Customer Reviews

WCW Mayhem

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

WCW Mayhem is a relatively old game (the 'WCW' should give that away) it was initially released in 1999. Yet it still has enough entertainment value to be worth a play even today.

1. Sound. The best sound effects I've ever heard on a wrestling game. I've played many titles in this genre, including Wrestlemania XIX and Legends of Wrestling II, and Mayhem is superior to both. The crowds roars and jeers, the thuds and slams, go together to make a fantastic atmosphere. Even better is the two man commentary, and it's like you're watching it on TV.

2. The wrestlers. Coming from the late 90's WCW era, this has got some of the biggest superstars in wrestlin history gruped together. Hollywood Hogan (as he was then), Macho Man Randy Savage, Ric Flair, Sting, Bret Hart, Lex Luger, Goldberg, Curt Henning, Scott Steiner, Rick Steiner.....it's a great line-up. I'd say it's the best line-up in any wrestling game until this years Showdown: Legends of Wrestling. There's 50 wrestlers all together.

3. The wrestling itself. Don't expect super-fast gameplay. Don't even expect the pace of the latest wrestling games. Expect the methodical, paced action of late 80's wrestling. It's spot-on. I haven't seen such an accurate representation of the speed of wrestling in any other game.

4. It's for PS1, so it's incredibly cheap now. I picked up a secondhand copy from this very site for a mere £1.99. Two pounds, and to think it used to cost about £34.99 originally. As far as value for money goes, it's a five star purchase.

Now the negatives. The graphics are weird and not especially attractive - the crowd is just a flat block of coloured blobs. The weak collision detection means your punches will often miss at point blank range. There's no season mode, you just fight for titles and defend them. The Create A Wrestler mode is so basic you won't be able to make any of your favourite wrestlers not in the game already. You can, however, make a knight in armour...

To sum up, WCW Mayhem is not the greatest wrestling game on the market. No matter what console you have, there is atleast two better games avaliable. For the PSX/PS1, WWF Smackdown and Smackdown 2: Just Bring It. For the PS2, four Smackdown games, and three Legends of Wrestling games. For the XBox, WWE Raw & Raw 2, and three Legends of Wrestling games. And for the GameCube, Wrestlemania X8 and XIX, and two Legends of Wrestling games.

Nevertheless, I'm still playing Mayhem today and I have both Wrestlmania XIX and Legends of Wrestling II on my shelf. The commentary, the wrestlers avaliable and the accurate pace of real wrestling make this unique and enjoyable. Add to that the fact that it's ridiculously cheap (even if you only played it for one night, you'd still get value for money), and you're looking at a worthwile purchase.

WCW Mayhem seems like a pretty fun game at first. You have over 50 WCW wrestlers at your disposal, the ability to take the fight backstage to one of twelve different areas, ring entrances for each wrestler, a choice of six different types of match, a smattering of weapons lying about such as bats, chairs, and - my favorite - tasers, the ability to wrestle (in all of the historical rings from important WCW events) in exhibition and pay per view matches as well as go in quest of titles leading up to the coveted heavyweight championship belt, and the option to create your own wrestler. Another important aspect of the game is the color commentary provided by Tony Schiavone and Bobby the Brain Heenan. It doesn't take long for some of these plusses to start feeling like minuses, however.

I am not a big fan of the new manner of controlling your wrestler built into this game; it is much less intuitive than older WCW-based wrestling games, and I often find myself able to come up with only a very limited number of moves; still worse, I constantly find myself repeating moves I had no intention of repeating. The announcers do at least have fun with this, talking about move repetition in disparaging terms as it is going on. Their overall banter, though, while quite funny at times becomes repetitive itself after a short while. Even the overexcited shouts of Schiavone declaring a victory in the ring grow stale, as do his constant calls for someone to stop the bloodbath and call for help. I never get tired of the Brain, though; he is always hilarious.

I don't think the graphics here are much of an improvement over older games, either. There's really not a lot of difference in audio and visual between WCW Mayhem and earlier WCW games for the Playstation. You can fight backstage now, which is cool, but the graphics are largely unimproved and the gameplay is awkward and sometimes annoying. I would much rather play the older WCW/NOW Thunder than I would WCW Mayhem, when it comes right down to it.

The second to last WCW game proved that it had what it took to compete with the WWF (if only the TV show did as well). Teh controls are very fluent, the matches (although needed variety) are fun. This also holds a huge amount of wrestlers, and an ok create a wrestler. The best part is that you can actually for the first time (in the WCW games) listen to the theme music before you made your guy (given up in WWF Smackdown) and they last longer than 5 seconds.

The only real problem here is the create a wrestler, it's preety shallow and the move list is that of where you must pick another guys moves (I generally used either Sting, Goldberg, Nash, or Chris Benoit) and stick with that.

I guess the real reason I love this game so much is the fact that it holds the best Theme Music to date. My favorite theme Music (even though I am not a WCW fan) is the four horsemen. That music is awsome.

Overall this gasme is worth checking into, just avoid Thunder and Backstage assault.

WCW Mayhem rocks. You can go anywhere backstage from Boiler Room to Bathroom. The graphics are awsome. You can pull of Finishing moves by hitting one button{Of course your energy has to be blinking}. You can chose from six match types and four special rules in singles matches. The amount of weapons are countless. Tasers,Tables,Signs,etc. If I were you i'd buy this game!

This is the absolute best Wrestling game in the entire world and I love it. No WCW fan with a playstation shouldn't have it.

The best thing about this game is the amount of Wrestlers. There is about 30 at the start of the game and there are loads more to win. When you have won them all there is about 60.

Mayhem offers 12 pay-per-view arenas, more than any other Wrestling game I can think of. There is Bash at the beach, The Great American Bash, Starrcade, Spring Stampede and loads more. The game also features Monday Nitro, Thursday Thunder and Saturday Night arenas. One thing I can't understand though is why they didn't put the Mayhem arena on, the game is called that isn't it?

Some people have complained about Mayhem's gameplay but I like it(yes!) because it is quite slow so you can figure out the controlls and get prepared for the next move.

The graphics are cool and the camera angles are really ace.

Mayhem's create a Wrestler mode is really good. You can create Zombies and Monsters as well as Human Wrestlers. When you have created a Wrestler put him into a match and see how he fares against WCW's Superstars!

In the game there is a Pay-Per-View password screen where you type in a password and it takes you to an already made Pay-Per-View.

Over all Mayhem is a fantastic game. The only bad thing about it is there are no cage matches and no hidden rants like on the WCW Thunder and WCW Nitro.

My final thing to say is this: Buy it if you're a WCW fan, don't if you're not. And if you've not a fan of Wrestling don't buy it either.

Happy Grappling!

WCW Mayhem rocked the ring with many game modes and options. The only problem was the playability. The moves in WCW Mayhem were nearly the same for each wrestler, even the signature finishing moves looked awkward. The collision detection hurt the game in a big way, the wrestlers would punch each other, the punches would never land, it seemed as if the fist would go right through the body! The graphics were decent, detailed down to the very fatigues on Rey Mesterio Jr. The huge drawback was that the wrestlers moved stiffly on their way to the ring. The introductions were pretty flawed as well, some of the wrestler's theme music didn't even sound right, plus the wrestlers would walk so fast that they would be in the ring less than 5 seconds! The Pay-Per-View venues and sets were designed in a whacky way, this added a little flair to the game. The sound was okay until the commentators keep repeating the same lines, Tony Schvonie and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan need to stick with commentating in the broadcast booths. Overall this is the first wrestling game made by Electronic Arts, this was a good attempt but they should hit the mats to try to make their next title become the heavyweight champion.

OK, let me start with the things that unsatisfied me. First, the game's graphic is really bad, specially when you are outside the ring, close to the ropes. For the create-a-wrestler mode, you can't combine your own moves. The wrestlers do not talk. My created wrestler's entrance got stuck so I had to restart my PSX.

Good things about it, good gameplay, moves are easy to be executed. They look cool, but the chokeslam look so dumb, the entrances of the wrestlers are quite cool. The weapons are cool. Backstage arenas are also great. The commentators are great. A lot better than WCW Nitro and Thunder and of course WWF Attitude.

So if you wanna buy this game, consider these!

This game is really cool. Better than the other games, I don't care what other people said, but this is a winner. Astonishing graphics, backstage fighthing, a stunning play by play narrative and you will have lots of fun hours playing with a friend. The computer gives you a tough competition. The only thing that I don't like is that the rear grapple moves are a little bit hard to perform at first, but nevertheless I will give it a 5 star rating due that it worth's the fun you will get.

this game is awesome. it is the only game on playstation of it's kind. the controls are like wcw/nwo revenge on 64 but they are a little easier. the ps version is way better than the 64 version, p.s. 64 owners buy wrestlemania 200. this game isn't real creative but it's still fun just wait for the sequel

The play is great!The Grafics are cool too!The only reason I rated this three.Is cuz over half of the wrestlers are hidden.That REEKS!