When it comes to 1997, most people consider this time the golden age of wrestling games on Nintendo 64. While there were plenty of good and bad wrestling games coming out beforehand, no time is looked back at more fondly than this time frame. One of the earliest games from this time frame is WCW vs. nWo: World Tour which was the second best-selling wrestling game on the Nintendo 64. What made WCW vs. nWo: World Tour so fun to play?
The gameplay is a lot of fun and one reason is the different modes you have to choose from. WCW vs. nWo was where you choose up to five guys from each faction, choose the order of the wrestlers on their team, and then matches happen one-on-one. The loser gets eliminated from the team while the winner faces the next opponent. The mode continues until one team has been eliminated.
There is an exhibition mode where you can play one-on-one matches, tag team, two vs one, and a four-way elimination match. In addition to these match types, you can alter the rules of these matches whether you want a match to only be able to be won by pinfalls or you can make the tag team match tornado rules which allows both wrestlers of a team to be in the ring at the same time and elimination rules which means both members of a team need to be eliminated for the match to end. You can also grab weapons from the crowd which can be used on any opponent outside of the ring.
There is a league challenge where you choose from WCW, nWo, DOA, or IU and you face a bunch of wrestlers for a title from the league you choose. Completing these league challenges will let you unlock wrestlers like Diamond Dallas Page, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Glacier, and more.
You can have a singles or tag team league where every entrant faces every other entrant and the winning wrestler or team gets points. When every entrant or team has faced each other once, the wrestler or team with the most points wins the league.
There is a tournament where you can have up to eight wrestlers or tag teams compete in a single elimination tournament. If you win, you go to the next round. If you lose, you are out of the tournament.
The options are where you can adjust certain things of the game like the difficulty and decide if blood will be in the game.
The gameplay is easy for people who never played the game to pick up and learn. If you play against the computer on easy, people will not have a big challenge when they play the game.
The controls are another reason people love games from this era. There is a button for grappling where if you tap it, it will execute a weak grapple and if you hold the button down, you will execute a strong grapple. Whether or not the grapple is weak or strong, will play a part in determining which move you do. The same goes for the strike button. The finishing move of wrestlers is also very easy to pull off.
The graphics are great for the Nintendo 64. It’s easy to tell who every wrestler is and there are no wrestlers that look similar to other wrestlers. Every wrestler also has four outfits that you can choose from and you can choose to compete in four different arenas. So the graphics are great.
The sound is also enjoyable. Music plays during the menus and matches and there are a few voice samples. The voice samples are clear so there is nothing bad to say about the sound.
Replayability is huge because there is a lot to do in this game whether it’s playing with friends, unlocking the hidden wrestlers, or playing matches that you came up with. Even if you want to just unlock wrestlers, you will have hours of entertainment.
The gameplay is a lot of fun and it’s easy to pick up and play. The controls are simple to learn which makes the game more fun. The graphics are great for what could be done on the Nintendo 64 and the same goes for the sound. This game is also fun to play even after you unlock the hidden wrestlers so there is a lot of replayability. So I give WCW vs. nWo: World Tour on the Nintendo 64 9 out of 10. While it’s not perfect.it’s still fun to play if you have your Nintendo 64 hooked up.
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