WCW Nitro

"This game is just.Well, bad."

WCW Nitro was the second WCW wrestling game made on the PSX. The game has an entirely new engine, but it's really not much better than the last one. WCW fans are disapointed once again by this low quality wrestling game produced by THQ.

GAMEPLAY
The roster in WCW Nitro isn't terrible, but it isn't great either. You start out with 16 wrestlers, and you can unlock other wrestlers as well. In all, there's about 64 wrestlers, but they're all remakes of the first 16 with new names and looks, and that's about it. There are even some very stupid characters like Santa Claus! The original sixteen characters include Hulk Hogan, Rick Flair, Kevin Nash, Scott Haul, Sting, Diamond Dallas Page, Lex Luger, and many others.
There are not many very good modes in WCW Nitro. There are only your basics Vs. and tag team modes, along with a WCW quest. You have no special matches like cage matches or anything goes matches, just plain bland matches like tag and Vs. that can be done in different forms depending on if you're playing a one player or two player game.
The WCW Nitro Challenge is also pretty stupid. You simply start as a wrestler and continue to fight opponents until at least a good deal of the roster in the game has been defeated. After this, you see an FMV that is the exact same for every wrestler. Unlike In Your House, where you saw an FMV specially made to show the highlights of the wrestler you won with, you see the exact same FMV for every wrestler. Blah.
The controls are set up kind of like the Attitude/Warzone engine. You press certain button combinations to execute moves. Although in this game they are much easier. Something like down x square would qualify as a move. Finishers are usually harder, with usually three directions and a button to do the move. You also must have your opponent beaten up or tired to a certain extent before finishers can be pulled off. This is the only partthe game I really don't see too many problems with. Of course the controls are rather sputtery and don't respode as well as they could, but it is not as noticeable as some of the other flaws in the game.
GAMEPLAY SCORE: 5.4/10

GRAPHICS
The graphics in Nitro are terrible. Sometimes you can't even depict what wrestler is what! It's really sad actually. The rings are the only saving grace of the graphical department. The ring actually looks pretty good. The crowd, on the other hand, looks very, very bad. It's pretty much just a big blob of what are supposed to look like people. The wrestlers are also very piccilated.
GRAPHICS SCORE: 4.1/10

MUSIC/sound EFFECTS
The music is terrible. There is the Nitro music or NWO music as your are setting up the ggame. The only other music in the game is this cheap metal music during the matches. I prefer to turn this music off, because it is just plain terrible and not even worth listening to. They try to make it heavy metal, but it ends up coming out like a cheap demo of a band that's going nowhere but home.
The sound effects are today better, but once again, not much in the way of good. You hear the only voice acting in the game at the character select screen. If you press circle on a character, they will give you a ten second taunt. The ringounds eally bad, kind of like the ring you'd hear in an indepindent wrestling federation. The announcers, Tony Savoni and Bobby the Brain Henon, do little bits of commentary. It's actually just when a guy gets pinned, or someone reaches that point where they can get a finisher done to them. They all call out the finishers as theyappen and who wins. That's it. No remarks. Not even much play-by-play, just a few moves, pins, and wins and that's all. Rather disapointing if you ask me.
MUSIC/sound EFFECTS SCORE: 5.9/10

DIFFICULTY: EASY
The game has very little difficulty whatsoever. The moves are very easy to perform, and the computer AI is that plain horrible. Even my little brother can beat the WCW Nitro Challenge easily and every single time.

REPLAY VALUE: LOW
There's just too much wrong with this game for it to be very good. The game has very little fun in it, and don't think about having fun with the cheap characters you can win. Thegame is very dull and not much worth playing.

OTHER GAME INFORMATION
RENT/buy?: RENT
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 2
GENRE: PRO WRESTLING

OVERALL SCORE: 5.0/10
The game is really not worth your timeddmaybe if you're a hardcore WCW fan you buy it as a collector's item, but if you're wanting the game to actually play and have fun with it. I'd rent it for one night only. The game is fun for the first half hour or so, and then it's just not fun. So only rent this game for one night, and you would have had enough of WCW for a while. As if WCW didn't need another crappy thing to consider when it's stacked up against WWF.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/04/00, Updated 06/04/00