WWF War Zone

""Me Too" is the best way to describe this as well as a majority of the 90's wrestling games."

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't care much for wrestling or any of the federations that represent it because it's not real. I liked doing the real thing in school but I don't understand why it's so entertaining watching basically a sports themed soap opera with a bunch of foul mouthed men yelling at each other and performing predetermined fake moves on each other. I however don't mind playing a wrestling game now and then but it is hard to find a decent one since most of them feel like quick cash-ins that unfortunately continues to this day. It seems like Acclaim just cashed in on the license again as this game has no personality or originality for a game released on the Game Boy as late as 1998.

To start out this game has a nice biography mode in the options that gives a nice 8 bit view of each wrestler with all of their stats and honestly, it's probably the sole highlight of this otherwise dull game. It also has several modes and password save but I got tired of the repetitive game play long before I could take advantage of any single one of these features.

The wrestlers are barely distinguishable in a match, even the ones that normally wear pants only have their spandex on now; dark haired wrestlers are practically carbon copies of each other except for different color spandex making it annoying to tell players apart. Every wrestler's moves are identical and there are no difference in their control (aside from maybe a few stats) and there no personalities whatsoever no matter who you pick. The AI is very cheap making it hard to pull moves off, finishing moves are hard to pull off as well.

Sound is terrible, even on the Gameboy it's pretty flat and there are almost no game play sound effects and the music is a very short continuous loop and isn't good to begin with. Needless to say, the game feels yet again like it was just finished enough to get out the door and onto retail shelves.

I would rip Probe and Acclaim more but this seemed to be the track record no matter released a wrestling game at the time across any console. Let's all congratulate (or not) Acclaim for giving us another flop for a wrestling game, it's a wonder why they don't exist anymore.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/05/09

Game Release: WWF War Zone (US, June 1998)