WCW Backstage Assault

by Nintendo

Product Features

• wcw backstage assault
• wrestling
• nintendo 64

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004W4VE
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.9 x 1.3 inches ; 6.4 ounces
• Media: Game Cartridge
• Release Date: December 13, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,351 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

You and me. Outside. Now.

Wrestling games on the N64 are as popular as Crimson Tide bumper-stickers in Birmingham, and therein lies the problem: How to bring something new to the world of suplexing studs? The radical answer, from Electronic Arts: Do away with the ring.

More than 50 WCW wrestlers, including women and managers, piledrive their ways through seven environments, each with at least two rooms. Since there's no ring, don't expect a ref to show up. With no spoil-sports in striped shirts around, you're free to use foreign objects to your heart's content.

Each room is packed to the brim with potential weapons. Urinals can be ripped from the wall in the Bathroom, podiums turn into bludgeoning tools in the Media Center, and pay phones make for perfect weapons in the Locker Room. Other potential tools of destruction include 2x4s, water jugs, metal pipes, weights, chairs, VCRs, televisions and even sinks. Fire, smoke, water, steam, electrical sparks and other interactive elements can damage wrestlers and venues alike.

Backstage Assault features more than 800 motion-captured animations, including some 300 reused from last year's WCW Mayhem. The move you'll see most often, though, is when one wrestler cracks another over the head with a trash can or a computer monitor. Each wrestler has quite a few moves at his or her disposal, but with so many weapons lying around, the matches generally consist of constant pipe-swinging.

Developer Kodiak Interactive (which also made Mayhem) tries to keep the action somewhat true to the sport by designing ring-like mechanics into the rumble rooms. In the Truck Arena, for example, wrestlers can bounce opponents against a pile of used tires instead of the ropes. While rule-abiding wrestlers normally launch attacks from the top turnbuckle, Backstage Assault brawlers opt to perch atop 18-wheelers or chain link fences.

Matches are won by either pinfall or submission, but players can earn extra bonus points and unlock hidden wrestlers by performing certain tasks in each arena. In the Truck Arena, you can unlock Vampiro by picking up a 2x4, setting it on fire, and then torching your opponent. Bonus points are earned in the Media Center by shocking the competition with a battered VCR.

By taking advantage of aerial opportunities, you can unlock moves for use in the Create-A-Superstar mode. Kodiak tries to encourage players to use different moves by providing a bonus for variety, but this probably won't stop gamers from constantly assaulting each other with items. In fact, you can actually earn bonus points for using all of the items in the room.

In Hardcore Challenge, you battle for three WCW championships: U.S., World or Hardcore. As you scrap your way up the ladder, you can unlock new venues and weapons. Superior performances are recorded in the Hall of Champions, which ranks you by title earned, number of matches won, number of replays used (the less, the better) and style points.

Hardcore Gauntlet challenges you to fight seven of the WCW's most daunting wrestlers without taking a single breather. Run the gauntlet successfully and you'll get your mitts on even more hidden WCW stars. Less grueling but more spectacular modes include First Blood (you bleed, you lose) and Human Torch Match (you catch fire, you lose).

We have to give EA credit for their willingness to go just as far overboard as the WCW script writers themselves. This game definitely has some serious shock value, and smacking Jimmy Hart over the head with a flaming 2x4 is undeniably entertaining. When the novelty eventually wears off (and for some players it may never completely fade away), Backstage Assault's unpolished graphics and surprising lack of a four-player mode are almost as damaging as a urinal to the back of the head.

Nevertheless, Wrestling fans should definitely give this Pak a test-smack. It may not hold your attention for long, but while it does it hangs on with an iron grip.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wrestling game loses ring..., January 7, 2003

By 

L. Varnau "nerff20" (Indy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: WCW Backstage Assault (Game Cartridge)

WCW had problems. Big problems. One of them was their stinky video games. "Backstage Assault" takes a new idea and almost ruins it. The game is very easy to play, but why bother? What wrestling fan wants a game that takes place outside the wrestling ring? Sounds like "Betrayal," that Game Boy game that WWF put out. This game is a decent fighting game, but an awful wrestling game. And don't bother trying the PSX version. It's even worse.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars World Championship Wresting without the Wrestling, December 20, 2000

By 

Rosco (Hartford WI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: WCW Backstage Assault (Game Cartridge)

First of all Backstage Assault is not really a wrestling game as it is much more of a fighting game. If your favorite part of pro wresting is watching the backstage scenes and the brawling that happens back there, or if like hardcore matches and scrambling your opponents brains with a mens room urinal, than this game is for you. This game has solid graphics and solid game control the wrestlers are a little block like in appearance but not bad. The WCW roster needs to be updated a little better than it is, but there is a solid Create a Wrestler feature. My biggest problem and really only major problem with this game is that it has NO RING yes NO Ring. This takes away many cool moves and totally takes away the cool off the ropes moves. it also takes away all the theatrical ring entrances from all your favorite wrestlers. That is wy in my opinion this is not a wrestling game. You can still go after some of the WCW belts however in the season modebut it is nit the same as in the ring. Bottom line is this if you are looking for a wrestling game with both in and out of the ring action I would recomend you buy WWF No Mercy but if you like the Idea of Golberg spearing Jimmy Hart through a chain link fence, this game is definately for you.

1.0 out of 5 stars Madness? This is WCW Backstage Assault!!, August 10, 2010

By 

J. Perez "Wrestle Dude" (La,Ca,USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: WCW Backstage Assault (Game Cartridge)

This game is nothing more then second-rate ECW and a third-rate Backyard Wrestling wannabe. A wrestling game without a ring is too gimmicky if done wrong and WCW did it wrong BIG TIME. You can't do a single thing right even if you wanted to because the controls are lousy. The wrestlers like DDP in this game hardly looked like the wrestlers in the real world. Worst of all,once you are done with the Hardcore Challenge you CAN'T keep & defend the title you won. the only GOOD thing about the game the commentary by Tony Schiavone & Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. I give this game a 1 out of 10.