http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4j04ktchT0
Boy, this game is baaaad.
Oh yeah, I remember the T-Rex and Snowman well. Although YMCA mode was amusing for about 10 seconds back in the day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4j04ktchT0
Boy, this game is baaaad.
REVIEW WCW THUNDER!
ReplyDeleteI remember one of the unlockable characters named "Annie Mae" and being dressed as a schoolgirl with big eyes. That shit blew my mind at the time since I thought anime was something only me and a select niche group knew or cared about.
ReplyDeleteYep, this game sucked. Outside of WCW vs. The World (which was pretty primitive and had a tiny roster, at least as far as WCW guys goes) PS1 owners got the short end of the stick if they were WCW fans.
ReplyDeleteI owned a Playstation and an N64 at this time and quite liked WCW vs The World on the PS1 at least until World Tour upped the standard for wrestling games, so I always figured Nitro would be an upgrade of the previous WCW PS1 title.
ReplyDeleteLuckily I just rented it though -- it took me about five minutes to give up on it completely. The control system style alone made it seem like a substandard game along with WWF Warzone, but the glitchiness of it made it impossible to even check out all of the features in the game.
I actually did buy it later for the PC, hoping it would get an upgrade that would take advantage of the more powerful processors and such, but no such luck.
What's funny is that looking at the Wikipedia article -- Nitro *did* eventually come out for the N64 too, in early 1999, a whole year later after the PS1 version was released.
Yep, what's sad is that this came out like a year after the excellent WCW vs. The World.
ReplyDeleteif there is any justice in this world, Linda McMahon will be humiliated in defeat and this comment will have 10000 likes
ReplyDeleteThat might have been the easiest wrestling game ever. All you had to was do the test of strength move (not in Nitro) a couple times, bang the buttons, and hit your finisher. You could beat tournament mode in about 10 minutes, and most of that time would be spent looking at the loading screen.
ReplyDeleteWhat's really funny is that the N64 port of Nitro sold pretty well, despite far better games having already been on the market.
ReplyDeleteYeah I thought that was a really good game overall, it blew my mind in the era it came out and it probably doesn't get enough credit, at least stateside.
ReplyDeleteConsole wrestling games before that (with the exception of a few titles available in Japan) were mostly either button-mashers like the WWF and WCW SNES/Sega games or fighting/wrestling hybrids like Saturday Night Slam Masters and the WrestleMania Arcade game. None of them had very good control systems and few depicted wrestling in a reasonably realistic way until WCW vs the World on the Playstation.
Before that I'd say the last *really* good wrestling game available in North America was Pro Wrestling for the NES from 1987.
Yeah, I guess it's a testament to how hot wrestling was at the time when such crappy games can move huge $$$.
ReplyDeleteActually, did Warzone/Revenge/Nitro/WrestleMania 2000 outsell No Mercy? I would not be surprised.
Another list I found on the same site breaks down like this by console, this looks more accurate--
ReplyDelete1. WWF Smackdown (PS) - 3.58m
2. WWF Warzone (PS) 3.36m
3. WWF SmackDown 2 (PS) - 3.2m
4. WWF SmackDown JBI (PS2) - 2.79m
5. WCW/NWO Revenge (N64) - 2.38m
6. WCW Nitro (PS) - 1.88m
7. WWF Attitude (PS) - 1.76m
8. WCW vs NWO World Tour (N64) - 1.69m
9. WCW Thunder (PS) - 1.69m
6. WWF No Mercy (N64) - 1.5m
7. WWF WrestleMania 2000 (N64) - 1.48m
8. WCW VS The World (PS) - 1.46m
9. WWF Warzone (N64) - 1.33m
10. WCW Mayhem (PS) - 1.22m
11. WCW Mayhem (N64) - 0.79m
12. WWF Attitude (N64) - 0.71m
13. WWF IYH (PS) - 0.62m
14. WWF RAW (XBox) - 0.55m
15. WCW Nitro (N64) - 0.21m
16. WrestleMania: The Arcade Game (PS) - 0.06m
This is of course for games from 2002 and back, although they don't have any sales figures at
all listed for the pre-Playstation 1 games.
Tecmo World Wrestling was pretty good too, though confusing as all get-out.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed Raw and Royal Rumble for what they were, but can't call them great games. Saturday Night Slam Masters was awesome, but I consider it a fighting game rather than a wrestling game.
vs. the World was mind blowing at the time.
Sounds like I thought it would, though I did expect Revenge to be higher than Just Bring It.
ReplyDeleteForgot about Techmo, I did like that game too. There were a couple of other minor games on even more rudimentary systems that I enjoyed, like the old WWF Microleague Wrestling game and a third party title for home computers called "Takedown" about a fictional wrestling federation. Those were fun for their era.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the others you mentioned as well, but as you said -- they weren't really the wrestling game I was looking/waiting for. WCW VS The World was the first time it felt properly done.
Yeah, I was surprised not to see Revenge and No Mercy a little higher since those are the two best games from the respective organizations IMO, but I suppose it's all timing and marketing.
ReplyDeleteActually Revenge's position is particularly impressive since Nintendo only sold about 33 million N64 consoles. For comparisons sake, the PS1 and PS2 sold 103 and 154 million units respectively.
Damn beat me to it :(
ReplyDeleteDoes this look like Scotsman's Blog of Doom to you?
ReplyDeleteGiant. Swing.
ReplyDeleteGeez, can't recall ever doing this in WCW Nitro in the five minutes I played it:
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/k4j04ktchT0?hd=1&t=3m3s
That's a helacious bump!
This. In college we played a bunch of WCW vs. the World, and were jacked when the Nitro game came out -- only to discover its suckitude. Then we got World Tour for 64 is all was right with the World again. Hayabusa, yo.
ReplyDeletePlus WCW vs the World let you be Japanese wrestlers (Hakushi!) and had alternate outfits such as red/yellow hogan & old Sting.
ReplyDeleteAlso, somehow Rick Steiner was awesome in that game.
I remember when that stupid meme was born. God I feel old.
ReplyDeleteI remember renting the N64 version of this once and I thought it must have been the worst wrestling game I ever played. The controls were stupid and it seemed like the only moves I ever pulled off were a DDT and a powerbomb. Plus I never did manage to unlock any of the characters but there were run-ins from every third rate jobber on the roster. I think I actually may have brought this one back to Blockbuster before it was even due.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious for the ECW games and the 1999 release WCW Mayhem. That one was semi-fun, although nothing like the THQ/AKI games.
WrestleMania Challenge is underrated.
ReplyDeleteI vaguely remember Mayhem, so I'm also looking forward to that review and the ECW games. I was so spoiled by Revenge at that point and then No Mercy later that any wrestling game I'd pick up after that would only get about 10 minutes of play before I'd figure out it wasn't as good as No Mercy and that was that haha.
ReplyDeleteNitro was bad, but nowhere near as horrible as Raw for the XBox. One of the worst video games ever made in any genre, I'd rather play Action 52 than that pile of shit. It's pretty much completely unplayable.
ReplyDeleteThe ECW game is basically a significantly worse version of WWF Attitude
ReplyDeletewhat about WCW Backstage Assault? you know, the wresling game with NO FUKKING RING! i was pretty disappointed when i got home with that rental.
ReplyDeleteI remember getting a PS1 as a kid and for a while the only game I had was Nitro. I knew it was terrible, but I still played the hell out of it. My friends and I still quote X-Pac's promo from that game. "I'll slap on the buzz kill and pull your shoulder right out of its socket!"
ReplyDeleteTo make matters worse, I remember when I graduated from 8th grade to high school, I was given the rare opportunity to pick out a brand new video game. Naturally, I skipped Final Fantasy 7 and went straight for Thunder. Had I learned nothing?!
http://www.nopantsprovided.com/history/scotsmanality-forums/forum/print.php?id=11290&forum=1
ReplyDeleteYou can't escape your past.
I remember finally being the one to review that stinker when I was writing for Scotsman's site.
ReplyDeleteAs a joke between me and Scotsman, I wrote the whole thing like it was actually a really great game.
I felt dirty.
Damn you!
ReplyDeleteOh man seeing all those members takes me back.
ReplyDeleteJesus. That board is like herpes, it's with you for life. I stand by absolutely nothing I said or did on that site.
ReplyDeleteI think I played that one, I remember the story mode or whatever it was being like a million matches long. I had a semi decent Samoa Joe on there, or as it was said by the announcers in the game, Sam Owen Joe.
ReplyDeleteWhat he said.
ReplyDeleteI remembered being excited for Raw to come out. I went through 2 PS2s and when the 2nd one broke I took a sledgehammer to it (I used to have some anger issues). Switched to XBox because of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and lost my Smackdown games (well worth the trade). So when I heard Raw was coming I couldn't wait, even though the previews said it wasn't going to be very good. I played it for maybe an hour before I decided it was dog shit.
ReplyDeleteSame here; I think Nitro was the first game I had, even though I had played WCW vs. the World already. What bothered me the most was the unrealistic things like Tony Schiavone or Kimberly powerbombing say the Giant.And I bought THunder, which was more of the same.
ReplyDeleteI played it a buddy's house who bought it used, and I don't think we even lasted that long. My friend was so offended by it that he wouldn't even try to return it or trade it in, he just smashed the disc in the street. Said he didn't want to subject anyone else to a game that shitty. He did the same thing to Goldeneye: Rouge Agent. That game was total ass too.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that cobra-fake sting is used in the wrestler selection screen as the real sting. That's pretty hilarious.
ReplyDeleteRAW 2 was just as atrocious. Literally the only good feature on that pile of crap was "Create An Entrance".
ReplyDeleteSo you would have great looking entrances and absolutely horrible gameplay and controls.
I can't even fathom having to play Nitro on the N64. Trying to control it on the PS was bad enough.
ReplyDeleteIT'S THE POWERBOMB!!!!
ReplyDeleteI had the PC version of this game, which I got sometime in early $1999 for like $10 brand new. Literally the only move I could ever figure out how to do was the Powerbomb since it was like A+F+Up arrow. All the other moves were like A+P+G+C+Down Arrow. How the FUCK are you even able to pull that off on a PC?
ReplyDeleteI love how the video singles out Nash's video rant for being lazy, but the PC version has an updated rant where he literally tells you he doesn't want to work and to play as Hogan!
"All the other moves were like A+P+G+C+Down Arrow. How the FUCK are you even able to pull that off on a PC?"
ReplyDeleteGamepad.