From the mid-1990s to 2001, there was a wrestling company that became so popular in the United States, that it was looked at as the third biggest wrestling company behind WWF and WCW. This company was ECW and gave fans something different that they weren’t getting from WWF and WCW in the mid-1990s. With any popular wrestling company, wrestling games usually follow and the first game to come featuring ECW was ECW Hardcore Revolution. Gamers were unhappy with that game because it looked like someone took WWF Attitude and just switched the WWF wrestlers for the ECW wrestlers. ECW would have a second game named after one of their pay-per-views called ECW Anarchy Rulz. Did ECW Anarchy Rulz give ECW fans what they wanted in a video game?
When you see an entrance, you will realize that this game still uses the same engine as WWF Attitude. Entrances remain unchanged for the most part but there was one tweak that made entrances better for created wrestlers. When you pick a theme for your created wrestler, you have access to every theme in the game. In ECW Hardcore Revolution, you could only choose from a dozen themes.
The blood also looks the same as it did in WWF Attitude. If you saw how a wrestler bled in WWF Attitude, it is the same in ECW Anarchy Rulz. If you look at the move list, it will look like they are the same but they are a little easier to pull off in ECW Anarchy Rulz because, in this game, the combos didn’t get as big as they were in WWF Attitude.
While moves are a little easier to remember, one thing that I hated was when the move list was inaccessible during a four-on-four elimination match. This meant unless you had some wrestlers’ move sets memorized, you couldn’t play those matches unless you just wanted to experiment when it came to move sets.
The story mode saw huge improvements over ECW Hardcore Revolution. In the singles career, you start immediately in the TV Title rankings. You don’t have to start in the fictional Acclaim belt rankings and fight guys like the ring crew. One new feature is the stable career where you pick one of ten stables and go after the StableChampionships. Stables include The Network, ECW Legends, The Full Blooded Italians, and more.
There are extreme match types that were not featured in ECW Hardcore Revolution. One match I found myself in a barbed wire lumberjack match. There are still only two lumberjacks on the outside of the ring who will attack anyone who happens to be outside the ring.
You may also see double teaming but one thing I was not expecting to see was a double submission hold when I was in a three-on-one handicap match. Danny Doring had a camel clutch then Roadkill put a Boston crab on me while I was in the camel clutch.
The match types are divided into two lists. First are the normal match types then the elimination match types. They have a Vs. elimination which is a gauntlet match and you can alter the rules before the match like choosing it to be a weapons match or altering the win condition to make your opponent say “I quit” or the first person who hits their finisher wins.
You can also create an arena. You can choose what style of arena it is and the colors of the lights, ring ropes, and turnbuckles. There is a brimstone match that changes how the arena looks and this was the closest we had to an Inferno match being in any wrestling game at this time. However, when it comes to winning a brimstone match, dumpster match, or table match, you win by scooping your opponent up and throwing them through something but you can’t use the dumpster as a weapon in a dumpster match or choose where to place the table in a table match.
There is also a backlot brawl which is an enclosed arena but there isn’t much besides the inteweapons you find lying on the ground. You can create stables and pay-per-views and hold your pay-per-view in an arena you created and save it to your memory card for later.
You can create a wrestler and if you don’t want to spend a lot of time creating a wrestler, you can hit random and a random wrestler will be generated. You can also pick a move set and switch out the moves you don’t want in your wrestler’s move set.
The gameplay is fun and easy mostly. The controls are responsive and the graphics and sound were fine for PlayStation standards. However I didn’t like the move set being locked during some matches, the career mode ended when you lost the ECW World Championship and there wasn’t much to interact with during specific match types like the table match and dumpster match. So I give ECW Anarchy Rulz a 7 out of 10 and think this game should be checked out.
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