WWF’s answer to Nitro was War Zone. War Zone was a far superior product to Nitro, but paled in comparison to Revenge. You’re given a limited wrestler count, but you can use the create-a-wrestler to increase the amount. The story mode is pretty generic, complete with your opponents cutting promos on you before matches, and ugly cinematics of a blonde woman in a limo inviting you in once you win the Intercontinental Title. Gold-digging *****.
The ring seemed to be a little too large, either that, or the wrestlers were just very slow, it seemed like it took several seconds just to get from one side of the ring to the other. The moves, for the most part, looked pretty good and were easy to pull off. There were some noticeable things missing, like the People’s Elbow and entrances before matches, but these were small miscues. This game was much more fun when played with friends. There really just weren’t a whole lot of redeeming qualities when it came to the story mode to keep the game enjoyable when playing alone.
WWF Attitude, on the other hand, improved almost everything that was wrong with War Zone. Wrestlers moved at a normal pace, the wrestler selection included nearly the entire roster, a more robust create-a-wrestler mode, entrances (which were customizable in creation mode), and it also gave you the chance to be a wrestling booker with the create-a-pay-per-view mode. Let’s also remember that this was the “Attitude Era” of WWF, the second best era of professional wrestling behind only the mid-late 80s. This means that the game came complete with the likes of the Ministry, the Corporation, Degeneration-X, The Brood, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Mankind, The Nation of Domination, and a plethora of unlockable characters to add to the already impressive amount of replay value.
Another huge improvement was the story mode. It actually has one of the more realistic story modes as far as what it’s really like being a newcomer. For anyone that doesn’t follow wrestling and has managed to make it this far into the retrospective, I’ll break it down for you…
Pro wrestling is just like any other business; you start at the bottom and work your way up based on your improvement. However, not every show is televised, these are called “house shows,” shows that are organized just for the paying fans to attend and enjoy. At the time that Attitude was released, there was no Friday Night Smackdown! Instead, they had Sunday Night Heat. Newcomers usually participate on house shows or “dark matches,” matches that occur before the taping of a major event to warm up the crowd that are not aired.
So, in the Attitude story mode, you start off wrestling only on house shows. After enough wins, you work your way up to wrestling on Sunday Night Heat. Then, with enough improvement, you start appearing on Monday Night Raw, the companies premier weekly broadcast. Then lastly, you start regularly appearing on Pay-Per-Views, with the ultimate goal of wrestling at WrestleMania, the biggest show of the year.
I still think this is one of the better story modes for a wrestling game, mainly for it’s authenticity. However, my only gripe is the way you move up to the bigger shows. At the time, the WWF had 3 major singles title belts: the WWF Heavyweight Championship, the Intercontinental Championship, and the European Championship. Naturally, the first belt you win is the European title. Up to this point you competed in a lot of singles and tag team matches. But when you finally win the belt, it seems like the game is determined to make you lose it. You start competing in handicap matches where you’re outnumbered 2 to 1. And before it’s all said and done, and you’re close to winning the World Heavyweight Title, you’re often competing (and losing) in a lot of 3-on-1 matches. It gets to the point that you try to convince yourself that you’ve done enough and you can live with not winning the belt, but then the game eats at you and you wind up subjecting yourself to torture, and most likely, you’ll wind up hating yourself for it. It’s not that any one individual is too hard, but when you have 3 different guys interrupting and destroying all momentum you gain, it wears on you.
Create-a-PPV was my favorite thing about the game and I spent a lot of late nights creating the ultimate Pay-Per-View. Obviously, my love of pro wrestling was a little bit larger than your average wrestling fan. I would skip homework to create the best possible card. I would daydream in class about who I would have going up against who that night. Not only could you create the matches, but you could also design the set. It wasn’t anything elaborate, you were given a number of items to choose from and then select the color scheme you wanted, but at the time this was awesome. Then, after you had created your dream matches, you could participate in all the matches to make sure who you wanted to win did.
The entrances were pretty authentic for the time, nothing compared to what they are now, but still pretty good. I always loved playing as The Brood (Gangrel, Edge, and Christian), because, well, lets face it, if you were a wrestling fan in the late 1990s and you didn’t think the Brood had the best music and best entrance ever, there’s something wrong with you.
This game was released just after Owen Hart tragically died in a preventable accident at an event in Kansas City, and the game features two different tribute videos, as well as an OH armband you can add to your created wrestler.
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