Creating The Ultimate Wrestling Game

While making a game easy to pick up and play it always a good idea, even more important than that is having solid mechanics on display during the in-ring action.

While WWE has long been serving up glitz and glamour offerings, and while WCW delivered some extremely fun games over the years, Fire Pro Wrestling is the 'little engine that could' of pro wrestling games - perfectly showcasing how substance so often trumps style.

Fire Pro has never been as elaborate as its rivals, and instead this franchise - which has been in existence since way back in 1989 - focused on excellent gameplay mechanics and a sense of realism to make it an appealing prospect for wrestling fans.

Even now to this day, the Fire Pro series is still getting by on the 'minimal sheen, maximum game engine' model. A game can look as stunning as can possibly be, yet the final product can feel hollow, clunky, and unsatisfying if the engine under the hood of a shiny, visually wowing game is poorly designed and without a sense of genuine conviction behind it.

Think of it like this: while Ryback may look a million bucks, the majority of us would prefer to watch the technical wizardry of Daniel Bryan at work.

In this instance, it's the WWE 2K series screaming "feed me more," while Fire Pro Wrestling is happy to go about its business, safe in the knowledge its one of the best around.