Hint for the #43: It's considered by many the pinnacle of the game genre at the very end of the fifth console generation on the most powerful, yet outdated console. It's a game that touches a sport that involves a degree of fakeness and spectacle, but it's still real to me, dammit.

Second hint: Even if it's a sports game, it's called "sports entertainment". The company that made the game has previously made a couple of similar successful games in the same 64-bit console, considered by many fans consider as the best games on that genre.

Fakeness and spectacle... wrestling?

You're pretty close.

Oh, there are a several games on the 5th gen. But two stand out from the others. One of them is widely considered as the best wrestling game ever.

WWF Wrestlemania 2000? I played a SNES Wrestlemania game that was pretty much (with Doink the Clown).

Close! Very, very close.

WWF Smackdown? I just remembered that I played A LOT of that game back in the day

Damn, I had COMPLETELY forgot about it for years...

Close, but on the wrong 5th gen console. I did play the hell out of Smackdown and Smackdown 2 too. It was one of my favorite games back then.

Wrestlemania 2000 WWF No Mercy then?

And I confused the games, I actually played Smackdown 2

The one after Wrestlemania 2000.

Edit: Yes, it's WWF No Mercy.