The Monday Night Wars
The next major evolution in wrestling games came when the games went 3D. And just like their onscreen equivalent, a war between companies would soon begin to create the most interesting era in wrestling video games. WCW Vs the World came out on Playstation and would be the first in a series of games that would include WCW vs NWO World Tour and WCW/NWO Revenge, all developed by THQ. The games featured large blocky polygonal graphics, very large
rosters (although early games didnt always feature well known wrestlers) and surprisingly in depth game play. Meanwhile on the WWF side of the fence Acclaim wasnt going to lay down and tap out to THQ just yet. They created WWF Warzone, which featured far more realistic 3D visuals, Superstar entrances, complete with theme music, full commentary and the previously mentioned create-a-wrestler. Game play was still largely combo based compared to THQs grapple system, but both approaches were hits with gamers. WWF Warzone was followed by WWF Attitude, which added dozens of new wrestlers, features and modes and was another hit. However just as Chris Jericho jumping ship to WWF made big waves to the wrestling world in summer 99, the wrestling video game world was about to get shook up to make equally as big waves.
Acclaim had been predominantly responsible for WWFs games since Wrestlemania on the NES, and THQ had been handling the WCW licence across the four games, but it all changed in 99. Having seen the success of the WCW games from THQ, WWF at the height of its Stone Cold success decided to jump ship from Acclaim and enlist THQ to handle its future WWF game development. This meant the sequel to WCW/NWO Revenge starred Steve Austin instead of Goldberg and that Acclaim no longer had a wrestling promotion to follow Attitude with. Unfortunately a straight swap wasnt on the cards as EA Sports jumped in and took WCW from THQ, so the only option was to create a game based on the lesser known ECW. Wrestlemania 2000 made big improvements on WCW/NWO Revenge, but perhaps wasnt as feature heavily polished as Attitude had been. WCW Mayhem was a decent first effort from EA, but definitely below par in the face of the competition. Finally Acclaim hit back with ECW Hardcore Revolution, which unfortunately was exactly the same game as WWF Attitude with a much worse roster. Sure it was cool to play as RVD and Jerry Lynn, but they wouldnt figure out how to program a Van Daminator until the next generation. The only new addition to the game came in barbed wire matches which basically meant you couldnt bounce off the ropes. Yay. Just as the Monday Night Wars had to come to an end, so did the console wrestling wars. ECW Anarchy Rules made significant updates to the WWF Attitude game play, and was closer to THQs grapple system, but it was far from perfect and it sunk quicker than the Original ECW. EA tried to revolutionise the wrestling genre by removing the ring altogether. WCW Backstage Assault had much better game play then Mayhem, but was gimmicky, and the lack of ring meant basically all the specially matches such as cage, battle royal etc were gone with it. WCW was soon bought by Vince McMahon and so plans for a PS2 WCW disappeared too. This wasnt quite the end of Acclaim or EA in the wrestling game biz as they both went on to develop the Legends of Wrestling and Def Jam Vendetta games respectively. Whilst EAs games werent really taken too seriously, Acclaims games finally reached the game play potential they should have on the N64. The Legends of Wrestling series can be seen as the inspiration for the recent WWE Legends of Wrestlemania and WWE All-stars games which allow fans to play out dream matches between the likes of Big Show and Andre or Macho Man and CM Punk. Unfortunately by the time of Acclaims Legends of Wrestling Showdown the company was in major trouble and the game was rushed out in a buggy almost unfinished form. Still the game marked the second appearance of the Hart dungeon in a wrestling video game. Click "next" below to read part 4...