WWF War Zone Review

Continuing today's blitzkrieg of repeated posts, I present now, for the sake of continued completion, my old review for WWF War Zone. This was done for GameFAQs a few years ago so it lacks a lot of my beloved humor, but too bad, kid. I've also edited parts I thought were shit.

Back in 1997, publisher THQ and developer AKI released the first 3D North American wrestling game, utilizing a license from the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling. WCW vs. nWo World Tour was a first-of-its kind type of game, featuring a great grappling system, 3D graphics, and a robust roster.

At the time, publisher Acclaim owned the license to the World Wrestling Federation, and up to that point had only published 2D, sprite based games for systems such as the Genesis, Super Nintendo, PlayStation, and arcade units. Obviously faced with serious competition in THQ and WCW, the WWF and Acclaim had to counteract the groundbreaking WCW game with a game of their own that would not only compete with World Tour, but hopefully surpass it. Utilizing superior technology within the PlayStation and Nintendo 64, Acclaim started work on a 3D wrestling game of it's own.

Released in 1998, the Iguana West developed WWF War Zone was Accaim's answer to World Tour. Featuring 16 WWF superstars, better graphics than World Tour, and an all-new fighting engine, War Zone has both its ups and downs. Was it better than World Tour (or, for that matter, THQ's followup, which was released shortly after War Zone, WCW/nWo Revenge)? Well, yes and no in the case of World Tour, and mostly 'no' in the case of Revenge, but we'll get into that later. More importantly, does War Zone still hold up to day?

--Graphics-- Perhaps one of the best things about War Zone is its graphics. At the time, these graphics were without a doubt top-notch, and superb in every way. Rather than using a style similar to AKI's blocky, polygonal models, Iguana West opted to utilize a 'soft skinning' method instead, which eventually lead to smoother, more realistic models. Whereas, as mentioned, World Tour had blocky character models and faces that were vague, at best, War Zone touted highly realistic wrestlers and terriffic faces. Of course, the War Zone models can't hold a candle to some of the stuff we're seeing nowadays, but back in 1998, these graphics were a big deal.
Of course, there is a downside to the graphics. Wrestlers move and animate stiffly, almost robotically. Some textures look blotchy, and some faces are simply off. These are small grievances, though, in the grand scheme of things. Compared to World Tour, War Zone was untouchable; even when Revenge came out, War Zone had slightly better graphics. The aforementioned wrestlers were (for the most part) great, and the ring area and weapons were, as well.

For it's time, War Zone's visuals were phenomonal. However, compared to today, they are far below subpar. However, I'm not going to rate it on a contemporary scale, so call it a solid 8/10.

--Gameplay-- This is where War Zone is either make or break for you. While THQ's WCW games used a simple yet effective 'grappling' system, War Zone instead was cursed with a fighting game style button combination system. Want to do a hiptoss? Pause the game, look at your movelist, see that it'll take three button presses, unpause, then do the move. So, basically, either you memorize someone's moveset or continually break the flow of a match by pausing your game to scope out the button combinations. Definately not preferable.

Usually, the more powerful the move, the longer the button sequence for said move. Moves can be executed from a standing postion or a 'tie-up' position, initiated by pressing O, wherein you and your opponent lock up. Besides the Mortal Komat-esque moves, there is also a punch, kick, and block button. The shoulder buttons do stuff like entering/exiting the ring. running, and climbing the turnbuckle. This would all be quite simple fundamentally if one could execute basic moves without 5 button sequences. Oh, and wanna drop your opponent with your finishing move? Yeah? Well, turn on your computer, go online, and find out there, because it doesn't tell you how in-game.

The fighting in this game is more like a fighting game than a wrestling game, in execution. Wrestlers start off with a full green bar of health, and as they take damage, the bar reduces. When the bar lowers into orange territory, a wrestler can perform his trademark move on an opponent. When the bar lowers to red, forget about kicking out of any moves. It's at this point - and only this point - a wrestler can use his finishing move. And that's it. As soon as you or your opponent hit red territory, you know that's the end of it for you. No 'chance' variables like in the THQ WCW games. Disappointing, to say the least.

It isn't all gloom and doom, though. Most wrestlers have accurate movesets and nicely animated moves. While the wrestlers themselves animate stiffly, a lot of the moves flow well. Every wrestler has their accurate finishing maneuver, but, as stated, you're going to have to get your ass online to find out how to do them. The crowd plays into the gameplay as well, which is a nice touch. If you keep on doing the same move, they're going to turn against you and start chanting for your opponent, giving him huge momentum. The 'referee', though, sucks. There is no visible referee, only a voice, which would become a norm for wrestling games for some time. The voice in this game, however, sounds bored to tears, and counts way to slow, whether it be for a pin fall attempt or if he's counting someone who's out of the ring.

Overall, compared to the THQ WCW games, War Zone is clunky, difficult and frustrating. Definately not the game's highest point, which is a bad thing. However, after extended play, one gets used to the different types of button combinations and you begin to use the pause menu less often. It definately caters to people who spend time to learning the game - a feature that some people may enjoy.

--Sound-- Whereas War Zone's gameplay is inferior to that of the THQ WCW games, the sound is most definately superior. War Zone contains the accurate theme songs of all of the game's superstars, minus Shawn Michaels, who instead of 'Sexy Boy' is given the DX theme. There is in-game commentary by Vince McMahon and Jim Ross, who provide accurate input into the match at hand. There is no in-game music, as Iguana West obviously apted for a more 'realistic' feel for the game. There is, however, two crowd chants for each wrestler, and great-sounding slams and sound effects. PlayStation got the best end of the deal here, because the music in the N64 version was of terrible quality.

--Accuracy/Roster-- THQ was able to fit in gobs of wrestlers in both their N64 WCW games. Acclaim, however, only boasted a 16 superstar roster in War Zone, which was a very big downer. Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Owen Hart, The Undertaker, Kane, Triple H, British Bulldog, Mosh and Trasher, Faarooq, Ken Shamrock, The Rock, Mankind, Ahmed Johnson, and Goldust where the only immediately playable characters, and there are a couple hidden characters as well. Compared to the sheer number of wrestlers AKI was pumping out and including in their WCW games, you can't help but feel dissapointed in the roster a bit. It should also be noted that by the time of the game's released, the roster was a tad outdated, but that's to be expected of wrestling games. Bret Hart and British Bulldog had already left for WCW (and, in fact, were featured in THQ's WCW/nWo Revenge), Shawn Michaels had 'retired', and The Rock and Triple H had new attires.

While the number of selectable characters is a downer, at least they look great (for its time). The game is very accurate in depicting its wrestlers. The attires look great, and War Zone even included special bonus 'alternate attires'. While some of the alt attires are cool (Kane, Bret Hart, Goldust, and Shawn Michaels automatically come to mind), some, though, are simple color-swapped attires. In terms of entrances, they're unfortunately scarce and also Disappointing, and AKI would go on to outdo them in Revenge. Only available in the Challenge mode, entrances are shown from one camera angle and are extremely bland, taking less than 10 seconds to complete. But hey, at least everyone has their theme song.

When it comes down to their mannerisms and moves, once again, all the characters are fairly accurate. The game allows for taunts, which add to each wrestler's individual personality, though the taunts humorously also require a button combination to pull off (two buttons pressed at once). As I mentioned before, all the wrestlers have fairly accurate movesets that mirror their real-life counterparts. If there's one complaint, however, it's that sometimes you just don't feel like the charcter you're playing as, if that makes sense. They all play the same way, just with different movesets. They all walk 'robotically' and there's no real difference with playing as Ken Shamrock, say, then playing as Undertaker. They all feel interchangeable, with the only difference between each one being the moves they can perform. I suppose this is true for most fighting games, but it's usually not the case with wrestling games. That being said, the roster is comprised of the 'top dogs' of its time frame, so wrestling fans should find a favorite of theres somewhere in the roster and have a blast.

On the environment side of things, I can't say I was anything more than dissapointed. Initially, I was happy to see the Raw is War arena, but when it dawns on you that it's the only arena in the game, you quickly lose interest in it. That being said, though, it looks like the real thing. The ring looks great, if not a little large. The crowd's pretty hideous, to say the least, but that's excusable, seeing as only just recently have crowds in wrestling games begun to look passable. There are little things though, that add to the accuracy of the game. The crowd chants, for example, are standard fare of what you'd hear at a WWF event sometime in 1998. 'HBK', 'Rocky Sucks', 'Austin' are all familiar chants, and they're all in War Zone. Nice job by Iguana West to include these in the game.

All in all, small roster, accurate looking wrestlers with nicely put together movesets, good looking Raw arena, and nice crowd chants. When compared to World Tour and Revenge, War Zone is better and worse in some of these regards. However, I remember being blowed away with how 'realistic' everything was the first time I played through. These days, only having one arena would be inexcusable, but I suppose it works well for the timeframe this game was released in.

--Story Mode-- There really is no story mode to speak of here. There's 'Challenge' mode, where you select a superstar and try to climb the ladder of the World Wrestling Federation, facing all its superstars and eventually getting a World Title match. That's basically it. Along the way you might get an FMV of a wrestler you've beat challenge you to some type of grudge match, but that's basically as far as the game goes, 'story'-wise. The FMVs are a nice touch, though the game claims to have multiple FMVs of all the featured superstars. This may be true, but all I ever got seemed to be either friggin' Faarooq or Ahmed Johnson, for some odd reason. Make it to the top to win the title, and your wrestler is shown on the cover of WWF Magazine, which is also a nice touch. That's it though. Simple and the point, though it doesn't really feature any replay value whatsoever, unless you plan on watching all the FMVs. I can't in all good conscience give it more than a 3/10 because it does little to entertain and is basically something you would find as any fighting game's main single player mode of play.

--CAW Mode-- WWF War Zone is the famed originator of the CAW mode, though the Fire Pro series had its own edit mode years before. War Zone was the first North American wrestling game to feature anything of its kind and as such was praised for having such an original new feature. Being able to create whomever you wanted to really increased the enjoyment of the game, for me. Being able to add virtually however many wrestlers you wanted to insured that not only could I complete the WWF roster, but I could also add some WCW favorites, myself, and original characters as well.

At its core, compared to current-day CAW modes, War Zone's was very basic. Choose a face (not many to choose from), hair, facial hair if need be, upper body accessories, and lower body accessories, and tweak the color of each piece of apparel. There was a moderate number of selections when it came to shirts, tights, and elbow pads/other acessories, however. A limited number of faces means that after a while, all your creations end up looking the same, barring any facial hair or mask. For its time, though, this appearance editor was revolutionary, and while it doesn't really hold up well to this day, it's still fun to play around with.

On the other end of the CAW mode is how you can customize your CAW's moves and personality. Simply put, this is a letdown. You can only choose to give your superstar other wrestler's whole movelists. This means that, after a while, CAWs will begin to have similar movelists to each other and the other superstars. Disappointing, to say the least. On the bright side, one can choose from any number of entrance themes, along with choosing whether they wish to be a Rule Breaker or Fan Favorite (whether they're booed or cheered). One can also edit the wrestler's attributes, to try and customize his abilities. Strength, Toughness, Speed, Recovery, and Charisma are all stats that can be tweaked with, though, honestly, playing around with these attributes don't really do all that much in-game.

All in all, as I mentioned, this CAW mode was the first of its kind and revolutionary. In my book, that warrants a high rating. However, compared to CAW modes that we're seeing today, the WWF War Zone CAW mode seems basic and like a skeleton, a base point of how other games have expanded upon the idea.

--Game Modes-- Gameplay wise, there are only a handful of modes to play in. You have to hand it to Iguana, though, because with War Zone they included stuff that had yet to be seen in a North American wrestling game before. On the single player side of things, there's the aforementioned Challenge mode, a standard 'versus' mode, and tag team, cage, weapons, and gauntlet modes. The Nintendo 64 got the Royal Rumble exclusively, which was a let down for PS1 owners, myself included. Another Disappointing aspect is the fact that, when playing single player matches, you cannot select your opponents. No, forget about recreating Steve Austin vs. Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XIV, unless you have the luck of the draw. A mind boggling feature, to say the least.

When two players enter the fray, all the previous matches that were mentioned are available, along with a tornado tag match and a cooperative tag match. There is no two-player Challenge mode. The same modes are available with 3 or 4 players, only with the addition of 'war' and 'co-op tag team cage' matches. All of these modes are standard fare by today's standards, but they were awesome to have back in 1998. The weapons match in particular used to be a blast, but playing one today proves to be cumbersome and boring. It was also great to play with 2-3 friends back in the day, as the war and tag team modes provided many great, fun hours.
Besides the matches, there's also a tutorial mode, the CAW mode, and the ability to look at everyone's biography, complete with character model. Not too much here in the features department, but the tutorial is nice to have.

--Closing Comments-- I used to be so fond of War Zone. What happened? Well, time, that's what. The title is really outdated, both in characters and in gameplay. Is it still fun to play? Sort of, for a nostalgic feel. Does it hold up as well as the AKI games? Not at all. It is simply just too hard to go back to War Zone's gameplay after years of technically superior games. However, due to the fact that you can probably pick up a copy of this for less than a long-distance phone call, if you're curious, pick it up and check it out. Just don't expect anything groundbreaking or amazing compared to today's wrestling game standards.

Eat a reef, indeed.