The WWE has been a mainstay in pop culture for almost four decades now. In that time, a number of WWE video games have been released for multiple consoles, such as the PS2. When it comes down to deciding the best WWE game of all time though, it usually comes down to one of two options. Those being WWF No Mercy for the Nintendo 64 and WWE: SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain for the PS2.
Both games are great in their own way and are fun to pick up and play today despite their age and feel like proper wrestling titles. It is the debate of the century deciding which of the two is better, so here are some strengths for each to help better decide.
10 No Mercy: Everyone Has Multiple Outfits
In most cases, wrestlers never wear the same pair of ring attire consecutively and WWF No Mercy captures this perfectly. Each character has a second ring outfit on top of a special costume.
Here Comes The Pain only has a few characters with this option while No Mercy double downs on it. For instance, you can wrestle as The Rock in one of his signature jackets against Stone Cold Steve Austin in his shirt and jorts combo. Just press one of the c buttons on the N64 controller to see what is available.
9 Here Comes The Pain: Better Presentation
This has to do with the superior hardware but the overall presentation of HCTP is so much better than No Mercy’s. The entirety of a wrestler’s entrance is captured perfectly only with great quality for their music and entrance videos.
The N64 was a cartridge system when compared to the PS2’s disc based system. This meant that the N64 could not capture the music and video quality as well, resulting in blurry videos and muffled entrance music.
8 No Mercy: Insane Customization Options
No Mercy was truly ahead of its time when it came to the customization options it had. Not only were there the usual create-a-wrestler and move set options, but you can even change other things, too.
For instance, you could change the stats of the existing wrestlers as well as the color of their ring attire. The menus could also be edited to read different things like changing the categories of wrestlers in the character select screen. Just about every aspect of the game feels customizable in some way, a feature missing in future WWE games like HCTP.
7 HCTP: More Versatile Roster
The roster of HCTP is probably the more versatile of the two in the sense that every character feels different from one another in some way, making it feel more like a fighting game than a wrestling game. Lighter wrestlers are faster and strike quick while heavier wrestlers are slower but do serious damage.
All of the characters in No Mercy just kind of feel the same and lack the dynamic feel that HCTP’s roster has. Plus, No Mercy lacks character ratings, which is kind of important to distinguish which characters are good and which characters are bad.
6 No Mercy: Every Major Personality At The Time Is Playable
While No Mercy may not have as versatile a roster, it makes up for it in the sense that every major personality at the time of the game’s release in the year 2000 is playable.
Not only are the wrestlers playable, but so are commentators Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler, as well as backstage interviewers like Michael Cole. A referee is even playable, which plays into the game’s goofier tone perfectly.
5 HCTP: More Open Season Mode
Both games have a season mode, but HCTP has the more open-ended of the two. Once you start a season mode in HCTP, you are free to do just about anything you want.
You can interact with other superstars in different areas, compete in matches and talk to a general manager to request a title shot, and even a trade to the opposing brands. Plus, players are offered the chance to compete in major storylines before they even happen, giving the feeling like the wrestler’s journey is truly in the hands of the player.
4 No Mercy: Women’s Story Mode
Before WWE 2K20 included the awesome feature of playing as a female wrestler in its career mode, WWF No Mercy did it by having an entire storyline centered on the women’s championship.
It was truly the first time that the women were given the spotlight in a wrestling game. This was especially great, since the women in video games are often just the damsels in distress that can be romanced in a heavily-scripted matter.
3 HCTP: More And Better Match Types
Granted, HCTP released at a time when a lot of the iconic match types people associate with the WWE were now a part of the company, but it still had more to choose from than No Mercy.
There was the usual simple match, along with special matches like hell in a cell and hardcore matches that let the player go all over the place. No Mercy had some of these as well, but it was done better in HCTP and didn’t feel like they could take forever at times. I’m talking about you, No Mercy ladder match.
2 No Mercy: Captures Its Era Perfectly
No Mercy was fortunate enough to be set during the most popular era in pro wrestling history, the Attitude Era. The game, despite its hardware limitations, managed to capture the feel of its time perfectly.
The game’s U.I. screams “attitude” along with the wrestlers themselves and the game’s storylines. Additionally, iconic moments of the time are recreated in both the story mode and the game’s intro, such as Stone Cold coming in to save the Rock from the Corporation with a steel chair at Backlash 2000. Moments like this helped the game age well and ensure its nostalgia.
1 HCTP: More Fair
Out of the two games, HCTP is easier to pick up since it is more friendly to beginners. Players can get in a decent amount of hits, and when reversals are done to them, it does not feel cheap.
No Mercy fails in this in the sense that when you start a match on the default difficulty, the CPU will reverse almost all of your offense. It makes the game feel cheap, something that HCTP is able to avoid, making it feel friendlier to beginners interested in what all the hype is about.
