Wrestling

Mayhem is a great basic wrestling game. Unfortunately, that’s all it really is. It’s got some great sound and good graphics, but that’s really to be expected nowadays. My main beef with the graphics is the HUGE heads. And I mean virtual planetoid huge.

The gameplay is really just button mashing, with really not much thinking involved. But some of the controlling is choppy. For instance, you can’t really whip an opponent to the turnbuckles, and trying to perform a back attack is very frustrating.

If I were to compare this to the other wrestling games out there for the PSX, I’d rank this slightly ahead of Power Move Pro Wrestling, slightly behind WCW vs. The World, and far, far behind WWF Attitude.

Thumbs Down, a definite 3-day rental, because that’s how long it’s gonna take you to get tired of it

I just received WWF Attitude and I must admit its not what I expected it to be, but that doesn’t mean that its not a good game.

First of all the gameplay is very similar to that of Warzone’s so if you disliked Warzone you will probably dislike this game.

Besides that of gameplay Attitude is a vast improvement over Warzone. The ring entrances are incredible. The graphics are basically as good as they get on the PlayStation and it has an excellent replay value, I just cant get enough of this game! But the biggest improvement is the roster. There are over 40 wrestlers – that’s a lot more then Warzone’s lousy 16. There are also a lot of modes which most are a lot of fun to play especially in the create your own pay-per-view mode. The create a player is also a lot more extensive then Warzone’s you can edit almost any part of your wrestlers and then there’s the coolest part which enables you to write text on you wrestlers wardrobe!.

This game is excellent and that’s the bottom line. If you have friends over a lot and have a multi-tap the 4 and 3 ways are incredibly fun and putting the belts on the line at pay-per-views is cool too. But if your a loner then its a good game, career and challenge mode are fun, but the game is the best when it comes to multiplayer. And basically if you disliked liked Warzone don’t bother, but if you loved Warzone like me then you’ll love this game.

WCW Nitro by THQ could possibly be the worst game I have ever played. I had hoped that Nitro would be a better game than Revenge, another THQ title. Unfortunately I was wrong. The game play is slow and the graphics are terrible. Most consumers would tend to favor games that are newer than others. Nitro has taken leaps backwards in its gameplay and couldn’t even attempt to look to improve on Revenge. I attempted to fight in the tournament under the “normal” difficulty ratings and only finished one move. The controls to this game are horrid if you can only accomplish one move. Having to push three buttons to do one move is down right stupid.

After my quick defeat in the tournament round I set the difficulty down to easyhoping that I could learn the moves, then try again under the normal settings. This proved to be quite upsetting also. I had to continually “call for help” just to finish a match.

My last effort to find something decent about this game brought me to the Battle Royal match. Once again I was terribly disappointed in the games play. IT WAS SLOWER THAN REVENGE! I couldn’t possibly recommend this title to anyone who cares about good gameplay.

WCW/NWO Thunder from THQ has done it with its lack of innovation. THQ has spent all their big talks on a product that is NOT very different from their last one (Nitro).

The game may look nice with its 11 match modes and over 100 wrestlers (including hidden and fantasy) to choose from, but they all mean nothing. Why? First, the 11 modes can be cut down to six or seven because many matches like Battle Royal or Tag Team were broken down to 1P and 2P. Second, the more wrestler there is the less individual move there is available. The wrestlers actually have to share their finishing maneuvers and that to a wrestling fan is stupid! If THQ can not fit all their moves into the game then why bother making so many wrestlers!
Also one of the worst feature of this game is its sound. The commentary at ring side lacks of energy, creativity and I believe a lot of them came straight from Nitro. You will hear “Piledriver!” and “Powerbome!” over and over and over again until you can hear them in your sleep. And don’t even mention the music. Some of the entrance theme sounds are nice, but NOT every wrestler has his own music (they put in the crappy Thunder music for many wrestlers).

Finally, the gameplay. If a person was to play Thunder for the first time, without playing Nitro before, this game would not be bad (although it’s still nothing compare to War Zone). For the people who have unfortunately played
Nitro already, it sure will confuse many by the likeness of the two. The feel, the movement, damn! Even the button combination are the same. No one is asking for an entirely different game, but boy, where did THQ get the guts to “remake” a not so-good game and talking about taking on Acclaim’s WWF War Zone.

Overall, the game is as NO good as the Macho Man ever was. Bad sounds, boring gameplay, many wrestlers with limited number of moves, and the lack of new ideas have killed the game. Well, THQ must have thought since WWF is kicking WCW’s butt in TV ratings, so why not bring another failure of WCW to complete their endless butt-kicking competition.