- NA release: 17th February 2000
- PAL release: 3rd March 2000
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: Acclaim
- Publisher: Acclaim
- N64 Magazine Score: 80%
While it’s very easy to see the progression in Aki’s N64 wrestling games, it’s just as easy to see the lack of progression in Acclaim’s. Going from WWF War Zone to WWF Attitude, the only real improvement was the presentation. Now that Aki have the WWF license, Acclaim have had to shop elsewhere, with that impressive presentation going away with it. This feels like a very slightly modified War Zone.
The create-a-wrestler is probably the best thing, which now has more options, plus you can create female wrestlers straight away. Other than that, there’s very little to talk about with this one.
Poor
It’s not only the wrestlers that bring on a feeling of déja vu. The arena style, the entrances, the options, even the end-of-match stats screen are totally unchanged. Granted, it’s official sports sim policy to release the same game over and over again, with barely noticeable improvements each year. But, with THQ’s games winning the wrestling match in the charts time after time, and Attitudes look and style looking distinctly old-hat next to Wrestlemania 2000, it’s surprisingly to see Acclaim do little more than change the three capital letters on the title screen.
Mark Green, N64 Magazine #39
Remake or remaster?
There are better wrestling games.
Official ways to get the game.
There’s no official way to get ECW Hardcore Revolution.
Europe
Japan
North America
N64 Games by Date
1997: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1998: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1999: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2000: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
Why were there so many wrestling games on the N64?
I would wager, two reasons:
Wrestling popularity was at an all-time high during the late 90s, and the market was fiercely competitive. WWF was entering its now-famous “Attitude Era”, WCW was still reaping the success from the NWO storyline, and ECW was THE indie to follow, with its grungey environment and rabid fanbase (they even pioneered the tone that would define the Attitude era). It’s sensible to take advantage of a red-hot market, especially if its competition also spilled into videogames (as we see with Aki and Acclaim in this post);
While the PS1 allowed for FMVs (and thus, entrance videos and live-action footage), the N64 allowed for 4-player local gaming. Wrestling goes hand in hand with multi-man matches (battle royals, triple threats, tag-team matches, etc.), and the N64 was well-equipped to translate that chaos into a videogame better than its competition.
AKI struck gold with their N64 wrestling engine and the genre benefitted from the additional horsepower and 4x controller ports built into the system as standard.