WCW/NWO Revenge

"One of the top N64 wrestling titles, only bettered by the latest WWF games for it"

Most of you who know me will know that I am a fan of wrestling. Wrestling is indeed a very popular sport across the states and many other places around the world, and WCW is one of the top names in sports-entertainment wrestling. Although it is now defunct, the company had great wrestlers, matches and memorable events happen in the companies' time. Now many of those wrestlers have moved over to the company's former no. 1 name in competition, the World Wrestling Entertainment (or WWE as it is simply better known). Released in 1998, WCW/NWO Revenge is thought of as one of the better wrestling games you can purchase for the Nintendo 64. It runs on the same generic "engine" as WWF Wrestlemania 2000 and WWF No Mercy in terms of controls and pulling moves. It has a good range of wrestlers, each in their own "group" (e.g. with WCW or NWO) and some championships to compete for. As you would have guessed, your aim in the game is to simply compete in a string of matches to become the champion and earn the name of the best in the business. So what makes WCW/NWO Revenge such a special name among the wrestling titles for the N64? Read on...

Gameplay - 9/10

The first thing I should take the time to explain about WCW/NWO Revenge is the fabulous control system it hosts. Like the other WWF games on the N64 I mentioned earlier, the controls are well-suited to the Nintendo 64 controller, and they'll become simple to learn within a short amount of time. What you basically do to manoeuvre your wrestler is your D-Pad to make them move in a direction, B to perform a strike, and A to perform a grapple (depending on whether or not you tap or hold this button will determine the strength of your grappling move). It allows a range of moves to utilise to wear your opponent down and won't make it boring if you only had about 4 or 5 grapples to pull off. What WCW/NWO Revenge also has to make it such a great game is a decent range of wrestlers to choose from. For an N64 cart, it shows off a lot of power with over 60 wrestlers (most are WCW stars, while others are custom-created by the programmers). Many of the most popular stars from that region of time like Goldberg, Sting and The Giant (aka Big Show) are here. The NWO stars are also in here too, like Kevin Nash and Hollywood Hulk Hogan. The stars are put into their own groups, which is okay.

WCW/NWO Revenge's wrestling system isn't exactly unique since other wrestling games use it, but it is one of the best I have had the joy of playing with. You have a variety of situations to pull off moves. When you're locked up in what is known as a "common elbow tie-up", you can simply perform a grappling move to get your opponent down. However there's more; you can throw them into the ropes and as they're running back you could hit a move with the momentum like a backdrop. Or you can run towards them and do a move. There's also the turnbuckles to use to your advantage with a high-flying aerial move. It's very realistic, and if you're not happy with just fighting alone, you can use weapons from around ringside! You also have a number of different match types to play in, whether it be a simple one-on-one, tag team, or something more exciting. You can also compete for different championships to add a bit of flavour in your matches. There's lots to do, and you'll be having many hours of enjoyment here!

What your wrestlers also have whilst playing is a life meter to determine the condition they are in whilst they are fighting. You and your opponent start off even, but when you get an advantage your life meter will increase until it is eventually so high you can perform a special move, as you would know if you're familiar with this system. I like this feature a lot better than life bars that deplete every time you get hit, which is plain old boring after a short while. The multiplayer mode makes it a lot more fun, too, so you can test your wits with others and whether you play every-man-for-himself or tag teams, this can affect your playing and you can improve your techniques and stuff. The only thing I was disappointed by was a very basic season mode in which you just play a simple gauntlet of wrestlers, rather than have a decent storyline.

What else makes WCW/NWO Revenge so enjoyable is that you can not only programme the stipulations of your matches, but also the arenas in where they are held. It can be the basic Nitro arena or Uncensored, Starrcade, there's so much to choose from. The fighting in the game itself is fun, and you will certainly be impressed by it when you give it a go. Whether or not you're a wrestling fan you could be impressed, so I suggest giving it a go.

WCW/NWO Revenge is a fairly easy game, too. Your opponents will go easy on you so you can pick up the basics, but the computer player is generally slow-paced and does not put up much of a fight. You can however, programme the difficulty to make it a bit easier. Unlike WWF No Mercy, the computer doesn't reverse all your moves if you're playing on a generic difficulty and make it impossible, which is very fortunate so the possibility of becoming very frustrated with the difficulty and tossing of your N64 out the window is very slim. It is simple to fight and win victories as soon as you pick up the gist of what you have to do within the matches.

Story - N/A

No storyline in wrestling games usually. The ol' beat-the-rest-to-be-the-best tagline as usual. So we'll skip that.

Audio/Video - 6/10

Definitely the weakest flaw of the game are the graphics and sound. First, I'll talk about the graphics. The wrestlers look recognisable in 3D glory and have nice shading to them and stuff. However, the main problem that is mainly consistent with Nintendo 64 games (wrestling ones in particular) is that the polygons look really horrendous. There is not much facial detail on the wrestlers and the figures have sharp edges all over and are not rounded (Goldberg's skin-head would be a perfect example of this). What I can positively say about the character models is that they look just like they do on the real WCW show. The costumes are well designed and the expressions you see look very real, and it does display some of the Nintendo 64's finer qualities. I like the texture of the graphics but they could have been worked on a bit to look better.

The arena designs and backgrounds as well as other tidbits and stuff you'll find peppered here and there throughout the game look ok in general. The logos look fantastic and real, and the ring has a nice design to it. Pyro effects are good too, which you'll occasionally notice while you play. All the arenas that you play in have a good effect to make your matches and entrances look real, which adds extra points to the game's resume. As well as that, I can talk about the animation of WCW/NWO Revenge. The moves look great, but because of the earlier mentioned polygon graphical flaw common with N64 games they don't look perfect in their full glory. Sometimes it's a bit slow-paced, and this could have been helped too if there had been a little more effort put into this department. In general the graphics aren't bad, but they could have been better than what they already are.

Another small problem that WCW/NWO Revenge has is the lack of music. Back in 1998 many of the wrestlers in WCW had recognisable theme music whenever they entered the arena so the audience could identidy who is entering. Here, their Titantron music seems to have gone and only generic instruments for music is replacing them. There is a limited soundtrack of music to hear throughout the game. It is varied a bit though so you won't get bored instantly, but I wish some more had been added, like in the later WWF titles released for the N64, so it could have been done here, but due to that the N64's power wasn't fully exploited to its greatest in 1998, I suppose I'll have to forgive THQ for that. Sound effects are a different matter - these are superb. Noises like hitting someone with a punch or bashing them with a weapon or slamming with a strong grapple makes some noise - and depending on the strength too. Very realistic. I like the sound effects a lot.

Replayability - High

The joy of WCW/NWO Revenge along with another number of fun wrestling titles is that there is a lot of variety and stuff you can do within the game/ You can never get bored playing a variety of many different matches with a selection of so many wrestlers. With another player to join in the action, Replayability for a wrestling game is just about as good as it gets for an N64 title among this game. There is even a lot of things you can edit around the game such as creating your own custom character or changing random parts of an already existing wrestler in the game. The matches look great in 3D glory and it looks like a proper WCW event going on while you play and the camera system makes it look so much better. Of course, if you want to issue challenge, the game is simple, but you have a choice of your difficulty level of choice, which is good, of course. WCW/NWO Revenge is a rather addictive game I'm sure you'll enjoy if you're a wrestling fan.

Overall - 9/10

Among the top titles of wrestling games for the Nintendo 64, this would be amongst them, with WWF Wrestlemania 2000, WWF No Mercy and WWF Attitude. All the points make it so great, it is only the Season mode which I think should have been improved with added storylines to be more exciting, which is why I was strained to give this game only 9 out of 10. But if you want a cheap but fun title to go with your N64 collection, and you're a wrestling fan, look no further than here. Even if you don't like wrestling, I still suggest you give this title ago. It's pretty darn good. The controls and difficulty isn't too annoying, and there are a lot of wrestlers and matches to choose from. So, want a good wrestling game? Get this!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/04