WWF Royal Rumble
Reviewed by Dale Kulas
The Game
You know what, I was really excited when THQ announced this
game was being developed by Yukes (the same people who made
Smackdown! for PSX) and Sega (the same people who made the
acclaimed Giant Gram wrestling games in Japan), so I was
really pumped up for this game, and when I heard about it
being an arcade wrestling game, I was pumped up even more
thinking it'll bring back memories of the great arcade game,
WWF Wrestlefest! Any ways, the Dreamcast really hasn't had
it's share of great wrestling, just Acclaim releasing it's
trilogy of mediocrity: WWF Attitude, ECW Hardcore
Revolution, and soon ECW Anarchy Rulz. Will this game
finally prove we can see a good wrestling game on the
Dreamcast. Let's get onto the review and find out!
Graphics
The game has a nice opening FMV of actual WWF video footage,
most of it being from this year's Royal Rumble main event
between Cactus Jack and Triple H. All the wrestlers look
great in here, which look like toned up Smackdown! models
with higher resolution due to the power of the Dreamcast,
and detailed down to every notch, where you can see Stone
Cold's ankle bracelet, and Rikishi's big ass, complete with
dimples! Although some wrestler's do looked toned down a lot
in detail, and come off looking really awkward in the game,
like Austin's face still looks all messed up in here like in
Smackdown! The game surprisingly manages to fit 9 people in
the ring at once with no slowdown at all. I was really
amazed that their wasn't much slowdown at all with 9 people
beating the cra* out of each other at once. The animation in
here seems to be pretty good, all the wrestler's finishing
moves in here are animated and look just like they do off
television.
The hit detection seems to be pretty good too, unlike in
Attitude where you'll get hit by a flying elbow when you're
a mile away from the guy, here all the punches, grapples,
and drops connect within the appropriate striking distance.
Oh, yeah, did I mention that there is also a referee in the
game too throughout the exhibition matches? This is one of
the first WWF games to have a ref in it since WWF RAW. The
only bad thing about the graphics is probably the entrances,
all they are is just 2-4 second clips of you're wrestler
posing, pretty disappointing to me. But overall, a really
nice job on the graphics, probably the best part about the
game. (That's actually a bad thing because my score for
graphics isn't all that high.)
Sound
Well, let me start off by saying that all the sound effects
are pretty decent, not nothing spectacular though, like all
the slams sound just about the same when you hear a person
get dropped on the mat, and whenever a person applies a
submission hold, you hear the stretchy noise like in most of
the other wrestler's out there. Their isn't any background
music during game play, but there is some for the menu
screens, which sounds like some heavy metal type stuff that
fits the 'Attitude' of the WWF. Usually my favorite part
of the sound category in wrestling game's is the entrance
theme music, I was kind of disappointed with it here, you
don't even here it during the stupid entrances in the game,
you only hear it when a wrestler celebrates a victory, but
it is so lowly dimmed out in the background over the
audience cheering you barely hear it. So an alright, but not
great effort on sound here. Which only ends up sounding
mediocre, at best.
Game play
All right, like usual, I'll talk about the game's controls.
First of all, you can only move with the direction pad, and
not the control pad, which is really awkward to me. The
control stick does nothing at all in the game, not used for
finishers, posing, or anything, really odd. It took me a
while to get running and climbing the turnbuckles down,
which you use the X button and directional pad to do. You
grapple with the B button and press different buttons
simultaneously to do different moves. Also if you press the
attack button several times in a row, your wrestler will
start doing a 3-4 hit combo, which can't be stopped, so if
once you start it and your opponent ducks they can sneak
behind you and do a move. The finishing move system is
unique in here, where you build up your 's' meter, fill it
all the way up and get an 's' once you get 3 's's
simple press the R trigger when both people are standing to
do your finishing move, which is pretty convenient. So
overall, the controls are kind of awkward at first with a
few kinks to work out.
Alright, now lately the rosters for the latest wrestling
games have been pretty big with usually 35 wrestlers and up,
so I was kind of disappointed there is only 21 wrestlers
here in total (which a few require unlocking). Any ways most
of the popular WWF Superstars are here, from Austin, The
Rock, HHH, The Undertaker (in his old Gothic gimmick, which
is way better than his current biker gimmick in my opinion)
to newcomers such as Tazz, Kurt Angle and Rikishi Phatu. Now
for game play modes, first of all their's two main modes of
play: Arcade and versus. In arcade, theirs only 2 ways to
play: Royal Rumble where YOU have to eliminate 30 (or any
number you want by customizing it with the options, but 30
by default) WWF superstars, you or up to 3 friends can play
this where you wrestlers keep on coming in, and eliminations
made by the computer don't count toward the amount of
superstars you have to eliminate so these Rumbles do take a
long time to complete, and it's not fun as the Royal Rumble
mode in Wrestlemania 2000. The other mode is exhibition
where you select 2 players, one being your partner and go
through 10 stages in single matches. You also select your
partners fighting style, where you you can press 3 different
sets of buttons simultaneously and your partner will come in
the ring and attempt to beat up your opponent. Other run-ins
from the back also happen often in this mode and get tedious
right away. Also sometimes in the middle of the match, the
lights will go out, and you'll pop up in some backstage area
like a car parking lot, or broiler room, or caged ring, with
your partner and a ref in that small area. Win all 10
battles and unlock a character. And the other mode is vs.
mode where you go against a friend in exhibition type
matches. So overall, there's only 3 modes of play, yes, 3
ways only, there's no tag team mode, king of the ring, or
anything else that's usually in all other wrestling game
which will upset many hardcore wrestling fans. So in many
ways the main game engine disappoints.
Replay Value
None of the extras are here either that are found in most
other wrestling games, there's no Create-a-Wrestler, no
Create-a-PPV, not even any Jump Pack support! The only thing
for replay value here is the Royal Rumble mode where up to 4
players can play for a nice party, which is actually a
little fun to play. But the games main championship mode
here is really boring and tedious, the back lot brawls only
make it a tad interesting, but overall there's really not
much extra here for you to keep playing for a lengthy amount
of time.
In Brief
+: Really great character models, nice backstage fighting
-: Not that big of roster, Severe lack of modes, awkward set
of controls
The Final Ratings Rundown
Graphics: 7. 1
Sound: 4. 7
Game play: 2. 0
Replay Value: 0. 1
Overall: 3.4 out of 10
Final Analysis
Well, some parts of this game are all right at first like
the Royal Rumble and backstage fighting, but a lot of the
game disappoints, like the small roster, and severe lack of
game modes and the not so great control set up. I'm still
shocked that Yukes and Sega both made this game! It was an
utter disappointment, I really suggest only giving this game
a rent, because if you buy it the most you'll play it for
will probably be a week or two at the most.
OR
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