Before I move on to new reviews and The Like™*, I'm just adding stuff I have from other sites. This next piece is one of my favorites, as I explore neo-classicism. As with before, this was originally written in 2005, I think.Back in 1998, World Championship Wrestling was at the peak of its popularity, and wrestling in general had never been hotter. To take advantage of the recent boom in the video game industry, more and more wrestling games began to appear on store shelves, licensed by the mostpopular US promotions, World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation. At the time, THQ owned the WCW license and Acclaim owned the WWF license. THQ released some of the most memorable wrestling games in history on the Nintendo 64, with the AKI-developed WCW vs. nWo World Tour and WCW/nWo Revenge. At the time that Thunder came out, the only wrestling releases Acclaim had made were 2D games such as Royal Rumble and Raw, and the smash hit 3D game War Zone. At that point, the only WCW games to reach the PlayStation were the underrated WCW vs. the World and the horrid WCW Nitro.
Unfortunately for PS1 owners, they got the short end of the stick when it came to wrestling games for quite some time. The PS1's best 'Big Two' wrestling game was War Zone, which was also available on the N64. World Tour and Revenge were awesome games, but they were N64-exclusive. So, what did THQ do with its WCW license as a follow-up to the terrible Nitro, mere weeks after the terrific Revenge debuted on the N64? Why, they had the same developers who worked on Nitro work on its sequel, silly! As stated, Thunder was released just a few short weeks after Revenge, and from there on, it became obvious which system THQ cared about at the time in terms of its WCW license.
--Graphics--
Are the graphics in Thunder bad? Well, technically, no, not really. Are they better than War Zone, or, for that matter, Revenge? While they may look so for a brief while, it shortly dawns on you that Thunder is visually inferior to both War Zone and Revenge. Why? Well, the wrestlers look realistic enough. Everyone has the right attire, a decent face, and fluid movement, right? Well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. The wrestlers do indeed look passable, but its their movement that does them in. Even while walking, Thunder's grapplers look unrealistic in movement. The term 'robotic' has never applied to a wrestling game more so than it does here. The moves themselves are like Jekyll and Hyde - some moves look like they skip some frames, whereas some move fluidly enough. Also, while Thunder features up to 4 different attires for most wrestlers, a lot of these alts are simple palette swaps. On the subjects of attires, while as I said, they look passable, that doesn't mean they're all that great. Some textures are blotchy and just ugly looking, while on the flipside some are great. Others are horribly inaccurate, such as the sudden outburst of blue tattoos. Also, the game seems stuck on a dark-colored palette. All the colors you'll see are dull and void of any life, the complete opposite of War Zone and Revenge.
Environmentally, things are a little better. Thunder touts a plethora of arenas for you to play in, whether it be Thunder itself or any of the WCW Pay-Per-View arenas. Curiously, though, the one arena that's missing is the Nitro arena, which is mind boggling seeing as though Nitro was WCW's flagship show. Perhaps they didn't want the 'Thunder' theme to be overshadowed by the bigger picture. The arenas look good, though the camera is so far away most of the time, you'll be damned if you can make much out. The stages contain their accurate setups, though the crowds themselves are ugly as sin. Not much else to say about the arenas - they look good, but the crowds don't, which is understandable given the game's timeframe.
Weapons, now, are also passable. They look accurate enough, and there's a ton of them to select from. However, it's how the wrestlers use the weapons that looks odd. When picking up any weapon, a wrestler looks contorted, and in a forced position (which they do all the time basically, anyway). The collision detection isn't all that good, either, and no matter what a wrestler does, he seems forced. To put it bluntly, had Thunder had a better animating system, more realistic colors, and slightly sharper textures, it would look loads better than it does. As it stands, it's just a mess.
--Gameplay--
Looks aren't everything though, right? If Thunder featured a great wrestling game engine, people would probably be able to overlook its visual shortcomings. Unfortunately, that just isn't the case.
There's about more than 20 regular moves that are shared by all wrestlers. These moves all require button sequences to perform, much like War Zone, though less complicated. I really dislike this system. Wanna do a suplex with Raven? Tap three buttons in concession. Wanna do a suplex with Bret Hart? Tap those same three buttons. Sure, it makes learning the game quicker and easier, but it also makes it less in-depth and enjoyable in the long haul.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if everyone had a decent amount of character-specific moves at their disposable. What's that? Oh, I'm sorry, each wrestler only has three, including their finisher. Matches play out like a dumbed down mixture of War Zone and a Genesis fighting game. Beat your opponent until his life bar reaches its end, pin him. Whoo. It's so easy to just grab a weapon, pulverize your opponent with it for a few seconds, then pin him. Exciting, eh? You're only able to execute your finishing move when their life bar has reached its end, but by that time you can just pin their ass with anything. That's right, snapmare The Giant with Perry Saturn and pin him! Yay! There is no incentive, reward, or anticipation for special moves. Submission special moves are an automatic tap out everytime. Whenever you see a life bar reach the red, you know, without a doubt, the match is over right there. There is no excitement during matches at all, and it all boils down to a lame 3D fighting game.
I'll admit, I was psyched at seeing some of the moves. Giant's chokeslam, Hogan's Leg Drop, Raven's Evenflow DDT. But once the novelty of seeing these moves wears off, you're basically left with no incentive to want to play as a character ever again. All the characters are the exact same, save for their 3 awesomely exclusive moves each. In fact, shame on Inland Productions, developers of this game. All they did was recycle the same WCW Nitro trash that was panned a year earlier. The only new addition, basically, was the murdering weapons of death and a, for some reason, highly-touted 'test of strength' feature that Revenge did much better. The gameplay will bore you to death within a few hours. A sad, sad engine, to say the least.
--Sound--
One of the most advertised features of Thunder was its 'Full entraces for each superstar!' What this boilds down to is a 5 second FMV of someone's entrance, where you're lucky to hear five notes of an entrance theme. Truly disappointing. The in-game music is annoying, generic rock that grates the nerves quickly. But hey, it has commentary, right? If by commentary, you mean 'chiming in when a specific move is done'. That's all the commentary is. Do a powerbomb and hear Larry Zybyzko chime in with 'Powwwwerbomb!' Truly insightful commentary there, Larry. The sound effects are also an instant 'suck', as they are, to say the least, terrible. Everything sounds the same, and it's not too good to begin with. Blah.
--Accuracy/Roster--
Remember how I said that one of the most advertised features was the 'full entrances' that where just crappy FMVs? Well, those crappy FMVs are only there for the default characters, which comprise about 1/3 of the games actual roster. Once you unlock guys like Ric Flair, Eddie Guerrero, and Kaz Hayashi, etc., no entrances for you. So say you select Chris Jericho, one of the initial characters, and have a match with Eddie Guerrero. You'll see Jericho's 5 second entrance (complete with Chris wearing the TV title belt at all times), followed by... nothing. Then the loading screen, then the match. Accurate, huh?
Speaking of the hidden characters, there's a crap load in Thunder. In fact, it getsto the point where the unlocked characters just piss you off. Once you unlock all the real WCW wrestlers, you begin to unlock BS like a cowboy, a deep sea diver, and, absurdedly, even a damn horse and pig. Even more humorously, the Inland team thought it would be wise to include themselves as playable characters. Maybe if they spent some time on the ACTUAL GAMEPLAY instead of worrying about getting their own asses into the game, the game wouldn't be as bad as it is.
Another one of the games 'highly touted features' was the 'wrestler interaction'. Highlight a wrestler at the select screen, press O, and he'll talk to you as to why you should pick him. Again, this is only applicable for the initial batch of wrestlers. Once you start unlocking people, this feature goes right out the window. Also, you can change any wrestler's group affilliation to WCW, nWo Hollywood, nWo Wolfpac, or the 4 Horsemen. While this is cool at first, Inland began to get lazy and after a while doing this merely changed a wrestler's t-shirt. One would think that, free of the nWo and newly placed into WCW, the Hulkster would have the good ol' yellow and red, right? Wrong, he wears the exact same thing as he does while in the nWo, minus the nWo t-shirt.
Most wrestlers have their accurate finishing moves, but when they're part of only three exclusive moves per character, the point is loss. And screw you Inland, I want a decent gameplay engine and full entrances, not pigs and your ugly mugs.
--Story Mode--
Story Mode? What Story Mode? Even a basic career mode would be better than this garbage. Pick one out of like, three belts. Pick a wrestler. Fight people for it. Whoo.
--CAW Mode--
No CAW mode to speak of here, folks. And the 'edit' mode, as mentioned, just swaps t-shirts.
--Game Modes--
Well, you have your belt challenges, singles matches, tag matches, and cage matches. That's about it. The lack of modes would kind of be acceptable if, you know, the gameplay surrounding it was good, but it's not. At all. The laziness of Inland astounds me.
--Closing Comments--
I first got this game a few days after it came out, from my mother, as one of those 'I love you' dealies. While I certainly appreciate her thought and care in wanting to get me something I'd like, WCW/nWo Thunder is simply horrible. The first week or so I had it, I tried to justify liking it, but I just couldn't bring myself to after about 7 or 8 days. It can all be attributed to laziness on Inland's part - they heard the complaints about Nitro and they did jack shit to do anything to address the complains. Horrid job, and unless they get their act together, if they're even still around, I hope they never touch a wrestling game again. My poor mom wasted $40 on this damn thing.
*The Like™ (C) 2004 Onsaught Six
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