* For those wondering I took down my last post as not everyone found it as cute as I did when writing it, and in retrospect I don't find it quite as funny anymore, so in the interest of me not being flamed, It's gone.

Now I used to be huge wrestling fan in my younger days, started on the "WWF", then moved on to ECW, and from there started taking in a lil' Puroresu (japanese wrestling for the unitiated) before kinda floating off wrestling, but being a big gamer , I of course played almost every wrestling game under the sun, first starting with all that crap on the nes, then that other crap on the Snes (WWF Royal Rumble), then lesser crap such as WWF Wrestlemania: Arcade and then bam I got WCW vs. nWo: World Tour on my Ninty 64.

World Tour revolutionized wrestling games for me, as previously I thought that they would not evolve beyond the previous high point of the sf2 esque control button mash fest of Wrestlemania arcade, but this game had that whole wrestling feel down pat, increased realism in the form of fatigue and broken arms, and a great control scheme that allowed you to do a wider range of wrestling moves than i'd previously experienced. So after this new found discovery and the subsequent discoveries of Revenge, No Mercy etc... I started doing a bit of snooping around and found that the engine for all the aforementioned wrestling games was take from another wrestling game from across the ocean in the land of the rising sun, (the name of this game was Virtual Pro Wrestling but that's beside the point) what happened next was me researching all manner of Japanese wrestling games in the interest of something good, found Fire Pro (and got subsequently addicted thus it can claim the no.2 spot as the greatest wrestling game ever) and then I found the subject of this article "Giant Gram 2000: All Japan Pro Wrestling 3" "THE BEsT WReSTLiNG GAmE EVaR".



This Japan only wrestling game for the dreamcast is developed by the once mighty Sega and is an example of what proper game design regardless of genre can acheive.Now while the title has Decent graphics (which of course might look shite' to graphics whores)the real meat of this game lies in it's stellar gameplay. The controls for this title are very intuitive, as instead of overrelying on a set of predetermined motions to execute moves, a lot of moves can be accomplished by simply being in the correct position in the grapple, want to perform a quick elbow to your opponent's arm, simple, just get get beside him and hit the strike button, just like that, no hitting up A B Right 360 setyourselfonfire and jump out a window to perform a backdrop (anyone remember Attitude?). The game also boasts a deep counter system based on the ole' paper-rock-scissors formula which in turn allows players to reverse any move and then from there have their reversal reversed and back & forth etc. Granted it's a bit arcadey and shallower in respect to Simulations like the Fire Pro series and that's one thing Fire Pro will always hold over, but thats nitpicking.




Another great aspect of this game is the innovative Create A Wrestler system. Instead of the usual assiging stats and perks to your created alter ego, you go and train him by squaring off against a wrestler of choice and having them perform moves on your caw to learn them, and from there you perform the moves to improve the potency of em as well as your overall stats. Pretty cool eh, why dont more wrestling and for that matter sport games make use of this?

Now here's a big hitch for casual wrestling fans, as it's a Japanese wrestling game there aren't a lot of recognizable faces in this game in fact, only Steve Williams and Vader may be familiar, and that's for wrestling fans who've been watching for a while, In addition the customization of your wrestler's looks is very limited in that while you can create a unique wrestling avatar for yourself don't expect to be able to create yourself in that hot pink sequined number you saw Randy Orton in on SummerSlam, and another thing some of the modes such as the Caw are very text intensive and this text is all in Kanji, so you may be pretty much screwed if you attempt to just jump in without either a) a working knowledge of Japanese or b) a faq, but that shouldn't detract you from giving it a try, it's a great game






note:-all shots take from Ign as I'm far too lazy to capture them myself.