Acclaim had deals to develop wrestling games for two promotions during the 1990s. WWE was its longest business partner with the company with it publishing Rare’s WWF WrestleMania in 1989. It wouldn’t be until 1994 that Acclaim actually developed a game for the promotion with 1994’s WWF Raw. That relationship ended with WWF Attitude in 1999.
As much as I get on the defunct company’s case—we’re getting to that—WWF Raw wasn’t a bad game at all. It was actually really fun. WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game topped that and is something WWE should just drop a sequel to in the upcoming generation. Sometimes, working outside of the wrestling sim box can produce favorable results.
What we’re getting into is a death match between two of Acclaim’s late 90s-early 00s wrestling games: 1999’s WWF Attitude and 2000’s ECW Hardcore Revolution. Which was the better game between two that time has not been kind to?
WWF Attitude
Having played War Zone before this, I thought that its predecessor was pretty fun for the time. I hated that I needed a memory card to save anything when WCW vs. nWo World Tour didn’t. Then again, the WCW games pre-EA didn’t have creation modes. Hell, only one had an edit mode.
I was stoked about the create-a-wrestler mode when Human Entertainment was doing this with the Fire Pro Wrestling series did this years earlier. We’re talking about WWF Attitude, though.
While the action and sound were blander than unsweetened tea, the career mode was a true career mode. You had a calendar, and you advanced wrestling on Monday Night Raw, HeAT, house shows, and PPVs.
What was also dope about this mode was that the sense of progression of your career when playing as your own wrestler. Early on when you’re playing house show matches, you face off against enhancement guys—generic wrestlers Acclaim put in. As you go on, you get opportunities at the titles in order of importance before getting shots at the World title.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVXBZJ0__hY
It was so simple in execution but it was fun. Did it lack the razzle-dazzle WWF WrestleMania 2000 would show up with? Yes. It even lacked the razzle-dazzle of WCW/nWo Revenge. Still, WWF Attitude got a lot of playtime from me.
ECW Hardcore Revolution
This was the first of two ECW games released in 2000 with the sequel being dropped that August. What can I say about ECW Hardcore Revolution? In 2000, I was a big ECW fan and was excited when I heard the company was getting a game. Looking back, ECW shouldn’t have gotten a game that early. However, it would be gone a year and some change later.
ECW Hardcore Revolution was basically Attitude with ECW wrestler skins and arenas. I found this interesting because I went back and played both and WWF Attitude could’ve easily had a New Generation mod or skin and it would capture WWE perfectly at the time. By the time Attitude dropped, WWE was doing record numbers in attendance but the game made it look like it was on an ECW scale.
This game also featured some matches being renamed and the addition of the barbed wire match. Before you ask, yes, Acclaim’s trash cage with no ropes is here. It’s going nowhere. Weird how Acclaim finally added ropes to a cage match with Legends of Wrestling II. Seriously.
Everything was just about the same outside of the game having an M rating and being bloodier than Attitude. It even kept the bleeding from odd places of the previous game.
Verdict: WWF Attitude
I don’t know if you could call WWF Attitude the winner here. These were two mediocre games that were shown to have to no teeth once AKI and Yuke’s wrestling games started being ported to the West as WCW titles. I gave it to Attitude purely because it caught the feeling of watching an Attitude Era show—even though the crowd was smaller and less excited to be there.
Hardcore Revolution fell very short of that but that was expected.
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