This game sucks. That’s about all I can say, it absolutely sucks. But for some reason, I played the hell out of Nitro. Why? Because they gave you so many unlockable wrestlers, and I was determined to unlock every one of them. You started with 16 wrestlers. You pick a wrestler, go through a gauntlet of 10 matches, and once it’s over, you unlock a new wrestler. Each wrestler on the roster unlocked a specific new one, therefore, you actually had to play at least once as every wrestler to unlock everyone. There were a total of 64 characters, meaning if you wanted to beat the game with every character, you had to play a total of 640 matches. That’s a mind-boggling amount of matches, and I did it. Am I proud that I wasted that much time? Eh, maybe a little.
The first set of wrestlers consisted of WCW’s top stars: Hollywood Hulk Hogan, Sting, Kevin Nash, Roddy Piper, and of course, the greatest wrestler of all-time: “Das Wunderkind” Alex Wright. After you go through this set, you unlock the likes of Ultimo Dragon, and a few managers and lesser known wrestlers. The third set of wrestlers was people who worked on the game. Wait, what? That’s right, the third set of 16 wrestlers were the people who worked on the game. And past that, I don’t even remember, I think they threw in Frankenstein’s monster or some bull**** like that just to pad the amount of wrestlers. I would have liked to have seen that meeting:
Smith: “We need a total of 64 characters, we’ll include 32 of WCW’s top stars, and beyond that, who can we include?”
Johnson: “Why don’t we just put us and a bunch of retarded public domain characters in there?”
Smith: “Johnson, I like the cut of your jib.”
Johnson: “What’s a jib?”
Smith: “Ha, promote that man.” (I’m sorry, I had to add a Simpsons reference at some point.)
There were a few upsides to the game. For one, a couple of the unlockable wrestlers were The Hulkster and the original “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Secondly, they had big head mode, and that’s something. But the one thing that really stands out about the game are the rants. The what? Well, at the wrestler select screen, you could hit a button, and whatever wrestler you’re currently scrolled over will then begin a rant. These things were absolutely hilarious. A coked up Roddy Piper would scream incoherently about something, Kevin Nash would jokingly beg the player to pick him, and then guys like Chris Benoit had to ruin all the fun and be serious. Both Nitro and Thunder had them, but Thunder’s were way better, sit back and enjoy
As for the gameplay, every single bit of it stands out, but not for good reasons. The camera seemed to do a constant loop around the arena. Every character had the exact same set of moves, with the exception of finishing moves. This never bothered me, but good luck trying to pull some of them off. In the manual, it says that a powerbomb is performed by hitting Square and X. So I hit the buttons, and what happens? I throw a punch. This goes on for a few minutes before I realize that the correct input is: Square (pause) X. It doesn’t sound like much, but trust me, it’s really annoying. As a wrestling fan since birth, I have a few pet peeves about the game. Why does the computer always have someone interfere in the match, and it doesn’t cause them to get disqualified? Why doesn’t Hulk Hogan hit the ropes before he does his world famous leg drop? Why, at some points, does the game decide that I’m not hitting any buttons and let the computer destroy me? This game is the reason the WCW went under. It wasn’t shoddy management, bad writing, and the unwillingness to promote new stars, it was WCW Nitro on PS1.
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