Power Ranking: Best and Worst WWE Video Games of All Time

Ranking WWE video games is a tricky task, because it's extremely biased. Every person's favorite wrestling game is whatever they played at the age of 16. One has to get past that initial, fuzzy nostalgia to generate a reasonable, objective list.

There's also the question of style. Who's to say a sports simulator like 2K17 is superior or inferior to a more arcade-esque game like SmackDown? A lot of this comes down to personal taste and preference, and it also comes down to a player's level of investment. How much time is one willing to spend on practicing a WWE game? Because often, the more complex games have more rewarding returns.

Here are, as far as it's possible to discern, the best and worst WWE video games of all time. Leave all well-thought out, civil disagreements in the comments section.

WORST: WWE Crush Hour

System: PlayStation 2, GameCube, DOS

Date: 2003

WWE Crush Hour was a poor man’s Twisted Metal, with tiny stages, awkward voiceovers and inferior controls.

The flimsy storyline premise: Vince McMahon took over all television networks and decided to run a demolition-derby competition, starring the WWE Superstars.

This was, at best, a completely misfired attempt to do something different. At worst, it was the sort of cynical cash grab best reserved for late-night infomercials.

BEST: WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain

System: Playstation 2

Date: 2003

These days, WWE titles are more simulators than video games.

The goal of the recent 2K games is to be as realistic and immersive as possible, and to make the in-ring action mirror what one sees on television. But back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the SmackDown! video games were much more fast-paced and hyperbolic. The camera angles were extreme, the flashbulbs exploded from the audience and the wrestlers seemed larger than life. It was an intoxicating mix between realistic graphics and carnival theatricality.

Ultimately, "the best" comes down to personal taste and what you value in a wrestling game. And WWE SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain was the final evolution and best version of this era's blended gameplay. It was also the first SmackDown! game to include Legends alongside its main roster, and it was the first game to include a body-damage map, which allowed for smarter, limb-based targeting.

WORST: WWE 2K15

System: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Android, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, iOS

Date: 2014

WWE 2K15 was a victim of high expectations and time constraints.

The prior year’s WWE 2K14 was an excellent 2K debut, which took over the franchise from THQ after the latter company went bankrupt. It pioneered a WrestleMania showcase, which allowed you to relive and act out all the classic moments from years past. It also included an Undertaker “Beat the Streak” mode, which had you take on the Phenom in a hilariously one-sided fight.

But WWE 2K15, rather than advancing these innovations, took a massive step backward. Match stipulations were missing. Create-a-wrestler options were scant. The showcase mode, which focused on rivalries, paled in comparison to the prior year’s offering. The entire enterprise had a half-baked feel.

The next installment, 2K16, would redeem many of these deficiencies. But 2K15 still stands out as an odd misstep in what has thus far been a successful stewardship of the brand.

BEST: WWE 2K17

System: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows

Date: 2016

The newest game does not have a landmark, iconic mode like the WrestleMania showcase from 2K14. But WWE 2K17 does so many things right, one barely even misses it.

The motions are more organic. The moves are more varied. The creation options are more diverse. The story/career mode, which allows for player choice and RPG-esque character buffing, is engaging and well-done.

You get to play as the Four Horsewomen. But most importantly, after three unsuccessful tries at it, 2K nailed the flow of a wrestling match, better than any game ever has. The 2K series tinkered with the reversal and momentum system, and now, there is a sense of fluidity to the proceedings, with a definitive beginning, middle and end.

There are also additional opportunities for last-minute heroics, and the game rates your match by a classic star system, on a scale from 1-5, depending on how well you tell your story in the ring.

It isn’t loud. It isn’t boastful and "in your face" in the way those earlier games were. But it is the best game of its type and a natural evolution of what came prior to it.

By the way, Lesnar is overpowered, just like in real life. Pick him if you want to auto-win online.

WORST: WWE Wrestlemania XIX

System: Nintendo GameCube

Date: 2003

The controls and graphics were decent on this GameCube title. But what wasn’t decent was the storyline; it was awful.

Rather than fighting people in the ring, you spent 99 percent of the time fighting construction workers and security guards in 3D beat ‘em up levels. Why, oh why, did anyone decide that this was a good idea—to build a complex, ring-oriented fighting system, and then apply it to an environment with zero of those rules or boundaries?

If you wanted to play against a buddy? Fine. But you need a wrestling ring in a wrestling game, and without a player 2, this lame Tekken Force knockoff was a total waste of time.

BEST: SmackDown vs. Raw 2007

System: PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3

Date: 2006

The SmackDown vs. Raw games have a tendency to blend together in one’s memory. Across the board, there was a fairly consistent, high quality to all of them. But in retrospect, this particular iteration stood out for two reasons.

The first reason was the use of weight class. Unlike in games prior and since, Rey Mysterio could not pick up Viscera, and that made sense—you had to wear him down, limb from limb, to emerge victorious. It was speed sacrificed for strength or strength sacrificed for speed.

The second reason was the use of the locker room as the story-mode interface, where you could read text messages, listen to voicemails and respond to challenges. There was a sweet charm to the whole thing, where everything was still kayfabe and you partook in rivalries even when the cameras weren’t rolling.

WORST: WWF Wrestlemania the Arcade Game

System: Arcade game, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis, PlayStation, 32X, Sega Saturn, DOS, MS-DOS

Date: 1995

Here’s another cash-in, only instead of ripping off Twisted Metal, the developers ripped off Mortal Kombat.

A lot of fans have nostalgic memories of this game, mostly because of the beautiful, photorealistic graphics. But the game has not aged well. At all. The weapons and special attacks have a gimmicky, corny feel to them emblematic of the New Generation era. Shawn Michaels had a baseball bat and bled hearts. Doink had a big mallet and a joy buzzer. Undertaker hurled ghosts across the ring.

There’s silly and cartoonish. And then, there’s this.

BEST: WWF Wrestlefest

System: Arcade

Date: 1991

Now, here’s an example of "cartoonish" done properly! WWF Wrestlefest had big, colorful graphics, and every wrestler had his trademark finishers and signatures. The whole experience was a loud, quarter eating, button mashing delight; it was what every kid fantasized about when he or she imagined what it was like to be a WWE Superstar.

Wrestlefest also benefitted from the WWE roster at the time, which was the strongest it had been in years. Ted Dibiase. Jake Roberts. Legion of Doom. Demolition. Hulk Hogan. Ultimate Warrior. It was before injuries and the WCW mass exodus drained the locker room of its talent.

WORST: WWE Raw

System: Xbox

Date: 2002

Worst. Hit detection. Ever.

The graphics were decent. The controls were decent. But none of that mattered; the average match in WWE Raw consisted of two wrestlers flailing around and whiffing each other by a yard. Every punch, every kick and every grapple had to be perfectly placed and timed to connect. Eventually, you just got frustrated—who wanted to play a game where you could barely hit your opponent?—and you shut the game off.

And then, you booted up your Nintendo 64. A game made two years prior, for a less powerful system, was still the golden standard...

BEST: WWF No Mercy

System: Nintendo 64

Date: 2000

Here we are. The undisputed, unquestioned classic, the bar by which all wrestling games are judged.

WWF No Mercy did things that many other fighting games struggle with to this day, starting with its accessibility. It’s not easy to create a fighting game that satisfies both the button mashers, who just want to pick up and play, and the hardcore fans, who want to master the game’s intricacies and be the best. Balancing is a nightmare, but No Mercy managed to do this, with no patches, no buffs and no nerfs, 16 years ago.

No Mercy had one of the best Create-A-Wrestler suites of all time—what looks quaint now looked downright revolutionary at the time. The game also had the good fortune of being released at the tail end of the Attitude Era wrestling boom. So many people played this game and loved it, and thus, its sterling reputation today is assured. It is a tribute to its staying power that fans are still creating mods of WWF No Mercy today—updating the rosters to match the changing times.

WWF No Mercy is the best WWE game ever made, and it will take a monster of a game to knock this beast off its perch.