17 out of 17 people found this review helpful.
Bumbled Rumble
Date of Review: Sep 4, 2001
The Bottom Line: THQ established themselves rulers of this genre, and have fallen from grace. Shame on you!
Who wouldn't want to come home from a long day of work and pound a guy into the mat, making him wail in pain?
With WWF-Royal Rumble , I thought I might have the chance.
Graphics 7/10
Initially, I was impressed. The FMV scenes and character intros were quite nice. The character renditions were decent as well. Even the animation was decent.
Upon further play, the graphical aura quickly vanished and I was left with semi-blocky looking mounds of flesh. The characters were easily recognized, but still this seemed to be another hybrid PSX upgrade. If you have seen the PSX version of the game, expect the same, only slightly more 3dfx like.
I think in the graphics department, Royal Rumble would have scored higher, if they would have made the intros longer, and the characters a little more rigid. Throw in a little more pizzazz, such as; more explosions, and more replays and it could have been a winner.
Audio 3/10
Can someone say Colecovision ? This was a huge disappointment. The opening introductions of the player were short and short-lived. What would have been great would have been to start off a match, with a long, drawn-out intro, but it was reduced to a few second clip of a monotone pile of nothing.
Sound effects? Hah! Sound effects consisted of a few blips and beeps. The music all but stopped once the match started. Hits and kicks sounded monotone and like a GameBoy . Wrestling games, in order to be successful need a good audio track. With pumping music, bone crushing sounds of a face getting splattered, and the slam of a body flopping onto the mat. Well, Royal Rumble sounded more like Pro-Wrestling from my NES .
Gameplay 4/10
Hey, I want some fun here guys. Throw me a bone or something. With tons of combos, special moves and grapples, this was a sure hit. Well, this was a total pile of spit. The A.I. was so unforgiving, that if you didn't land your combo or grapple, you are toast. Even on the easiest setting. Gameplay, instead, consisted of punching and kicking like a four year old to fend off the robotic computer opponent. This took out any form of strategy and fun in the game.
There are only a few gameplay modes here. Nothing to even comment about. The whole premise of the game is the Royal Rumble . This consists of 10 men in one ring, trying to throw your opponents out. When one person is left in the ring, they are the champion. While it sure sounds like a blast, it becomes clustered and nothing more than a simple button-masher.
C'mon THQ , where is the option for us to create a wrestler? Give us a bit more depth for the love of Super-fly Snuka .
The multiplayer is the saving grace for this reeking bucket of disgust. With up to four people it can be a good party game. While, I would abstain from purchasing this, this would be a decent rental for you and your friends to play for an hour or so.
Replay Value 5/10
With a frustrating single player mode, you will shelve this in under an hour. With no option to create your own wrestler or customize matches, this provides you with minutes of fun.
Multiplayer, again, drudges this pseudo PSX port out of the depths of despair into at least rental status.
Overall 4/10
The bottom line here, is: Don't buy it .
Having the buds over for a night of games? And everything else is rented out? Rent the game and buy a case of cheap beer.
