The World Wrestling Federation in 1998, was one of the biggest and baddest companies on the planet. If you had Cable TV, and you were between the final grades of elementary school, and the final grades of high school, you were dedicated to watching it, along with the WCW and the Monday night wars. It was wrestling's best time period, as companies were forced out of the classic style of wrestling and into a new style of fast-paced, hardcore violence that fans were craving ever since ECW came along. So it's only right that a Video game get released right? Enter WWF Warzone.
Warzone is the first 3-d wrestling game released by the federation and it held it's weight until other games like wrestlemania 2000 and the first games in the smackdown series debuted. It wasn't a great game but it had a lot of great stuff in it.
First, there's the roster. Stone Cold Steve Austin was the face of the game. At the time of it's release, Stone cold had just won the WWF Championship from Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania XIV 3 months before. The game also included the legendary Shawn Michaels, The Hart brothers (with Owen still alive at the time), the British bulldog, Triple H, Kane, Undertaker, Mosh & Thrasher, Ken Shamrock (Before he went back to UFC) Farooq and the Rock from the nation of Domination, Mankind, and Goldust. Hopefully I didn't forget anyone.
Second, there's the Create a Wrestler feature. Nowadays this is called "Create a superstar" because speaking in politically correct terms, a wrestler is someone who actually wrestles in the Olympics, and a superstar is a person who works in the Sports Entertainment business. And lets just end this once and for all, Wrestling is not fake, the outcome is decided before anyone legitimately body slams each other. Moving on, the Create a Wrester feature is the first of it's kind and by today's standards it's crappy, back in 1998, it was really awesome.
Third, There's the multiple modes. Let's get one thing clear. Some modes suck, others are innovative and fun. You've obviously got the simple VS match, where 2 guys beat each other silly until one of them can't get out of a 3-count pin, You've got tag team matches (Which wouldn't suck if you could remember how to tag in your partner or save your partner from being pinned.) Then there's the cage match, which isn't so bad. There's my personal favourite, the weapons match (Today's translation would be "Hardcore" or "Extreme Rules")in which a bunch of random objects are flung into the ring by fans for the wrestlers to clobber each other with. my favourite weapon? The over-sized TV. then you have your "Gauntlet match" which is where you pick one guy, then take on 4 opponents.
Now you want to know what really rocks? Getting 3 other friends (or enemies) together for a 4-player war. Nothing spells more fun than 4 guys laughing and cheering while beating the tar out of each other. I'm serious, for some odd reason, 4-player war on WWF warzone seems to be the most fun i've had on any WWF game on the N64.
What's even more fun? get 4 players, get a memory card, spend a few minutes developing 4 created wrestlers, but make all the wrestlers super fat. Just don't laugh too hard or the neighbours will think you're drunk.
But like i said, it's not a great game, it has it's flaws.
My biggest complaint is the Challenge mode. Challenge mode is BOOOOOOORRRRRIIINNNGGG. You will in total, fight almost 20 boring 1 on 1 matches. Unfortunately, you will need to play challenge mode if you want to get everything in the game (including playable women) and some of the things are pretty useless.
Another complaint is the royal rumble match. Now in nearly every wrestling game ever, the Royal rumble is like a teeter totter of good and bad. Sometimes the Royal rumble will last forever and with crappy AI, it'll feel like it's been going forever (AKA the Day of reckoning games) and sometimes it'll feel like getting eliminated is so easy that it's impossible for a player to go the distance (Smackdown 2; Know your role) but in WWF warzone, the rumble sucks all around. You don't get to pick your entry spot, eliminating an opponent requires a specific sequence of buttons, and there's only 16 entries in the rumble. Not fun.
And then there's the single player mode. You cannot have triple threat or fatal four way matches if you're playing alone. also, you don't get to pick your opponent. You do however get to pick your tag team partner in Tag team mode, but again, the computer chooses your opponents, and that can be frustrating. You might want to have D-Generation X face off against the brothers of destruction, or the nation of Domination fight the Hart Foundation....or you might Pick Triple H and Shawn Michaels just to watch Bret Hart get paired up with Undertaker.
So to end this review, this isn't a bad wrestling game. If you haven't tried it, I suggest that you do, but don't play it alone, because you will be bored within 15 minutes. Get some buddies over, make up fat wrestlers and get them to duke it out in a 4-man war. You will not be disappointed.
Warzone is the first 3-d wrestling game released by the federation and it held it's weight until other games like wrestlemania 2000 and the first games in the smackdown series debuted. It wasn't a great game but it had a lot of great stuff in it.
First, there's the roster. Stone Cold Steve Austin was the face of the game. At the time of it's release, Stone cold had just won the WWF Championship from Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania XIV 3 months before. The game also included the legendary Shawn Michaels, The Hart brothers (with Owen still alive at the time), the British bulldog, Triple H, Kane, Undertaker, Mosh & Thrasher, Ken Shamrock (Before he went back to UFC) Farooq and the Rock from the nation of Domination, Mankind, and Goldust. Hopefully I didn't forget anyone.
Second, there's the Create a Wrestler feature. Nowadays this is called "Create a superstar" because speaking in politically correct terms, a wrestler is someone who actually wrestles in the Olympics, and a superstar is a person who works in the Sports Entertainment business. And lets just end this once and for all, Wrestling is not fake, the outcome is decided before anyone legitimately body slams each other. Moving on, the Create a Wrester feature is the first of it's kind and by today's standards it's crappy, back in 1998, it was really awesome.
Third, There's the multiple modes. Let's get one thing clear. Some modes suck, others are innovative and fun. You've obviously got the simple VS match, where 2 guys beat each other silly until one of them can't get out of a 3-count pin, You've got tag team matches (Which wouldn't suck if you could remember how to tag in your partner or save your partner from being pinned.) Then there's the cage match, which isn't so bad. There's my personal favourite, the weapons match (Today's translation would be "Hardcore" or "Extreme Rules")in which a bunch of random objects are flung into the ring by fans for the wrestlers to clobber each other with. my favourite weapon? The over-sized TV. then you have your "Gauntlet match" which is where you pick one guy, then take on 4 opponents.
Now you want to know what really rocks? Getting 3 other friends (or enemies) together for a 4-player war. Nothing spells more fun than 4 guys laughing and cheering while beating the tar out of each other. I'm serious, for some odd reason, 4-player war on WWF warzone seems to be the most fun i've had on any WWF game on the N64.
What's even more fun? get 4 players, get a memory card, spend a few minutes developing 4 created wrestlers, but make all the wrestlers super fat. Just don't laugh too hard or the neighbours will think you're drunk.
But like i said, it's not a great game, it has it's flaws.
My biggest complaint is the Challenge mode. Challenge mode is BOOOOOOORRRRRIIINNNGGG. You will in total, fight almost 20 boring 1 on 1 matches. Unfortunately, you will need to play challenge mode if you want to get everything in the game (including playable women) and some of the things are pretty useless.
Another complaint is the royal rumble match. Now in nearly every wrestling game ever, the Royal rumble is like a teeter totter of good and bad. Sometimes the Royal rumble will last forever and with crappy AI, it'll feel like it's been going forever (AKA the Day of reckoning games) and sometimes it'll feel like getting eliminated is so easy that it's impossible for a player to go the distance (Smackdown 2; Know your role) but in WWF warzone, the rumble sucks all around. You don't get to pick your entry spot, eliminating an opponent requires a specific sequence of buttons, and there's only 16 entries in the rumble. Not fun.
And then there's the single player mode. You cannot have triple threat or fatal four way matches if you're playing alone. also, you don't get to pick your opponent. You do however get to pick your tag team partner in Tag team mode, but again, the computer chooses your opponents, and that can be frustrating. You might want to have D-Generation X face off against the brothers of destruction, or the nation of Domination fight the Hart Foundation....or you might Pick Triple H and Shawn Michaels just to watch Bret Hart get paired up with Undertaker.
So to end this review, this isn't a bad wrestling game. If you haven't tried it, I suggest that you do, but don't play it alone, because you will be bored within 15 minutes. Get some buddies over, make up fat wrestlers and get them to duke it out in a 4-man war. You will not be disappointed.