Professional wrestling has come a long way since the attitude era. Everything is much more hyped up right now and safer as compared to those days. If the actual business is better, than its a given that the games would be better too; well, at least graphic wise. Every hardcore wrestling or WWE fan remembers playing Smackdown! Here Comes The Pain on the PS2.

Games like that aren’t made anymore but all we can do is try to find games that give a similar experience. Although most of the time you won’t because of how unique they were. Let’s look at the Top 5 wrestling games to play in 2024.

Ranking The Best WWE Games Of All Time

Wrestling games today are more graphic oriented and sort of compromise on the gameplay. The arcadey elements of WWE All Stars or Smackdown! Here Comes The Pain aren’t present in the modern games as they are more grounded and life-like. Take WWE 2K24 for example, it almost looks real. Although, that can be fun for a casual gamer, hardcore wrestling fans enjoy the over the top fiesta that were All Stars and the Smackdown! games.

Smackdown Vs Raw 2007

Kicking off the list, we have Smackdown vs Raw 2007 which has a huge roster of WWE Legends from Bret Hart to Dusty Rhodes and Eddie Guerrero. The game’s exhibition mode featured many times of matches, it had a Season mode with unique storylines and you can also create your own superstars, stables and even championship belts.

Smackdown Vs Raw 2007 is what got most of the current generation of gamers in WWE games and for that, this game deserves its flowers. The wrestling is simple, the moves are hard hitting and the variety of matches and the sheer amount of content will happily keep you playing for hours.

Note: To play this, you can download emulators and ROMs.

WWE All Stars

We could easily write a whole essay on WWE All Stars. The overall satisfaction you got when you played the game was off the charts. The presentation of wrestlers in the game is exactly how we saw them when we were little. The physiques and moves, even though cartoonish and arcade-like enhanced the gameplay and made it more fun.

There were two prevalent game modes besides the Exhibition mode named the Path of Champions and the Fantasy Warfare. Fantasy Warfare pit a modern wrestler vs a Legend, for example; Drew McIntyre vs Rowdy Roddy Piper or Stone Cold Steve Austin vs CM Punk. By playing as the respective characters in the Fantasy match, you get to unlock them for use in the exhibition mode.

Path of Champions let you choose a Superstar and pit them against the WWE Champion, Randy Orton, the World Heavyweight Champion, The Undertaker or the Tag Team Champions, Degeneration X. All in all, this game was a breath of fresh air in comparison to other titles.

WWE 2K14

WWE 2K14 made some pretty good changes over the previous title WWE 13. It was also the first game in the WWE 2K series which is still going on to this day. The walking, running and movement system became more fluid while the moves remained the same. The interactivity increased as you could slam wrestlers on tables, chairs and even trash cans. They added catapult finishers which can be used while your opponent is in the air which made for cool recordings and the OMG! moments made for some life-like interactions.

However, the main event of this game is the 30 Years of WrestleMania mode which tells the story of WrestleMania and how important it has been for three decades. You play as various superstars in their WrestleMania matches and your goal is to simulate the exact match by achieving certain goals. These goals, when completed will create iconic moments which took place in that event.

WWE 2K14 made for hours of fun due to its simple approach in gameplay, the replay value of the 30 Years of WrestleMania mode and the Beat The Streak mode which let’s you face off against The Undertaker with a superstar of your choosing.

WWE 2K24

Ten years later, WWE 2K24 graces the consoles and it improves vastly on the mess ups the 2K games had in the previous years. With Cody Rhodes on the cover and the sheer variety of match types, 2K24 became a sensation among the wrestling fans. The Showcase of The Immortals mode is unique and the MyGM mode makes a return much to the delight of fans.

ECW also makes a return in the MyGM mode. There are new MyUniverse changes which make the mode more fun and engaging while the Super Finishers make the game feel more WWE inclined as we usually see Superstars spam Finishers during the last minutes of the match.

WWE 2K24 overall is quite a fun game to play alone or with friends if you have the bandwidth. As a WWE Fan who has kept up with the current era of wrestling and watches all the PLEs, you can’t ask for more.

Smackdown! Here Comes The Pain

Smackdown! Here Comes The Pain is what most WWE gamers started playing when they were children. For most people, this was their first WWE game and everyone of us has pleasant memories of it. SHCTP has lots of things going for it like its star studded roster featuring old school wrestlers like Eddie Guerrero, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Undertaker and of course, Brock Lesnar.

The arcade style gameplay is hard hitting and you can feel every move’s impact because it shakes the ring. The gameplay is fast, matches are quick and the controls are simple. The game modes are entertaining and diverse and the customization is brilliant. It is the perfect blueprint for a WWE game and there will never be a game quite like SHCTP.

This was our list of the best WWE games of all time. Let us know what you thought of it. If you want more game recommendations, check out the lists below.

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