45 WWF Smackdown 2 -v - WWF No Mercy 84
- Thread starter Lee
- Start date
- Status
Wade's Public Transit Bomb
Championship Contender
I went with Smackdown 2. As someone who easily, and I stress the word "easily," gets bored with fighting games, Smackdown 2's career mode and CAW has been the best I've played out of any wrestling game. Your CAW just isn't totally down when you get done making it. You have to play the season mode if you want any good attributes or alliances. I love that, for the most part, you really don't know what to expect when you are playing the season mode. And that season mode could prolly go on forever.
Not to discredit No Mercy. I've played it a lot too. But I think SD 2 is much more compelling to play for long periods of time.
Not to discredit No Mercy. I've played it a lot too. But I think SD 2 is much more compelling to play for long periods of time.
TheKingHustla
The Man Who Saw R-Truth Beat Cena!
Smackdown 2 did it for me. The Season mode was something that me and 3 other buddies could play and actually enjoy. I still havn't found a season or career mode like that yet in a wrestling game.... oh wait, cause none exist like that anymore. My bad. I always wished that they would input something like that in future WWE games but it never happened, because me and my cousins just like to control our one wrestler a piece, and let the rest of the company do what it wants to. Universe could be done similarly I guess, but not the same, but I digress.
Smackdown 2 it is.
Smackdown 2 it is.
Stormtrooper
Championship Contender
WWF No Mercy, when it came out, was considered the best wrestling game of all time. WWF Smackdown 2: Know Your Role was considered a good wrestling game.
No Mercy had the greatest Career mode of all time in a wrestling video game. It was a path to a championship, but there were storylines and the story progressed different based on your result in the match (not even just wins of losses, but things like making the opponent bleed, how long it took, put them through the table, etc). Smackdown 2 had a good career mode, but nobody talks about it today.
No Mercy had (at the time) the greatest CAW mode in a WWF/WWE game. Smackdown 2 had a good one. No Mercy had better graphics for its time.
Finally, I have actually played both of these games withing the past 2 months. Both games have lost a considerable amount of appeal for me, but No mercy was still a fun game, whereas Smackdown 2 was just terrible. The graphics were shit, the game-play was almost as bad, and worst of all (I know this is common for the era, but still) the load times were fucking terrible. You'd sit there for 20 seconds just to load a pointless entrance (which is the guy walking with the video playing in the background).
No Mercy wins this round hands down. It won't go much further, but it's so much better then Smackdown 2 it's not even funny.
No Mercy had the greatest Career mode of all time in a wrestling video game. It was a path to a championship, but there were storylines and the story progressed different based on your result in the match (not even just wins of losses, but things like making the opponent bleed, how long it took, put them through the table, etc). Smackdown 2 had a good career mode, but nobody talks about it today.
No Mercy had (at the time) the greatest CAW mode in a WWF/WWE game. Smackdown 2 had a good one. No Mercy had better graphics for its time.
Finally, I have actually played both of these games withing the past 2 months. Both games have lost a considerable amount of appeal for me, but No mercy was still a fun game, whereas Smackdown 2 was just terrible. The graphics were shit, the game-play was almost as bad, and worst of all (I know this is common for the era, but still) the load times were fucking terrible. You'd sit there for 20 seconds just to load a pointless entrance (which is the guy walking with the video playing in the background).
No Mercy wins this round hands down. It won't go much further, but it's so much better then Smackdown 2 it's not even funny.
Wade's Public Transit Bomb
Championship Contender
I don't see how No Mercy had a better career/season mode than Know Your Role. It was very linear and it was just the same people over and over. The guys in the IC belt path weren't seen in the WWE belt path. It just seemed very repetitive at the time and unimaginative now.
With the flexibility of the Know Your Role season mode, there is still probably someone to this day playing in like year 2150 for all we know. It was full of surprises and unlockables galore.
With the flexibility of the Know Your Role season mode, there is still probably someone to this day playing in like year 2150 for all we know. It was full of surprises and unlockables galore.
Stormtrooper
Championship Contender
Not in the fucking least. It was the furthest thing from the same stuff over and over, as the stories branched in many, many different ways. Sorry if I'd rather have storylines that could go in many many different ways over randomly generated matches week in, week out, with 10 hours of load-time for little benefit.
And I fail to see the problem with the game accurately representing current standing on TV. You can take random insertion of people in title scenes, and I'll take guys who belong there being there. Sorry if I don't want to see Hardcore Holly, Kurrgan, or Pete Gas wrestling for the WWF Title in a video game, I find that stupid, as none of those guys belong wrestling anywhere near the top of a card, since they suck.
No Mercy accurately portrayed the WWF roster in 2000 in its story mode, and was diverse enough that, while it was possible to 100% complete all 7 titles, you would want to replay it because the game was fun, the stories were decent, and you can always play as a different person. Not to mention there's a sense of accomplishment with getting a 100% completion for the WWF Title (which I finally did about 5 MONTHS ago).
You're right, someone can play the season mode for that long. But the season mode, and the game will still suck. Again, that's the biggest problem with the game, it doesn't stand the test of time at all. Playing it now, the game sucks major ass. No Mercy doesn't suck major ass now, it just isn't good. Isn't good in 2011 >>>> Sucks major ass in 2011, as such I chose the better game to me, which was WWF No Mercy.
Hulk Hogan's Brother
Stop asking me what I'm gonna do!!!
I find it odd that even though so many posters have voted for No Mercy, nobody has actually pointed out what exactly makes the game so good.
Gameplay
No Mercy had the gameplay that is comparable to even the most current wrestling games. In this game, you got value for your moves. You could target a body part of the opponent and soon you would find your opponent clutching that body part. You perform a submission manouvre on that body part and you could be almost certain of getting a victory.
The same thing could be said about even non submission moves. Even a stall suplex could keep your opponent down for quite some time. You could have a decent 10 minute long match in this game without getting bored for an instant.
Smackdown 2, on the other hand had terrible gameplay. It was as if the spirit of the CPU had been infused with the powers of Hogan, Cena and The Undertaker. The CPU would no sell even the most powerful non finishing move. The Rock had People's Elbow as his finisher in this game and The Rock Bottom as a favourite move, and the Rock Bottom did almost no damage. The same could be said for Undertaker's chokeslam. More often than not, your opponent would get up in an instant. In this game you had a TLC match and even a Hell in a Cell match but they were only cool visuals, nothing else.
You could put your opponent through a table and he would get up in an instant. If your opponent missed a high risk manouvre of the ladder, you would probably expect him to hurt a bit. Nope. He rolled through in a jiffy. You could fall off the goddamn Cell in a HIAC match and then climb up the very next instant as if nothing had happened.
Smackdown 2 was a bit like an arcade game. You performed some moves and kept raising your energy bar till you could hit your finisher. The damage of the earlier moves you had performed on your opponent would not be seen at all. No Mercy was the complete opposite of that. Moves meant much more and were more difficult to perform and the damage sustained would be carried on for the remainder of the match.
Actually Smackdown 2 had a decent season mode only for the first year in the game when you got to unlock guys like Austin, HBK, Cactus Jack and so on. After that it was repititive, boring shit. Most often matches would be made after your character talked trash to some other guy backstage and presto...you would have a match against that guy on that show. You would feud with the guy for one or two months till you repeated the same process with another guy.
No Mercy had a good season mode where you could actually replay some of the classic storylines of the Attitude Era. The feuds in the game were based on classic feuds like Austin/ Mcmahon, Foley/ HHH, Rock/ Triple H, Jericho/ Triple H and many more. The trick is to lose the title at various points of your season mode or it had a chance of getting repititive.
MOD-ability
Another point that goes in No Mercy's favour is that it is easily mod-able and hack able and can be enjoyed even to the present day with newer rosters. Some of it is possible in SD 2 also but the process is much more difficult and the end results are often not good. But then SD2 never had great graphics.
Hey, that's another point for No Mercy.
Gameplay
No Mercy had the gameplay that is comparable to even the most current wrestling games. In this game, you got value for your moves. You could target a body part of the opponent and soon you would find your opponent clutching that body part. You perform a submission manouvre on that body part and you could be almost certain of getting a victory.
The same thing could be said about even non submission moves. Even a stall suplex could keep your opponent down for quite some time. You could have a decent 10 minute long match in this game without getting bored for an instant.
Smackdown 2, on the other hand had terrible gameplay. It was as if the spirit of the CPU had been infused with the powers of Hogan, Cena and The Undertaker. The CPU would no sell even the most powerful non finishing move. The Rock had People's Elbow as his finisher in this game and The Rock Bottom as a favourite move, and the Rock Bottom did almost no damage. The same could be said for Undertaker's chokeslam. More often than not, your opponent would get up in an instant. In this game you had a TLC match and even a Hell in a Cell match but they were only cool visuals, nothing else.
You could put your opponent through a table and he would get up in an instant. If your opponent missed a high risk manouvre of the ladder, you would probably expect him to hurt a bit. Nope. He rolled through in a jiffy. You could fall off the goddamn Cell in a HIAC match and then climb up the very next instant as if nothing had happened.
Smackdown 2 was a bit like an arcade game. You performed some moves and kept raising your energy bar till you could hit your finisher. The damage of the earlier moves you had performed on your opponent would not be seen at all. No Mercy was the complete opposite of that. Moves meant much more and were more difficult to perform and the damage sustained would be carried on for the remainder of the match.
Actually Smackdown 2 had a decent season mode only for the first year in the game when you got to unlock guys like Austin, HBK, Cactus Jack and so on. After that it was repititive, boring shit. Most often matches would be made after your character talked trash to some other guy backstage and presto...you would have a match against that guy on that show. You would feud with the guy for one or two months till you repeated the same process with another guy.
No Mercy had a good season mode where you could actually replay some of the classic storylines of the Attitude Era. The feuds in the game were based on classic feuds like Austin/ Mcmahon, Foley/ HHH, Rock/ Triple H, Jericho/ Triple H and many more. The trick is to lose the title at various points of your season mode or it had a chance of getting repititive.
MOD-ability
Another point that goes in No Mercy's favour is that it is easily mod-able and hack able and can be enjoyed even to the present day with newer rosters. Some of it is possible in SD 2 also but the process is much more difficult and the end results are often not good. But then SD2 never had great graphics.
Hey, that's another point for No Mercy.
I definitely think people are underselling Smackdown 2, but I'm still voting for No Mercy. This was my favorite era of video games as I was in the prime of my adolescence and wrestling video games were the next best thing to the product itself. My friends and I would play No Mercy for days on end, and it helped spawn the only character I've ever developed for a video game or e-fed in Aries (which I am). My tag team partner? Taurus of course! Which was my best buddy at the time Andy, who was a Taurus as well. Anyways we logged SO MANY HOURS playing that game. The career mode was crazy good, but the best thing of all was the gameplay itself. Probably some of the best mechanics in a wrestling game ever, everything just flowed well and the addition of being able to utilize weapons from under the ring or out of the crowd was a big deal at the time. Smackdown 2 was a huge deal when it came out and it shaped the direction the franchise would take for years to come, but at it's heart it's simply an inferior game to No Mercy.
- Status
