Once upon a time, if you were truly serious about playing only the finest wrestling games, you simply had to own an N64.
This was mainly due to the fact that AKI Corporation (known as syn Sophia these days) was involved in crafting some of the most beloved examples of the genre for Nintendo's 64-bit console – games which, even by modern standards, remain infectiously playable and stunningly entertaining.
Shawn "RGT 85" Long's new book, The Art Of N64 Wrestling Games, aims to celebrate titles such as WCW vs. nWo: World Tour, Virtual Pro Wrestling 2: Oudou Keishou, WCW/nWo Revenge, WWF WrestleMania 2000 and WWF No Mercy – with the latter game often being cited as one of the best wrestling video games of all time.
However, Long doesn't just focus on the illustrious output of AKI within these pages; he covers every wrestling game ever released on the N64, including Hudson's Japan-only New Japan Pro-Wrestling: Toukon Road Brave Spirits and New Japan Pro-Wrestling: Toukon Road 2 - The Next Generation, both of which were developed by Yuke's, a company that would later become the key developer behind the WWE series between 2000 and 2018.
Time is also afforded to some of the less-appealing N64 grapplers, and Long's decision to cover each game in chronological order is a wise one, as you can see how licences changed hands between the major players in the market at the time: Acclaim, THQ and Electronic Arts. Acclaim had been the custodian of the WWF/WWE franchise since the late '80s, and the shift to THQ at the close of the millennium was pretty shocking for many fans – although it did result in better titles, thanks to AKI's involvement.
Likewise, the coveted WCW deal went to Electronic Arts, who couldn't quite do it justice; WCW Mayhem and WCW Backstage Assault get a pretty stern dressing-down within the book, and for good reason. Poor old Acclaim, meanwhile, had to make do with the minnow ECW licence and warmed up its creaking WWF Attitude engine for ECW Hardcore Revolution – a game which was nowhere near as successful as Acclaim's past wrestling titles.
It's clear that Long and his small team of contributors really know their stuff when it comes to past wrestling games and wrestling history, but the book also devotes some space to looking at the cool stuff the modding community is doing with these classic titles. The book has a relatively clean layout and design, but isn't quite as polished as what we've seen from companies such as ROM and Bitmap Books – but then again, the team behind this project is so much smaller.
It's fair to say that the brilliant of the N64's wrestling library attracted fans from all walks of life – I've never been a particularly massive fan of "sports entertainment", yet even I have very fond memories of playing WCW/NEO Revenge for months with my wrestling-mad friend, creating our own characters and storylines in the process. Long's book does a great job of covering this part of Nintendo history, and is sure to be of particular interest to like-minded wrestling fans.
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