This might be the first John Riggs video that I’ve ever been interested in. I was huge into wrestling games for many years. And I’m saying as an adult. I started when I was about 20 and got the internet. I played a rom of Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium or whatever it was for Super Famicom. I became obsessed with the game. So then I bought a Dreamcast and a boot cd and I got an import copy of Fire Pro Wrestling D, which I think cost something crazy like $70. I spent thousands of hours on that game.
Then I tracked down all of the other games in the Fire Pro series, either the roms or physical games. I was able to find an ISO of Fire Pro Wrestling G. And I was downloading this shit on a 56k modem, like 600mb or whatever it was. I couldn’t find a copy of Six Men Scramble so I had to buy it. It worked in the Saturn emulator, though. I bought a PS2 and all of that fiddly swap disc shit that you need to play imports, solely so that I could play Fire Pro Wrestling Returns and I also got Fire Pro Wrestling Z. Thousands of hours put into Fire Pro Wrestling Returns.
I got Fire Pro Wrestling World when that came out a few years ago. Thousands of hours playing that. I’ve devoted large portions of my life to Fire Pro Wrestling. I tracked down all of them, mostly in rom form, which was something of a challenge back then. I even got the Wonderswan game. I bought one of the GBA games.
And in amongst this time, I also tried out the whole range of wrestling games, pre-PS2, at least. King of Colosseum and whatever sequels there were, by the people who made Fire Pro. Those games were great. I spent a lot of time with Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 for the Nintendo 64. That was great and a huge improvement over the US version which was…WrestleMania 2000, I think? I also played a lot of No Mercy for the Nintendo 64 but Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 is still better.
God, I played fucking everything. I looked for every wrestling game ever made. I played the Atari 2600 wrestling game. I played sumo wrestling games for the Famicom and Super Famicom. The arcade wrestling games like WrestleFest and that shitty Mortal Kombat style WWF game. I tried to play every wrestling game ever made. Fire Pro is, by far, the best, although King of Colosseum is also really good.
So I’m an expert at wrestling games. And I know that fatass John Riggs also enjoys the virtual grappling. I’ve been cautiously looking forward to this AEW game, even though I haven’t watched wrestling since I was like 19 years old, being an adult and all. So let’s check it out.
0:15 – The game came out today, apparently, but John Riggs is showing the created wrestler that he made of himself. Really? Is this the largest body type that they had? John Riggs has never been as slim as his created wrestler looks. He also gave the character a hat. So even John Riggs’ wrestling character is deeply self-conscious about his baldness.
1:15 – He’s showing the match types. Usual shit.
2:15 – He says that intergender matches are possible. This is a weird thing that I guess recent WWE games don’t allow. I don’t know when it started. I’ve downloaded a few bootleg versions of the modern WWE games and they all suck dick. My main problem is that the characters all seem to be equally good. They have equal stats. You can put, whatever, Hulk Hogan against some shitty modern guy low on the card and it’s a complete coin toss who’s going to win.
By contrast, if you’re playing a Fire Pro game and you put Hulk Hogan against some job guy, it would be a real upset if Hogan lost. I’m talking about AI vs AI matches, by the way. That’s how I “play” these games, which is really, really pathetic. Like playing with dolls as a kid. But I don’t actually like actively playing wrestling games. There’s a whole scene of GIANT nerds in the Fire Pro community who likewise only enjoy “simming” matches.
He goes through the various things you can do to create a wrestler but doesn’t talk about the stats. He just talks about appearance and moves. Are there stats in the game? Frankly, that’s my main concern with any wrestling game. Only Fire Pro got the stat system right. With every other wrestling game, all of the characters are equally as good.
As a test, I once made a created character in No Mercy with all 1’s for their stats and then another character with all 5’s (or whatever the highest number was). It made no different. I’d pit these two characters against each other and each one won an equal amount of times. They were identical characters but one had maxed out stats and the other hand bottom stats. No difference. Fucking bullshit.
8:30 – John Riggs is schilling for RGT85. John Riggs was playing this game with RGT85. RGT85 is the guy who looked at Newt Wallen’s penis, along with Joe from Gamesack. I wonder if John Riggs is also looking at Newt’s penis. Maybe this is what they all do. They sit around showing their penises to each other.
So anyway, John Riggs finishes the video by saying, “Eh, it’s alright, I guess.”
I think I’m going to hold off. And I’m never going to buy it. The money-grubbing DLC is too much for me. I got all of the Fire Pro Wrestling World DLC, with great hesitation, but only to support the fine people who made Fire Pro Wrestling World.
I don’t have the same affinity for the people who made this AEW game.
Let’s see what the boys on Steam have to say. Oh, you have to pay £4 for Matt Hardy. This is what I’m talking about. Bullshit DLC. And on Day 1. Fuck you.
Oh, somebody mentions Wrestling Empire. Yeah, I played all of that shit too. All of those weird MDickie games made by some Jesus nut English guy. And it’s not just wrestling games, he also has prison simulator games and classroom simulators, and Jesus of Nazareth simulators and a lot of weird shit, but they’re all about solving your problems through powerbombing people through tables. Even the Jesus simulator. It’s hilarious.
And I contacted MDickie once because I had a problem registering the game or something and he replied right away telling me how to fix it and said if it doesn’t work, let him know and he’ll give me the money back. I got it to work, though so I thanked him and told him to keep up the good work. It’s good service, though. And it’s just the one guy doing all of this, I’m pretty sure.