So, I tend to knock Acclaim on wrestling games but they did produce WWF Raw, WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game, and the first two Legend of Wrestling games. They can do decent work depending on which studio was handling it. However, if you want to really get into a messed up duo of games, let’s talk EA delivering WCW Mayhem in 1999 and WCW Backstage Assault in 2000.
Background of the Deal
WCW was supposed to stick with AKI and THQ to develop its games. However, WWE was no longer pleased with Acclaim’s performance—surprise—and enlisted THQ and its regular development partner AKI.
I’m guessing either they wanted a studio that could develop for the Nintendo 64 easily or WWE was just being greedy because it had the team of THQ and Yuke’s for WWF SmackDown that same year. Not wanting to have the same developer and publisher as WWE, WCW bounced and took a gamble on Electronic Arts. Wonderful.
Meanwhile, ECW welcomed Acclaim to make its games.
At Least WCW Mayhem Had A Ring
So, let’s get into these games. Now, WCW’s games had commentary, the character models and arenas didn’t look bad for the time. It was just when they looked like they were getting ready to tie-up, wrestlers had squirrel hands. Also, the models were somewhat squat. There was little sense of scale between wrestlers.
Actually, it was as if they took Acclaim’s approach to model and scale. Then they just put different skins on everyone. Gameplay-wise, WCW Mayhem was playable. This wasn’t a sluggish game at all. Hit detection was disappointing and matches just got bland quickly. WCW Backstage Assault was basically Mayhem without a ring for some reason.
I mean, it’s called Backstage Assault but damn, a ring would’ve been nice. This isn’t Backyard Wrestling: Don’t Try This At Home. For some reason, EA got worse in under a year because Backstage Assault wasn’t good at all. Now that I think of it, even if it had a ring this game wouldn’t have made it.
Perhaps learning its lesson, WCW was planning to team up with AKI for WCW Mayhem 2 after the EA games turned out trash. However, it was purchased by WWE. I’ll give WCW credit, at least it came to its senses in its last months.
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