AWESOMENESS.
Hey Scott, thanks for posting a link to the World Tour video. In case it got lost in Wrestlemania weekend hype, the video for Revenge got posted. Maybe you'll know just why Sting stopped the 18 wheeler in the intro.
My theory on the semi is that Sting was constantly tethered by his rappelling gear everywhere he went, and he just ran out of line and had to stop.
This was probably my favorite N64 wrestling game. No Mercy had more options, but each wrestler in Revenge had his own style and the arenas were awesome. The only thing it lacked was a Thunder arena, but the Bash at the Beach, Halloween Havoc, and Starrcade sets were awesome.
ReplyDeleteI also remember that my favorite wrestler to use was Juvi. Once you got a special there was NO WAY your opponent would be able to kick out from a front grapple special (DDT) and the 450 splash. Good memories were had when my friends would pick Goldberg and I'd beat them with a cruiserweight.
I only wish that this game had entrance music. It would've enhanced the Disco Inferno's entrance.
I loved the fuck out of this game when it came out. I loved getting creative with the Edit feature to turn the WCW guys into my own picks. I was big into ECW at the time so I had Finlay as Sandman, Scott Norton and Stevie Ray as the Dudleyz, Lodi as Spike, Curt Hennig as Shane Douglas, unmasked Juvi as Super Crazy, Yuji Nagata as Tajiri, Kanyon as Sabu, and I think in my desperation for a decent Tommy Dreamer I had a really off-kilter Buff Bagwell. Plus Raven in Chris Benoit's tights made for a good Brian Pillman, even though he was already dead when the game came out.
ReplyDeleteWhile the next two THQ/AKI games may have had more bells and whistles, I've always felt that "Revenge" was the best of the four - I loved all the cruiserweights, the backgrounds looked better, and I even preferred the more limited CAW mode (where you really had to use your imagination to get what you wanted).
ReplyDeleteThat said, it's hard to argue against "WM2000" being the true king of the series - it had entrances, a full CAW, and the hotter license. Either one could easily make a claim as being the greatest wrestling game of all time.
What I'll never understand, though, is why everybody loves "No Mercy" so much; the game-play wasn't as smooth, it had a ton of glitches, the entrances were actually less intricate than the previous game, the background music was terrible, and there was MASSIVE SLOW-DOWN! That's the part I never understood: this was the FIFTH game in the series (including "WCW vs. The World" for PS1), and it was the only one to suffer slow-down!
Anyway, back on point, "Revenge" friggin' RULED!
Yup, same here, I tried to make every ECW wrestler I could think of. Finlay as Sandman was just too perfect.
ReplyDeleteI had a misguided friend who tried to argue that Piper looked more like Sandman. I dunno what kind of crack he was on. Finlay even did the Rolling Rock Tombstone!
ReplyDeleteI loved Hennig as Shane Douglas though: put him in Dean Malenko's tights with black & yellow & it looks just like him when he had long hair. Plus he did the Perfectplex, which was similar to the Pittsburgh Plunge, and did the fisherman's buster off the top rope as well. And I believe Douglas & Rick Rude had some connection back in ECW for a while, and Rude came to the ring with Hennig.
One thing that always bugged me about No Mercy that I felt like added to the slow down was that there was so much excess stuff that taxed the system memory and didn't need to be on there. Unlockable characters like Linda McMahon and The Ho that no one would ever use, tons of outfits that didn't even make sense for a wrestler to wear, too much animation in the character-select screens (your characters are standing there, breathing heavily. Why add that animation in? Who really needed that to be there?) I loved that game, but there was stuff that infuriated me about it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, agreed on the criticisms of No Mercy. However, I remember being very happy when I figured out that if you turned off the in-game music that everything ran quickly.
ReplyDeleteNever knew that, thanks for the heads-up.
ReplyDeleteStill, pretty ridiculous that the gamer has to make that sacrifice.
In my case, the reason why I rank No Mercy higher is because I had the N64 expansion pack which pretty much fixed all of the No Mercy issues with the slowdown. Also running it on an emulator (which I do now) sidesteps all the issues as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree though, in terms of an out of the box N64 game played on a stock N64, Revenge probably owns all of them in terms of being the most well rounded and playable.
Oh and one great thing about Revenge that wasn't in No Mercy (I can't remember if it is in WrestleMania 2000) was that the managers actually DO something outside of the ring. When you taunt, they taunt, or clap for you when you hit a big move. In No Mercy they just stand out there until interference occurs.
ReplyDeleteHuh, I had the expansion pack and still had those problems.
ReplyDeleteThis game freaking RULED- I played it for HOURS with my friends when we were in High School. All the moves, reversals and grapples were amazing- it was almost the perfect wrestling game. A Creator-A-Wrestler mode WOULD HAVE made it the best ever, bar none, I think.
ReplyDeleteJust want to add that I'm really like this Joe Gagne's style - the content of his reviews are right in the sweet-spot between being too short to be informative and too long to be interesting, and he keeps the comedy to a few smart little observations instead of over-loading with loud, in-your-face obnoxiousness.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work, Joe!
Hmmm... guess I could be remembering it wrong after all these years, but I seem to remember the slowdown being less noticeable, but maybe it was the music trick.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I like his reviewing style too. I get so sick of everyone doing their take on the Angry Videogame Nerd on roids, with the constant profanity and yelling.
ReplyDeleteI think I had a PC version of this game. I don't remember it being any fun. This was before I had a Playstation... Smackdown and Smackdown 2 - Know Your Role were awesome.
ReplyDeleteOne on one matches didn't tend to slow down much with the music off, but any battle royals or 4 ways where everyone was in the ring at once or especially if two guys were on the outside wrestling would slow down considerably. That was without the expansion pack. There's also a chance if you bought it in the first month or so that it came out that you might have a glitched game, a lot of the first ones were. Although those were the ones that you could hack into with a Game Shark and do detailed custom work.
ReplyDeleteOutside of No Mercy, we put far too much time into this game.
ReplyDeleteMy friends and I decided that we all had to pick a lower level guy and get good with them instead of always using the "names". My buddy Kelly used Finlay, I had Kanyon.
Seeing this review makes me want to break the game out for a battle royal.