WCW/nWo Thunder

"Yes, a game that is worse than the game came before it. Nitro prevails over this."

This game had gotten a good deal of praise before it came out. So I was naturally thinking of the decent previews, and the one review that gave it a 7, when I saw the game. So I decided I'd pick it up since it was only $30. Boy, that was probably the biggest waste of $30 I've ever made. The game had not even reached half of what I expected it to be. Another thing is I already owned Thunder before it was even thought of, because this game is such a Nitro remake that it sickens me.

GAMEPLAY
The roster is almost the same as Nitro's cheap roster. This time there's 32 of WCW'S biggest stars at the time. Goldberg, Diamond Dallas Page, The Giant AKA The Big Show in WWF, Hollywood Hogan, Bret Hart, Sting, Kevin Nash, Lex Luger, and many other main event stars were featured. No Rick Flair though, which I found to be very stupid. Sure, he should've retired about ten years ago, but he hasn't, and he's still around, so why not put him in the game? There were also midcarders like Ultimo Dragon, Chris Jericho and Benoit, The British Bulldog, Dean Malenko, and others. There were even some real jobbers like Jim Nighthart. There was also a host of hidden characters, real and out in left field whacko. There were aliens, Santa Claus, ghosts, that kind of stuff as hidden characters! There were also other decent wrestlers like Ming, Laparka some others. Rick Flair was not one of the 64 real wrestlers, but instead was included in the whacko guys who didn't have their own music, moves, etc. He just looked like Flair and his name was Flair and that was it.
The modes of the game lack a good deal. There's the cheap Quest modes, which I'll get into later. You can go for these on the TV, US, and WCW title levels. There's also some other modes like Vs., tag team, battle royal, and steel cage matches. That about rounds out the modes though, and in order to have a good game, I like a good Quest mode. Boy, was I dissatisfied with the poor excuse for one used in WCW Thunder.
The Quest modes are very cheap. THQ must've made three of them to try to keep my happy. Blah, I say to that. All you have to do is win five one on one matches for the TV title, seven for the US title and ten for the WCW title. Then they put the belt on the character selection screen nex to the character you won it with if you save the Quest on your memory card, but I wouldn't even bother wasting the space. The game is a very poor excuse for fun career type mode. All you have to do is win 22 whole one on one, quick, matches and you're done. You've won every title. Talk about a rip.
The game works exactly like Nitro. Certain combinations of buttons perform moves, and usually three buttons or directions execute a move. The finishers usually consist of three directions and a button, and they are very easy to pull off. Like Nitro, you have to beat up your opponent until their meter blinks, then you can do finishers. The weapons in the game are stupid. They take away too much damage, and they're not very cool at all. You can do a few things with the steel cage, but mostly that's just there for looks. You don't even climb out to win on Nitro, you simply pin the guy. But I think that's the way WCW does it anyway: I wouldn't know, I stopped watching WCW a long, long time ago.
Overall, the gameplay is very poor. It has a very lackluster selection of modes, the roster is pitiful, and the game engine plain out sucks. Now on to the rest of the game.
GAMEPLAY SCORE: 3.9/10

GRAPHICS
The graphics are worse, yes, I said worse, than Nitro. The wrestlers look very grainy. It's almost impossible to see what wrestler you're looking at. They all look terrible and are hardly distinctable from each other. Sometimes you have trouble seeing which wrestler you're controlling! The crowd is no better. Like Nitro, the crowd is just a blob of colorless background that have no resembleance to human beings whatsoever. The ring looks very cramped, and the game looks all around bad in the environment the wrestlers wrestle in. Even the cheap hidden rings, like a mirror ring or spaceship ring, look like crap comparedany WWF game of this game's time. Even games before Thunder, like Nitro, looked better. I'm serious when I said not the graphics in WCW Thunder are worse than the game's pretecessor, WCW Nitro. Overall, the graphics are very pool, but I will give credit where credit is do. The little ten second intros the wrestlers have look pretty cool. It's an itty bitty portion of them walking to the ring, it's not even the real videos, but it's the only saving grace of these graphics. If it wasn't for this, the graphics would've gotten a 2.2 instead of a 4.2.
GRAPHICS SCORE: 4.2/10

MUSIC/sound EFFECTS
The intro music is the only really good part of the game inthe audio department. The music is exactly, or very close, to the real wrestlers' intros. The problem is, it only plays about five seconds of it. That is not nearly enough. The whole intros should be expanded. A lot. The music during the matches is just atrocious. It's this crappy attempt at hard rock I think. It all sounds the same anyway. It's pretty bad. You can even stick it in your CD player and listen to it, but I really wouldn't if I were you. It's not good for the ears.
The sound effects, unfortunately, aren't much better. Like Nitro, Tony what's'isname, Bobby the Brain Henon, and that Mike dude do color commentary. Their commentary is very, very repetitive. Every time a pin goes down, Brain counts, and Toy will says ''He kicked out.'' If you continuously go for pins and hear those phrases too much, they'll really go to your head. When I was dreaming, in the distance, I always heard ''He kicked out. He kicked out. He kicked out.'' They say when a person's meter starts blinking with some comment like, ''He's taking a beating,'' or, ''He's finished now.'' They also call out finishers as they happen. The ring is the exact same as Nitro, it doesn't too much like a ring at all. The wrestlers fighting each other is just horrible. The punches and kicks sound a lot like what King Broccoli referred to them as, fish slapping cement. Not what you'd expect in a wrestling game at all. The crowd sounts very bland and unenthusiastic. You hear a small eruption when Goldberg does the spear or jackhammer. It's also weird how when you slam a guy on the cement, it sounds more like a punch than you slapping cement. Hmmmm, maybe the files got mixed up. Overall, the sound is just terrible, and there's not much else to say about it.
MUSIC/sound EFFECTS SCORE: 3.7/10

DIFFICULTY: EASY
WCW Thunder provides little to no difficulty for even the crappiest gamer. You can probably win the WCW title in about seven minutes sometimes. Of course, only having to wrestle ten one on one basic matches doesn't provide very much difficulty.

REPLAY VALUE: LOW
Well, you'll come back to this game if you like to continuously play crappy games. I, myself, didn't want to play the game at all very much after I realized all of its problems. The only time I really had fun with this game was rolling on the floor laughing with my friend at the game's stupidity. This game is not fun at all, so what's the point of playing it again?

OTHER GAME INFORMATION
RENT/buy?: NEITHER
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 4
GENRE: PRO WRESTLING

OVERALL SCORE: 3.4/10
This game is terrible. I wouldn't even bother renting it if I were you. This is just an example of a bad game that was overhyped. And this wasn't even hyped that much, but I still remember the flame I sent the guy who gave it a 7. Avoid this game at all costs. You won't regret it.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/00, Updated 06/08/00