWF Warzone feels like a bridge between an arcade game and a simulation. The graphics are okay, and the roster is pretty good. The control scheme is a little annoying, but it works well for a game like this. I also think this is the most straightforward game of the four to play.

I got this game confused with WWF Attitude. It doesn’t have the career mode that Attitude has and is more of an arcade experience. One thing that I love about this game is the use of live promos. The footage is fantastic, and it adds a lot to the game.

I remember renting this game when I was a kid. It was a ton of fun to play with my friend Drew. Going back to this game recently, I realized that I still like the game, but I would rather play one of the Smackdown games.

WWF Attitude

Developer: Acclaim Studios Salt Lake City

Genre: Wrestling Simulation

Review Score: 79/100 (GameRankings)

While I don’t like this game as much now as I did in the 1990s, it is a step towards what wrestling games would be. WWF Attitude introduced a career mode that was cool at the time but very tedious now. It was a great start but a slog to get through.

The graphics and gameplay are okay, even though you have to open a menu to see what moves you can and can not do. The career mode is very tedious, but it was fun at the time. It isn’t a bad game, but it has a wonky control scheme that isn’t as much fun as it was in the 1990s.

This game, along with Warzone, was a constant when I was renting games in the 1990s. I don’t remember if my friends and I made it far into the career mode, but I know that we played it a lot. This was one of the many games I thought was great, and when I went back to play it, I was disappointed.

WCW Mayhem

Developer: Kodiak Interactive

Genre: Wrestling Arcade

Review Score: 73/100 (GameRankings)

This was a fun game, but it wasn’t as good as the WWF Smackdown games. It is much better than the Nitro, Thunder, and Backstage Assault. I do like WCW vs. The World more than this game. It almost looks like WCW Backstage Assault took parts of this game but cut out everything that made Mayhem good.

Mayhem is a decent game with solid controls and okay graphics. It is easy to learn and is almost as good as Power Move Pro Wrestling and WCW vs. The World. This game has some strange things, like the momentum meter, which is a little odd.

When the game came out, this was a Christmas gift for me. I wasn’t a fan of WCW, but I had watched parts of Monday Night Nitro then. I didn’t know too many of the wrestlers, but thankfully, that didn’t matter for this game.

Power Move Pro Wrestling

Developer: Yuke’s

Genre: Wrestling Arcade

Review Score: 3/5 (Next Generation)

This game was awesome! I hadn’t heard of it until I started playing wrestling games on the different retro systems, and I wish I had known about it when I was a kid. This is a reskin of another game changed because the publisher didn’t think a Japanese wrestling game would sell in the US, which is a fair assumption.

While the game has no story, the manual gives each wrestler a backstory. The controls are easy to learn, and the game is fun to play. The graphics are a little dated, but they would’ve looked good in the mid-1990s. It looks a little like WCW vs. The World or one of the N64 wrestling games.

This was the hidden gem of the PS1 wrestling games for me. I know plenty of people already knew about this game, but for me, it was a pleasant surprise. It seems like there is at least one game on every system that I’m surprised by or wish I had played when I was a kid. Power Move Pro Wrestling is the one that stands out to me when I look at the games released on the PS1.

WCW vs. The World

Developer: The Man Breeze

Genre: Wrestling Arcade

Review Score: 74/100 (GameRankings)

WCW vs. The World is a fantastic game, and I wish I had known about it back in the 1990s. The game is a reskin or a port of a Japanese game. This was pretty common for the WCW games for some reason. It did make the WCW games a little better than the WWF games for a while.

The gameplay is terrific. The spirit meter was a little confusing early on, but it made sense after I looked it up in the manual. Still, I wouldn’t say I liked it, but at least it made sense. The graphics are the biggest issue I had with the game. It isn’t the game’s fault. WCW vs. The World is a product of the time it was made, and the graphics would’ve been acceptable for the time.

 This game and Power Move Pro Wrestling were fun to play. This game is a little better, but I like both of them. I love that there are a bunch of wrestling promotions included in the game that I don’t know about. It would’ve been awesome to have played this game in the 1990s, and I’m glad I went and played it for this list.

WWF Smackdown

Developer: Yuke’s

Genre: Wrestling Simulation

Review Score: 87/100 (GameRankings)

This is a fantastic game. I played it with my friend Drew quite a bit. He bought the game first, and after I beat him a bunch of times in a row, he sold his copy. I don’t think I’m particularly good at it, but I was better than Drew that night.

Smackdown has excellent graphics and superb gameplay, and it is an easy game to play. The career mode is a huge upgrade over WWF Attitude and the ECW games. It was a wonderful game to go back and play this game.

Playing this brought back some wonderful memories. It is the same feeling I get when watching retrospectives on 1990s wrestling. I’ll never forget playing this game with my friends before pay-per-views and WWF RAW.

WWF Smackdown 2

Developer: Yuke’s

Genre: Wrestling Simulation

Review Score: 90/100 (Metacritic)

This is my favorite wrestling game on the PS1 and one of my favorite games on the system. It greatly improves everything in the first game. While I don’t have as many memories of this game as I do of the first, it was still fun to play.

The graphics and gameplay are similar to the first Smackdown, but Smackdown 2 has a better roster. The career mode is awesome! It is a little better than the first game and considerably better than WWF Attitude.

While this game came late to the PS1’s life, it is an important step in the evolution of wrestling games. In some ways, it mirrored how the pro wrestling industry was going to evolve. As the other companies went out of business, it would become WWF/WWE-centric. Wrestling games would largely abandon the arcade style and become more simulations.

Conclusion

It was a lot of fun to play through these wrestling games. There were some awesome games that I’d never played, a few I didn’t know about, and several that I thought were terrible. I also changed my mind about a few games after playing others.

I changed my mind about The Simpsons Wrestling. When I first started, I didn’t think there could be a game worse than that. Then I played WCW Nitro, Thunder, and Backstage Assault. Those games are also worse than The Simpsons Wrestling, and it isn’t even close.

The four games that used the same engine were very interesting. They weren’t great games by any stretch, but they were at least interesting. WWF Warzone and Attitude were games I played before and still enjoy. The two ECW games, Hardcore Revolution and Anarchy Rulz, were okay but nothing special.

The WCW games were a fascinating journey to play through. They started great and ended with a whimper. WCW vs. The World was awesome, and WCW Mayhem was pretty great. However, Nitro, Thunder, and Backstage Assault were pretty terrible.

The N64 games are up next for me to play. There is some crossover between the N64 and the PS1, but there are also a ton of exclusives. I’ve only played one of them as far as I can remember, and I look forward to playing them.