Good god, wrestling again? Fine, whatever…here we go:
Title Match Pro Wrestling is a game I apparently own. It doesn’t have its own Wikipedia page, which is almost like it Its characters include Stereotype, Tattooed Mr. Clean, Mask Haver, and Other Stereotype. Those aren’t their real names, but honestly the real ones are much, much worse:
Ohhhhh nooooooo. At least Mr. Mean is a cool name, I guess. These names are courtesy of a screenshot from the Atari 7800 version of this game (and taken by the good folks Atari Age) – the version we’ll be looking at this week looks…not good.
As with most wrestling games, there are ‘stamina’ bars that need to be depleted to make pinning your opponent easier. The mechanics of wrestling games tend to be surprisingly complex, even with games whose controllers have ~1-2 buttons. Title Match is no exception to this – while there’s only one button on a 2600 controller, what it does depends a lot on where you are, where your opponent is, and which way you’re holding the joystick. This means there are a surprising number of moves you can do, and some of them look pretty cool. At one point I flattened poor Mr. Mean:
Sweet! On the other hand, the Atari 2600 joystick is not the most precise, reliable device in the world. As a result, I found myself flailing quite a bit, sometimes doing something cool, other times doing a simple punch or kick, and other times not doing anything at all. I feel like with a bit of practice this could be overcome, at least to some extent, but as it is, it’s honestly not fun enough to justify figuring all of that out. I’ve said before that I often like the 2600′s “simplifications” of sports and other activities, but this just doesn’t scale down well. On top of that, the general lack of modes and options (you can play 1v1 or 2v2 means once you’ve played it a few times, there’s little reason to keep playing. Like the Matrix sequels, there’s simultaneously too much and too little.
It’s kinda wild to think that the 2600 had been out for ten years when this game was released. Title Match certainly looks the part – for an Atari game, it looks great – but the problems caused by control and memory limitations outweigh that pretty considerably.
Title Match was one of the first games released by Absolute Entertainment, who went on to do…very little of note, I’m afraid. Their biggest “hit” is probably the weird NES game A Boy and His Blob. Their greatest legacy, however, may be a game they didn’t release – Absolute’s bankruptcy led to the cancellation of Penn & Teller Smoke and Mirrors, the weird Sega CD game that includes Desert Bus, which has found a life of its own as a charity gaming staple in recent years.
Anyway, if you’re like me and are intrigued by weird Atari games, Title Match Pro Wrestling certainly qualifies as one of those. It’s not, you know, good, but it’s an interesting early take on the genre. I might like it more than that NES one from a few weeks ago, though that isn’t saying much. Honestly, just play Desert Bus.
We’re back on the NES for next week for another film adaptation – if it’s anything like the movie on which it’s based, I may not survive. See you then (maybe).