Countdown to WWE 2K14: WCW/nWo Revenge

February 20^th 2013 marked the announcement for videogame publisher 2K to make an agreement with World Wrestling Entertainment following THQ’s bankruptcy in December 2012. The first game in the new WWE 2K series will drop on October 30^th, 2013. In the coming weeks most writers are discussing what’s next for wrestling video games, but Culture Crossfire is going to talk about an exciting era in wrestling gaming history, from 1996-2000.

The year 1998 was big for WCW. December’s Starrcade the year before saw antisocial babyface Sting finally defeated the evil turncoat Hollywood Hulk Hogan. There was one catch, however, referee Nick Patrick screwed Sting when he counted the Hogan’s pin too fast. That led to special guest ring enforcer Bret Hart (“victim” of the Montreal Screwjob briefly discussed last review) restarting the match and calling for the bell when Hogan submitted to the Scorpion Deathlock. But oddly enough the New World Order was not defeated truly and kept on trudging on into 1998. Following the championship shakeup the nWo’s problems started showing. By May the once formidable stable had split in two, nWo Hollywood and nWo Wolfpack. The last quarter of ’97 featured the debut of the cult-like leader in Raven. Raven’s gift was to give a sense of worth to the downtrodden in exchange for following his demands. This lead to Raven’s Flock becoming a thorn in the sides of Diamond Dallas Page and Saturn, among others. Aside from the stables in WCW, there was one individual who truly stood out. A former Atlanta Falcons player, a very green wrestler you may recognize as Goldberg. Goldberg made his way up the ranks one match at a time, undefeated. The streak statistics were eventually inflated, but he was hands down the best booked wrestler at the time.

Developers: Asmik Ace Entertainment, AKI Corporation
Publisher: THQ
Platform: Nintendo 64
Release Date: October 26, 1998

You know, these wrestling games have a knack for releasing before Christmas. This game I also received at Christmas. One thing you have to remember about this era of games is that video previews and trailers just didn’t happen unless it was a commercial. I never saw a commercial for this myself, but did find one through the magic of Youtube.

Now that the commercial has convinced us to purchase the game, let’s get started.

To be honest, I don’t really know what’s happening during this intro video but it sure got me hyped to play the game. How can you argue with warring laser eyes and a truck driving Dr. Death Steve Williams? If you watched the World Tour video, you can tell there’s actually quite a bit of advancement in the character models. The video also showcases a greater variety of workers like La Parka and Alex Wright, not just the main eventers.

Mechanics

A lot of the mechanics in Revenge were carried over from World Tour or maybe even Vs. The World, but this wasn’t just a simple roster update like recent sports games are contested to be. There were two major updates to the presentation of the game. The first being entrances. The downside of the entrances themselves was the fact there was no wrestler theme songs. The songs that played during an entrance were good enough video game music, but disappointing when expecting to hear Self High Five when DDP comes to the ring. Lacking, but I can’t fault them since the Nintendo 64 cartridge wasn’t exactly the best for CD-quality music. One thing I literally just noticed while refreshing my memory with a Youtube video on the entrances, Randy Savage (RIP) totally says “oooh yeah!” at the end of his entrance! That’s remarkable to me. How did I miss that fifteen years ago? WWF Warzone had voice work, but that’s different, this game is actually fun to play.

Replays were the second big update that really pulled you into the match and made you feel like you were playing out the actions of WCW Nitro or a PPV, not just a fighting game. There were two triggers for replays, particularly vicious moves or finishers and after the match, detailing the last 10 seconds or so including the decision. In an age where you can now make your own highlight reels by pausing the game and rewinding, changing camera angles and editing tightly, this might not seem a big deal, but it was. Watching your opponent get doubled over three times following a great lariat or yakuza kick was deeply satisfying in that primal manner.

Mean, Median and Modes

Championship, gauntlet style campaign to win the World, TV, US, Cruiser and Tag Championships
Exhibition, 1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2,
Special Match, Handicap Match and Battle Royal elimination match
Costume Change, allows you to edit wrestler’s costumes, precursor to Create-A-Wrestler

Revenge boasted a more robust list of arenas: Monday Nitro, Starrcade, Bash at the Beach, Souled Out, Superbrawl, and Halloween Havoc. Would it have hurt them to add two arenas for the fictional federations, though?

Roster

nWo Hollywood

Hollywood Hogan
The Giant
Brian Adams
Scott Hall
Scott Norton
Buff Bagwell
Eric Bischoff
Scott Steiner
Curt Hennig (Unlockable)

nWo Wolfpack

Sting
Konnan
Kevin Nash
Lex Luger
Randy Savage

Raven’s Flock

Raven
Sick Boy
Kidman (Unlockable)
Reese
Scotty Riggs
Lodi

World Championship Wrestling

Roddy Piper (Unlockable)
Diamond Dallas Page
Goldberg
Bret Hart
Chris Benoit
Rick Steiner
Fit Finlay
Booker T
Saturn
Disco Inferno
Jim Neidhart
British Bulldog
Glacier
Meng
Van Hammer
Kanyon
Yuji Nagata
Larry Zbysko
Barbarian
La Parka
Stevie Ray
Chris Jericho
Eddy Guerrero
Psychosis
Rey Mysterio Jr.
Dean Malenko
Juventud Guerrera
Ultimo Dragon
Chavo Guerrero Jr.
Alex Wright

Empire Wrestling Federation

AKI Man / THQ Man
Shogun
Executioner
Dr. Frank
Jekel
Maya Inca Boy

Dead or Alive Wrestling

Hawk Hana
Kim Chee
Dake Ken
Brickowski
Ming Chee
Han Zo Mon

Wrap Up

If you’re not familiar with this era of wrestling games, this is the last WCW game in the AKI series. Electronic Arts would publish WCW Mayhem and THQ would move on to WWF. Poetically enough, WCW would start dipping in quality in the creative side and also ratings by this time. The new additions would make this a fun goodbye to the Turner franchise and build to two more great games. One thing that is disappointing about Revenge is the lack of two great modes that were in the previous version. Where’s tournament? Where’s round robin league? Despite that, I would still argue this is the best of the three WCW games thanks to the other features and huge roster.