You’ve seen them as horror movies!

You’ve seen them stand-ins for Thanksgiving dinner!

You’ve seen them doppelganger’d as Holiday TV Specials!

You’ve seen them list their New Years Resolutions!

You’ve seen them as Rom-coms and you’ve read their Valentine’s Day love letters...

NOW...It’s Time!...

IT’S TIME!

IT’S

...On second thought, let’s not celebrate St. Patrick’s day. It is a silly thing.

What else is in March? Well there’s the IDES of March!

But nah, that’s too morbid.

How about video games?

March marks the one-year anniversary of the Nintendo Switch, and seeing as how that little portable/home console hybrid has taken gaming by storm and features a plethora of indie titles that hearken back to olden days, it might be appropriate to look back on some of the classic games of yesteryear and compare them to the WWE Roster...

Why the heck not.

THIS is YOUR WWE roster...AS VIDEO GAMES!

So by now I’m sure you all know the drill. I’ll start with the game, segue to the comparable superstar and throw it to the comments section for you to offer up your suggestions. I’ll keep score; winner gets this uneaten sweet potato that’s sitting in my cupboard right now. It had this weird brown spot on it and I am not about to mess around with some bespeckled sweet potato.

ON TO THE GAMES...

*****

PAC-MAN

Is Pac-Man the first video game of all time? Not even close. Is it the first “popular” game, that transcended region and even hemisphere? No again. What Pac-Man was, however, was a phenomenon. It was a craze, a...”mania” if you will. Pac-Man lunch-boxes, cartoon shows, t-shirts, corporate partnerships. It was probably the first video game to break into “pop-culture” (not counting Pong, which was more of a novelty).

But time has not been good to it. In the decades since its release, Pac-Man has struggled adapting to the modern era. And then there’s the infamous graffiti prank, where rebellious street-youths would alter the spelling of the old “Puck-Man” arcades, changing the P to an F and forcing the name change, leaving the legacy of Pac-Man a little tainted. Still, for the time it was a great game; it’s just one that may have missed the window of “nostalgia” and slipped into simply being “old.”

Eh hem...

BUMP-N-JUMP

Who remembers this game? Leave a comment if so. This was my JAM in the late-80’s. I played this every day on my NES, but no matter how much I enjoyed it, I never had a single friend who loved it as much as I did. Few even knew it existed. Those who tried it, however, quickly realized it was one of the most fun games around. Sort of like...

Chad Gable was one half of my favorite NXT tag team of all time. Despite the relative brief time they spent together, American Alpha quickly became the show-stealers on the yellow brand, and their wars with The Revival feature some of the smoothest, most action-packed wrestling you’ll see anywhere on the WWE Network. Unfortunately Chad Gable’s awesomeness has not found its groove on the main-roster, and many who never watched NXT just look at me funny when I sing his praises. Give him a chance, WWE; turn him loose and let the magic happen. We’re ready (willing and Gable).

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG

What is Sonic? It’s a game that, for a brief window of time, was the next big thing in gaming. It took the industry by storm, won a ton of accolades and then...poof. Oh it was still around, but in 3D form, and it just wasn’t the same. The makers have been chasing that 1992 rainbow for twenty-five years and other than a brief glimmer of greatness here and there, they’ve mostly lost the magic. It’s sad.

Let’s see, formerly great, then hit and miss, and now mostly miss? Uh...

Instagram.com/WWE

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

The history of the Legend of Zelda series can be summarized in five parts: It started out great (those early 2D games), it became REALLY great (those early 3D games), a bunch of imitators popped up (with everyone copying the 3D Zelda formula, watering it down in the process), it got stale (with Nintendo refusing really to innovate with the franchise) and then—most recently—was reborn with a new and fresh (yet familiar) game (the Switch’s first killer-app, Breath of the Wild). It reminds me of...

WWE.com

Ric Flair started out great, quickly became GREAT, then, partially due to age and partially due to bad booking on Nitro, he grew stale. Meanwhile there are scores of imitators, each trying to replicate the swagger, stylish bravado that Naitch pulled off so effortlessly. And just when it seemed like the genuine article would be confined to discussions in the past-tense, he goes and brings us Charlotte, the old swagger reborn; different yet familiar.

CUPHEAD

Cuphead is a modern game, having released only half-a-year ago. Looking at it in action, however, you’d think it was a forgotten gem from a bygone era. It looks old school because it was carefully developed with pain-staking animation, replicating a 1920’s-30’s style. In terms of gameplay, it’s a run and gun game akin to Contra, with platforming difficulty like the worst of Mega Man and enough projectiles flooding the screen to make the deepest levels of Gradius look like child’s play. It’s a rough and tumble throwback with buckets of charisma and charm to keep you coming back for more.

I mean it’s Braun.

Adam Scherr’s Instagram

It’s always Braun.

Put the title on him already.

*****

So that’s the list, Cagesiders. What are your favorite games, why do you like that and what Wrestler reminds you of them? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!