Game Review: WWF Royal Rumble (2000)

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Publisher: THQ
Developers: Sega and Yuke's
Genre: Wrestling
Series: N/A
Released: August 1 2000 (US) and September 22 2000 (UK)
Certificate: 15+ (Nowadays 16)
Consoles: Dreamcast (also Arcade)

When wrestling fans reminisce about the golden age of wrestling videogames, the year 2000 is a vintage one to look back upon. We had the first two SmackDown! games as well as the incredible No Mercy. Sure, we also had WCW Backstage Assault which was, quite frankly, woeful, and two ECW games, but it's the WWF titles which first come to mind.

One WWF game which is easy to forget, however, is Royal Rumble. An arcade game which was later released on Sega Dreamcast, Royal Rumble is almost always overshadowed by the more famous WWF games on PS1 and N64. Mind you, there's a good reason why: Royal Rumble is nowhere near as good as any of its three counterparts from that year, but that isn't to say that it's a completely bad game.

Royal Rumble feels like a demo more than a full-on game. For starters, there are only two match options: a singles match and a Royal Rumble match (obviously). The traditional singles option provides you with a manager/partner, whether you want one or not, and who interferes upon your command (via a whistle which is more closely associated with a shepherd than a WWF wrestler). You can't leave the ring during matches, and at random points, the lights go out and you can find yourself within a steel cage (with which you can't interact) or one of a number of backstage areas (which fortunately allows for you to interact with weapons and props). It all sounds so random, but considering that this was primarily an arcade game, the rapid-fire pace to proceedings and the catering towards players with short attention spans does make sense.

Still, that's no excuse not to even have basic matches like tag team, nor does it explain why for a game based on the Royal Rumble - the classic 30-man annual tradition - there are only 19 characters, plus two hidden names (Vince and Shane McMahon), which inevitably means some notable omissions (including Billy Gunn, Christian and The Radicalz amongst others). There are WWF videogame debuts for Tazz and Kurt Angle, and Rikishi pops up too, but in order for a Rumble match to achieve the goal of 30 participants, characters have to re-enter the bout. No, there isn't an option to create a character, or anything else, so you'll have to accept that the likes of Edge or Matt Hardy will return even after you've eliminated them. You can have Rumbles of 60 or 90 entrants, but this obviously increases wrestler repetition. At least characters have alternate attires to make things a little bit different.

The gameplay and graphics were very similar to the SmackDown! games from around that time, but the 128-bit power of the Dreamcast means that things are taken a step further and so these visuals are the best yet (well, at least until the first WWF game on PS2 the following year). Speaking of graphics, this is the only WWF/WWE game to date which allows for nine on-screen characters, by far the most redeeming aspect of this title. The camera cuts are more akin to later SmackDown! titles like Just Bring It, making this game a little ahead of the curve in that regard, and moves are fairly easy to execute, even if the difficulty levels are unnecessarily challenging. The menu also had a countdown clock to pick your wrestlers which seemed to be arcade-focused; this could occasionally be frustrating, but the fact that it used a Rumble-style timer for this was pretty cool, I guess.

On the downside, there is only one arena (a strange hybrid of Royal Rumble 1999 and Raw), there are no real entrances besides a quick snap of a wrestler's arrival in a manner similar to a subliminal television advertisement, and the in-game audio is poor; with no commentary or ring announcements, the game strangely foregoes the decision to include music during matches nor does it include much in the way of crowd reactions. Also, when wrestlers enter the Rumble (and sometimes two or three enter at once), we aren't given the authentic countdown, the buzzer or their respective theme songs. The only time that we hear entrance themes is during post-match celebrations, and even they are short. (Between this, the wrestlers walking in front of their videos in the SD games and the abrupt ending to intros in No Mercy, what was THQ's problem with wrestler entrances in 2000?) Perhaps the oddest aspect of this game concerns the marketing: the game has an opening video with highlights from Rumble 2000 surrounded by a red hue, and the Rumble match option uses the 2000 version of the event logo, yet the box art, the title screen and the logos used within the arena all relate to the 1999 edition.

I mentioned earlier that Royal Rumble feels more like a demo than the finished product, and that remains the best way I can describe this game. As an arcade experience or as a quick way to fill 5-10 minutes, or for a nostalgic trip down memory lane, this works and will likely entertain. But for anyone seeking a proper wrestling title, a chance to relive authentic WWF action, or something which at least feels like it has full and proper attention paid to its development, Royal Rumble does not succeed, and in terms of how it compares to its competitors on the other consoles, it'd be like comparing a small, money-losing independent with the then-red hot WWF.

To be honest, the Sega Dreamcast and even Sega as a whole often felt doomed, and Royal Rumble is a perfect example of why the platform did not succeed. At a time when the WWF product was cool and hip, and a game bearing its initials was guaranteed to sell by the truckload, RR feels like a simple cash-in rather than a chance to really target fans of the product with a logical, innovative and exciting game. Even if Royal Rumble had received another six months of development, it wouldn't have mattered because the Dreamcast ceased production in 2001. Which means that because this was the only original WWF game produced for the console (a port of Attitude was released but it featured no changes, bar the strange decision to remove the Owen Hart tribute), Royal Rumble was the best option for Dreamcast owners because it was the only option for them.

Summing this up, if you played this in an arcade then you'd get a kick out of it. It's far from terrible from a gameplay or a graphical standpoint - I'd sooner play and look at this than the later Raw games on Xbox - and having nine characters on screen gives this some credibility even to this day. But that's as far as it goes when it comes to really putting Royal Rumble over. If you do have a Dreamcast, I'd suggest tracking this down and giving it a few plays for the sake of nostalgia or for curiosity purposes, but other than that, you're better off putting your money towards something else. Besides, if you really wanted to relive the Attitude Era that much, you could always just subscribe to the WWE Network! Or play either No Mercy or one of the early SmackDown! games. Or you could decide that you do want to play Royal Rumble, which is fine; just don't expect a lot from it.

Overall Rating: 5/10 - Average

WWF WrestleMania 2000

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Publisher: THQ
Developer: AKI Corporation, Asmik Ace Entertainment (Natsume for GBC)
Genre: Wrestling
Series: N/A
Released: October 31 1999 (US) and October 12 1999 (UK)
Certificate: 15+ (Nowadays 16)
Consoles: N64 and GBC

It's hard to imagine in the modern wrestling world where one WWE videogame is released each year, and has been published by 2K Sports since 2013 (and THQ for a long time before that), but in the autumn of 1999, two major WWF games were released by two different publishers. Acclaim released the much-anticipated WWF Attitude in August/September of 1999 but, by then, the WWF had already agreed a deal for THQ to become its new videogame developer. Wasting no time, WrestleMania 2000 would be their first game, and it would hit stores in time for the final Christmas season of the millennium (which makes it sound really grand, doesn't it?).

This would mark the end of an era and the beginning of a new one; the Acclaim period had seen the WWF grow and improve its videogame output, but even the latter titles like War Zone and Attitude, whilst fun at the time, were far from flawless games and were mostly acceptable due to the WWF branding (see the subsequent ECW Hardcore Revolution, which was essentially an ECW version of Attitude, which didn't get great reviews). THQ, on the other hand, had built up a great deal of goodwill with its WCW games World Tour and, in particular, Revenge, which was released in late 1998 and, from a gameplay standpoint, blew any of Acclaim's titles away. So, one can understand why the WWF would enter into a working relationship with THQ, and why fans were hyped when news came out that THQ would be developing a WWF game, WrestleMania 2000 as a Nintendo 64 exclusive, for the first time.

In the end, WM 2000 ended up being the strongest wrestling game to date at that point. The gameplay was almost exactly the same as that of Revenge, but a certain number of WWF elements, and features seen in previous WWF titles, were mixed in, along with some new innovations not seen in a WWF game before, all of which gave fans a pretty strong package, and a fine way to sign off the millennium.

The wrestling gameplay was simple but very effective: in contrast to Acclaim titles where they tried to use its wrestling control scheme in the context of a real fight by having the more important moves requiring more complicated and tougher controls (which is understandable, or at least it was at the time), in WM 2000 (and Revenge before that), moves almost entirely revolved around the "A" button. A quick press from a tie-up executed basic moves, and holding the button down for a few seconds while the opponent was stunned allowed you to execute more powerful moves. The HUDs were colour-based, with green representing 100% health and 50% momentum at the start of every match, and building up to the red level which would gradually increase in speed until the word SPECIAL covered the HUD, creating a short window of time when you could execute a finishing move by using the toggle stick (a smart gamer would hit the finisher twice or even three times during this period, depending how long it took to hit the move, for example, a Stone Cold Stunner was much quicker than a People's Elbow). In contrast, for the weakened opponent, their HUD would change colour to light blue and then dark blue, which eventually led to DANGER covering their HUD. If you were in the DANGER zone, chances are that you were about to lose, whereas SPECIAL suggested that you were one big move away from victory. It was all so simple, yet it worked perfectly, and although the system had already been used in Revenge, it had not been seen by hardcore WWF fans, meaning that Federation followers were wowed by the gameplay in WM 2000, making it very hard to return to the Acclaim control scheme.

Elsewhere, this was the first WWF game to feature a full Season-style mode, known as Road To WrestleMania. You played through a year of WWF action with the occasional storylines, with victories on TV leading to PPV title matches, and with a character's status determining their fate for the most part (so Steve Austin, The Rock and co were in the main events, the likes of Mideon and Viscera were further down the card etc). As with the control scheme, its success lied in its simplicity, especially compared to the Career mode in Attitude which was hit-and-miss on occasion (remember the unexpected and incredibly tough 3-on-1 Handicap matches in Attitude's Career mode?). Of course, it would be topped in future games, but the mode (which featured occasional cut-scenes and storylines, such as the Test-Stephanie McMahon partnership and Jim Ross calling WrestleMania with Jerry Lawler) was a lot of fun at the time, and was the best single-player mode on a wrestling game to date at that point.

The match types were a bit sparse: besides the usual singles and tag bouts, there was only Triple Threat, Hardcore and Steel Cage options, alongside Royal Rumble and King Of The Ring. Since this was in the days before the likes of Hell In A Cell and Ladder bouts were seen in WWF/WWE games, though, this can be forgiven slightly, and the gameplay made up for the lack of stipulation bouts on offer. This was the first WWF game to offer authentic arenas (War Zone and Attitude's versions of the WWF Raw venue looked similar to the real thing, but they didn't boast the small touches and banners that the same arena did in this game): Raw, Heat, Royal Rumble 1999, WrestleMania (a strange hybrid of the WM XV and WM 2000 sets), King Of The Ring 1998, SummerSlam 1998 and Survivor Series 1998 were all here, complete with pre-match background shots like those used on television (this was the first game to provide that feature). Inside the arenas, the fans had signs specific to the wrestlers for the first time (including multi-part "R-O-C-K" letters for you-know-who).

The roster featured all the big WWF names of the day, including Chris Jericho who had only debuted in the company a couple of months earlier (his character model from WCW/nWo Revenge was presumably reused here), so the final roster total of 57 was the highest ever in a WWF game at that time. Full entrances were here, from the motions to the music to the never-before-seen-in-a-game entrance videos (even if they did consist of a few highly pixelated screenshots; and the theme songs weren't of the highest quality either, although Revenge didn't have any actual entrance music). Although the character models looked almost cartoonish, it didn't make a difference presentation-wise, because everybody looked authentic, more so than in any wrestling game ever. And whilst Revenge lacked a true Create A Wrestler option (you could adapt wrestler attires which helped), the feature was prominent in WM 2000, if a little basic, so you could create the likes of Kurt Angle and The Dudley Boyz in no time, as well as being able to customise every aspect of an existing wrestler's attire, aside from their move sets.. A Create A PPV option (which allowed for a whopping 15 matches) and a mini Create A Championship option (you used one of the existing titles and gave it a new name) were the icing on the cake. Oh, and who remembers the cool five-minute opening video to the game which recreated scenes from actual television within the game, such as the Ministry "sacrificing" Stephanie only for Stone Cold to make the save?

(One last thing: there were five wrestlers on the cover of the game, but Steve Austin was not one of them; and he would only appear on the covers of a few more games in the future, despite still being massively popular in spite of his neck injury. Strange, eh?)

For all the hype that Attitude received and for the praise that Revenge rightly earned, WrestleMania 2000, with less hype and an almost-ignored level of promotion and feedback, blew both games out of the water: it outclassed Attitude greatly in the ring, it built upon the weaker areas in Revenge, and added its own unique touches and a star-studded roster from the apex of the Attitude Era to close out the millennium in grand fashion. WrestleMania 2000 was the best wrestling game ever at that time, but its own areas for improvement would be matched and then some by its highly-regarded successor No Mercy. Nevertheless, for what it's worth, WM 2000 was awesome, and a perfect snapshot of wrestling's greatest ever era.

Overall Rating: 9/10 - Outstanding

WWF No Mercy

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Publisher: THQ
Developer: AKI Corporation and Asmik Ace Entertainment
Genre: Wrestling
Series: N/A
Released: November 17 2000 (US) and December 15 2000 (UK)
Certificate: 15+ (Nowadays 16)
Consoles: N64

WWF No Mercy, the successor to WrestleMania 2000, was released in late 2000, on a console which didn't allow for character models with polygons greater than 64-bit and which didn't possess any level of video streaming. The roster has greatly changed and even the company name has been different for nearly 15 years. Plus, HD gaming was a long way off, and the feature set was basic compared to modern titles. So how is it that No Mercy remains so revered as possibly the greatest wrestling game ever? Well, I shall explain.

Firstly, its two main single-player modes were excellent for different reasons. Championship saw you pursue any one of seven titles as literally anybody on the game, and follow various story paths and lifelike plotlines (some of which directly mirrored reality, from the APA protecting you to a replica of the WWF Championship storyline heading into WrestleMania 2000). Crucially, whilst there were some matches that required you to win in order to continue, many offered alternate paths based on specific results. And to complete the mode in its entirety, you would have to lose matches in order to unlock these various endings. Sure, there were no voiceovers, but it was phenomenally entertaining and the use of on-screen text actually explained the mode's flexibility. It was a standard-bearer for such modes with literally tons of replay value.

The other main mode, Survival, was more simple but no less entertaining. It was basically one long Royal Rumble with everybody on the game entering, and with your goal being to stand tall as the winner. Even if you didn't win, you would be rewarded (as I will explain shortly), but it was a great feeling when you did manage to win the whole thing. Surprisingly simple yet incredibly addictive (and occasionally very frustrating too, to be fair), it's a wonder that no other game has included Survival since. These two modes alone would have made No Mercy a cracking game, but we're only just getting started.

The roster was a vintage collection of Attitude Era stars, which included all the top names (except Big Show), loads of newcomers (such as Kurt Angle) and almost every non-wrestling personality in the WWF at the time; even one of The Godfather's Hos was a playable character. It also had the first use of Legends in the form of Andre The Giant, and parts were available to create some faces not on the roster, like Gangrel and Mideon. With the largest roster to date in a wrestling game, and featuring almost everybody who could have been included at the time, the roster was a who's who of Attitude Era characters.

There were several new match types that its predecessor WM 2000 didn't boast, such as Special Referee, Iron Man and Ladder. Meanwhile, this was the first game to include full arenas for the B-level PPVs (No Mercy, Backlash and Armageddon), which with SmackDown! also being a new inclusion gave us ten full arenas in total. And it was the first WWF game on Nintendo 64 to include backstage brawling, with five simple yet very effective areas, all of which boasted room-specific props such as a pool table in the bar and the 18-wheeler truck in the parking lot.

The improvements didn't end there. A new SmackDown Mall shop option gave way to hundreds of unlockables (you earned cash for the shop in Championship and Survival, with you earning more money based on your performances in those modes). There were now 18 slots for Create A Wrestler, but as you could totally customise up to four attires, it essentially meant a whopping 72 characters to potentially make (plus you could assign different entrance themes to each attire, which you couldn't do in WM 2000). You could now put opponents through an announcer's table at ringside, even if the commentators themselves weren't present at ringside (although Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole were all unlockable characters to use during matches). There were new weapons, including a bazooka, a huge slab of cheese and Mick Foley's first book. The graphics looked cooler and darker, giving a real mood to areas like the bar which had some LED features. Create A Wrestler was more in-depth, and items were named to make them easier to find. Wrestler faces looked more lifelike, even if some (such as Triple H) were a bit iffy. All titles which were claimed in Championship mode could now be defended in Exhibition once a story had been completed. There were new post-match celebration scenes, such as Rikishi dancing with Too Cool. And whilst the gameplay didn't really change, it was tweaked slightly to make it a little more realistic than in the previous game; but since it was already outstanding, the wrestling engine completed one amazing videogame package.

There were some flaws, though. The promise of blood being included came true, but blood effects were then removed (presumably by mistake) when fixing a data error, meaning that wrestlers would react as if they were bleeding even though they weren't. There were more new matches in its friendly rival SmackDown! 2 Know Your Role such as Hell In A Cell, Table and TLC. The small-scale Create A Championship option was quietly removed, whilst Create A PPV remained but was not improved in any significant way. And entrances would inexplicably end when a wrestler went past the stage, despite initial screenshots suggesting that the game would have full entrances (so, for example, Steve Austin would use what he describes as the "BMF" walk when coming out, but we wouldn't see his turnbuckle poses), which wasn't helped by the entrance videos being more pixelated than they were in WM 2000. (Also, although it didn't affect the N64 title, a planned Game Boy Color port of the game was eventually cancelled prior to its scheduled release.) As you may have guessed, though, the downsides were absolutely overwhelmed by the positive aspects of the game.

The superb single-player modes, the incredible gameplay and fighting engine, the big-name roster and the other new features and improvements all created one fantastic wrestling game, one that has arguably only been reached or surpassed on one or two occasions by any game since, purely from the standpoint of a fun, exciting and entertaining title. Future wrestling games would offer larger rosters, greater feature sets and even more options from an in-ring standpoint, such as more strategic submission grappling and crowd brawls, but in terms of an overall package, WWF No Mercy remains an all-time classic title. It wasn't quite flawless, but it was as close to perfection as one would expect; if the modern WWE 2K titles were as good as No Mercy, no fans would ever be complaining. A phenomenal wrestling game that all diehard fans should play.

Overall Rating: 9.5/10 - Classic