What Were They Thinking? 11.28.07: WCW Mayhem
Posted by William Bumgarner on 11.28.2007
In the spirit of SmackDown vs. RAW 2008 (now featuring ECW) being released *and* heralded as one of the best wrestling games of all time, I thought I'd break down one of the *worst* wrestling games of all time, WCW Mayhem for the Nintendo 64 (they sure had some crappy wrestling titles for that system, didn't they?).
Welcome back, readers, to What Were They Thinking?, where each week I pick a wrestling-related topic that comes to mind for one reason or another and dissect it for your reading pleasure. I've tackled entire shows, individual wrestlers, corporate families, horrible angles with worse payoffs that ed to the crumbling of a wrestling empire....so where do I go next?
Video games.
Since SmackDown vs. RAW 2008 has forums across the 'Net overloading with comments, criticisms, and what-have-you (though the general consensus that I pick up is that it's a better WWE game than most of the recent offerings since WrestleMania 2000 brought so much joy to our hearts), I went a-rummaging through my box of games to check my wrestling titles. And oh; they are many.
WWF WrestleMania for the NES, oft-hated but not as bad as it could have been. WWF WrestleMania 2000, which I need not say anything about, on the good ol' N64. WWF No Mercy, hit-or-mis sometimes but a good CAW engine and decent controls, also for N64. WCW vs nWo World Tour and WCW Monday Nitro N64 again, so-so but playable. WCW/nWo Revenge, a personal favorite of mine for its roster and gameplay modes. ECW Hardcore Revolution, N64 again, hardly hardcore but decent voice work by Joey Styles. ECW Anarchy Rulz for PS1, not bad but to this day the controls seem awkward. WCW vs. The World for PS1, decent roster with recognizable faces (if not names) and "international" arenas - nice eye candy, if nothing else. WWE Day of Reckoning and Day of Reckoning 2 on the amazingly-sturdy GameCube, featuring the most enjoyable CAW engine I've ever worked with and decent story modes. WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2007 on the PS2, where once again Triple H is immortal and the Cruiserweights get screwed over in the stats department. WWE WrestleMania 21 for the Xbox and WWE RAW for PC....what was I on when I bought these?????
But, as bad as some of these are, I can at least say most of them lived up to expectations. But there was one that was hyped to levels unseen before. Gaming magazines, commercials during Nitro and Thunder (and everywhere else on TV, for that matter), and things that friends of mine were saying about it prompted me to finally break down and beg my parents for a Nintendo 64. I got my wish, along with Star Wars: Episode I Racer, Super Smash Brothers, and, you guessed it, WCW Mayhem by Electronic Arts.
Oh; where to even begin here?
First of all, hearing Mike Tenay and Tony Schiavone was fine on TV. At least they something more than the same half-dozen lines on TV. But the same stuff is repeated over and over and over until you crank down the volume so you won't hear them.
Secondly, the roster is quite limited. You have a few big-name stars like Hollywood Hogan and Sting, and up-and-comers like Eddie Guerrero, but if you were expecting the roster you'd get from Revenge, forget it.
The arenas look pretty and walking animations aren't bad (not good, either, but not bad), but you don't get actual superstar music. Instead, you get cheap knock-off tunes. This was also the first WCW game to feature a "create-a-wrestler" mode, but this was as limited as the roster. You picked a template (the only human one was an insane military dude while the rest were beast-like, such as the "Wasp" template, or horribly bizarre like the WireFrame Man, the Walking Silhouette, or the Radiation-Scarred Mutant). You could mix and match parts from these, but the resulting creations looked even less attractive than the original templates. You could "affiliate" yourself with one faction or another, such as the nWo, but I never really saw how this affected gameplay. Another gripe is that your "movesets" consisted of using the moves from the in-game wrestlers. There were two fields, Moveset and Finisher, but if you tried to get, say, Stings moves and Hogan's finisher, it wouldn't work. The minute you changed the Finisher, the Moveset would change to the wrestler whose finisher you picked. Frustration, frustration, frustration.
And speaking of the movesets, they are limited and inaccurate. They are mostly the same between wrestlers, consisting of simple ounches, awkward-looking kicks, a few simple grapples, clotheslines, and your wrestler's finisher. Hogan's finisher in this game.....is a back body drop. No body slam, no Atomic Leg Drop, no Big Boot, or anything close. He lifts his opponent up, then lets them fall behind him. Wow. I'm underwhelmed.
On the good side, the controls don't take much time to learn, and they did manage to incorporate basic weapons like chairs into the game, although they can be somewhat unwieldy to use. "Mean" Gene Okerlund does the super-special ring announcing and sounds pretty good at it. Finally, they incorporated the title belt contender system from Revenge, meaning you chose a division (Cruiserweight, Tag-Team, Television, United States Heavyweight, or World Heavyweight) and fight your way through the rankings until you become the #1 Contender and face the Champion for the title, and you can of course defend the belts you've won, as well, and I found no flaws in this system in either game.
This game had its good points, but they were overshadowed by the bad ones. I would say that, no matter how bad they are, no WWE or TNA game could come close to this.....but then I remember that WrestleMania 21 is dangerously close to being as bad as Mayhem and it was made years later, so nothing is for certain in the realm of video games. At least AKI managed to make a fun game, even if it didn't have a lot of features and spit-and-polish. That said, it's time for....
READER FEEDBACK
....Huh. Inbox is empty. Meh; musta been the Thanksgiving break and turkey comas. Anyway, thanks for reading, and all feedback is appreciated.
