This was an odd one, as I remembered quite liking this when I brought it at the time, and I know I at least played through it once with a friend, but then when I started looking at this retrospectively the online opinion of the game was rather harshly negative, including appearing on some “worst games ever” lists. So, now in 2020, do my opinion match up to the general consensus, or do I have some sort of blind spot for this game? Let’s find out!
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ECW games are like buses, you wait forever for one then two comes along at once! … then the company goes bankrupt. Oh well! Anarchy Rulz sees us wave goodbye to the “War Zone Engine”, and not a moment too soon as it started to get old during Attitude, and Hardcore Revolution didn’t do it any favours. Still, this game features a match where people explode into flames when they get tossed over the top onto lava-like “hot coals”, so… hooray?
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WWF Smackdown! is very much the wrestling game equivalent of “from humble beginnings”, as this first entry in the series is, erm… lacking in a lot of departments, to put it nicely. It came out just a few months after I’d gotten WrestleMania 2000, so I only played it via renting it out once, and then playing around friends’ houses. Was I wrong to not give it a fair shake?! Let’s… okay, I think we know the answer, but let’s take a look anyway!
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ECW’s first game should’ve been a reason to celebrate, but instead it was a blatant cash-grab, both ECW and Acclaim were hurting financially and so clearly wanted this out of the door as fast as possible, and it shows. It’s pretty much just WWF Attitude with ECW characters and logos, plus a Barbed Wire Match. It was still fun for a short burst because I was actually playing as ECW wrestlers, which was weird after all that time, but it soon became rather obvious what was going on. How is it now, in hindsight? Let’s find out!
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We’ve reached something of a milestone here, as this is the last fighting game I’ll be reviewing as part of this marathon, and the final of three Street Fighter games to boot. After reviewing the original with the first film, and Super SFII with the second film, I thought I’d review my favourite Street Fighter game alongside “Assassin’s Fist”, so I went with Alpha 3, the final of the prequels to SFII and a PS1 game I became very addicted too for a while. Let’s take a look!
When I think of WCW games I either think of the great AKI engine games, the really bad Nitro/Thunder duo, or the bizarre game they end on (coming soon!) so WCW Mayhem always falls under the radar, despite being the last “serious” WCW game released, the only traditional wrestling game released by EA and the first wrestling game to have accessible backstage areas. How does this one-off play like? Should it be more fondly remembered? Let’s find out!
I’ve always enjoyed Tekken (the games at least, the film I can give or take…), but it’s always been secondary to the 2D fighters I’ve loved from the likes of CAPCOM and SNK. Still, I have fond memories of being round a friend’s house and him showing me the game and how you can unlock certain characters, and I remember renting it out for a long weekend. How does it hold up now, after many… many sequels and spin-offs? Let’s find out!
WWF Attitude was quite the big deal when it came out, to me it was mostly because it actually had a career mode with a calendar screen, house shows, the works. I was really excited, and thankfully I wasn’t disappointed, and the create-a-wrestler suite was amazing (at the time) to top things off. I’ll admit the Dreamcast version, which did have improved graphics, is only in my collection because it came with the console, but I did play it a bit, and used it for the purposes of this review, meaning I probably played the Dreamcast version more in 2020 than I did in 1999/2000… Anyway, let’s take a look!
So after reviewing one of the best wrestling games ever, we get the exact opposite. Thunder was made by the same team who made Nitro, and instead of doing anything to fix the game, they just poured more bollocks into it until it completely broke. The fact this came out roughly a month after Revenge boggles the mind. I feel sorry for those who only had a PS1 back in the day and were fans of WCW. Well… Let’s have a look then…
Funnily enough I’ve never really been into the Tomb Raider series. I played the original quite a bit around various friends’ houses, and I THINK I played the second one, also around a friend’s house, but that’s it really. I know all about the series because, let’s face it, it was the first 3D series to actually become “Iconic”, with Lara Croft herself becoming a gaming icon in no time flat. Still, along with giving you a look at the game that inspired the film, how does Tomb Raider play in 2020? Well…
Hogan Reviews 