In 2012 I picked up WWF War Zone on WrestleMania week and posted the
review the day after the Showcase of the Immortals. In 2013 I plan to
continue the tradition by looking at its sequel, WWF Attitude.
WWF Attitude is a professional wrestling, fighting game developed by
Iguana Entertainment and published by Acclaim Entertainment for the Game
Boy Color, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and the Sega Dreamcast. It
was dedicated in memory of WWF Superstar, Owen Hart, who tragically
passed away during a stunt at a Pay-Per-View in Kansas City, Missouri
before its release.
The game opens up with live action footage taken from multiple wrestling shows done up to that point of the roster with the RAW is WAR theme music. And it. Is. Awesome! People slamming each other, jumping off of cages, turnbuckles, ropes, hitting each other with steel chairs. It's great!
After that we're taken to the title screen which gives us the options of Exhibition, Career Mode, King of the Ring, Pay-Per-View, Create Wrestler, Utilities (options), and Cheat Menu. Going into Exhibition gives us various modes of gameplay which is more varied than what we had in War Zone. In addition to your usual single and tag team matches we have Lumberjack, Gauntlet, Survivor Series, the Royal Rumble, Battle Royal, War, Stable, Triple Threats, and Triangle matches.
Pick any match type you want and have your choice of wrestler. Attitude also has a bigger roster of wrestlers when compared to War Zone, mainly because WWF in general had more people around the time this game was made. 96 and 97 weren't good years when it came to Superstar variety. All your top guys are here, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Mankind, Undertaker, Kane, Triple H, so on and so forth. Each wrestler has up to four costumes in total. This gets clever in the case of Mankind as picking an alternate costume will have him come out in his Dude Love or Cactus Jack persona. Something I wish SmackDown vs. RAW 2007 would have considered during.
After selecting your wrestlers of choice you're given more options to consider before starting your game. Man, this game really likes throwing options at you. You can decide to make the match a Hardcore bout, Steel Cage, Last Man Standing or Falls Count Anywhere to shake things up. Change what it takes to win with the Iron Man match, I Quit, First Blood, Finisher Only, or 2/3 Falls. Simulation pits the computer against each other, so if you enjoy watching your games you can always do that. What really sets Attitude apart from other wrestling game is the ability to modify the arena. Something we wouldn't see again until twelve years later.
Upon clicking on that option you can select a default arena like RAW, HeAT, or a House Show. I didn't accidentally the caps either Heat really was spelt that way. Then we have my personal favorite, Custom. From there you can select stadiums, ring lights, etc. I mean, it isn't as thorough as WWE 12, but we're still getting some good options here. Make a Pay-Per-View. Recreate SmackDown. Have the lights be either blue or red for The Undertaker and Kane respectively. Go nuts!
The rest is setting the time limit, if you want to allow a win to happen if you knock the opponent unconscious, and if you want announcing or not. The announce team this time is Shane McMahon and Jerry “The King” Lawler. Their commentary mostly consist of vague calls, and the occasional insult from King. We don't even have the same introduction that War Zone had with Vince and Jim Ross. We wouldn't get decent commentary again until the SmackDown vs. RAW series for the PS2.
The entrances are another thing the game has going for it. In War Zone, we only got an entrance in WWF Challenge, and that only showed them coming down the stage and taunting. Here, everyone has an entrance unique to them which duplicates their real life entrance to the best of the game's ability. Entrances are also affected by the stadium (house shows don't have the same pyrotechnic and lighting as RAW and Pay-Per-View stadiums do). Austin has the shattered glass and goes up all four turnbuckles. The lights go out for Undertaker with torches on either side. Kane has his fire. Triple H does his “Are you ready!?” speech and breaks the fourth wall. A real step up from the previous game.
Not much has changed in the way the matches go from War Zone. You still have the health bar, the chanting that grants you momentum, and the need to perform combos in order to perform moves. Some times they're simple like up plus triangle, but other times they'll be as tedious as up, down, up and then triangle! Or left, right, left, square. Even if you want to do something as simple as swinging the opponent into the ropes you need to press the directional buttons twice and then X. You need time to actually hit the buttons, but you know the CPU isn't going to give you any. Tap the buttons too quickly and you won't perform the move. Half of these moves can't be done unless the computer is stunned. This is ridiculous. I shouldn't have to go through this much trouble just to slam a guy onto a mat!
The Career Mode replaces the Challenge mode from the previous game. You're shown a preview of each match you'll be in with the wrestlers head shots next to a calendar highlighting what day it is. The Career Mode is separated by three divisions, European, Intercontinental, and Heavyweight. You start off mainly with House Show appearances before moving up to Shot Gun, HeAT and finally RAW is WAR, and Pay-Per-View. Your goal is to win all the Championships and be the best in the business. This is also how you unlock several other wrestlers, one manager and the only women in the entire game. It's a bit of a step down from Challenge mode since it doesn't have any FMVs, or cut-scenes at all. In War Zone we had the lady in the limo and actual promos. Here it's just a calendar and playing matches. Not a whole lot going on. Its main purpose is to unlock the rest of the roster.
Attitude was the first WWF related game to introduce the King of the Ring tournament as a game mode. You select up to eight WWF Superstars to compete in a singles elimination tournament to be crowned the King of the Ring. Each Superstar's portrait is shown on a bracket highlighting each match and roun,d and all your usual match options are there.
Attitude was also the first WWF game to have a Create a Pay-Per-View mode. From the Pay- Per-View menu you can select the name of the event, set up to eight different matches and then create the stadium saving you the trouble of having to set it up for each individual match. For those of us who enjoys booking our own shows and seeing dream matches happen this was a dream come true for us. While you can't book any title matches or anything it's still a good way to pass the time with friends.
Create a Wrestler makes a return in this game and has some new features to offer us. Instead of being able to just modify their appearance, attributes, and profile, you can also now edit their moveset and give them an entrance. To give just a little more personality you can even give them a voice from a list of custom voice overs, or from the Superstar roster. Now, while this is expanded and introduces a lot of things that carry over into future WWF/E related titles, it also doesn't have as many quality choices as we got in War Zone. Attitude gives you the choice to make a man or a woman from the get-go, whereas War Zone made you have to unlock that privilege, but War Zone allowed for more creativity and the wrestler's faces looked better. In this game your guy or gal is going to look ugly no matter what you do, and the custom voice overs are all terrible. Most of the custom music outside the roster's themes aren't much to listen to either except for a couple of selection such as Arachnia Dance, Chop Sticks, Gladness, Judge This, Snaggletooth, and my personal favorite, Spitoon Saloon.
The options menu has all your basic stuff in it, but what always stood out to me was the ability to censor language. WWF Attitude is a rated T game and has mild swearing in it, but the default option setting for the language is rated everyone, thus censoring all the things that help give it a T rating unless you manually put that you want the language to be rated T. With just a few simple clicks of language and blood you can take WWF Attitude from a friendly family experience to a not so friendly family experience. It's a nice option to have since some people don't enjoy language and blood as much as others, even if they are wrestling fans.
WWF Attitude expands on a lot of things from its predecessor, but also manages to lack a lot of the same magic that War Zone brought to the table. It also introduces a lot of things that would carry on in future titles, but both Attitude and War Zone are guilty of trying to utilize fighting games mechanics into a wrestling/sports game where it just doesn't work. Wrestling and the way moves are performed don't mesh up with combinations and health bars. In short, one step forward, two steps back.
Try it
The game opens up with live action footage taken from multiple wrestling shows done up to that point of the roster with the RAW is WAR theme music. And it. Is. Awesome! People slamming each other, jumping off of cages, turnbuckles, ropes, hitting each other with steel chairs. It's great!
After that we're taken to the title screen which gives us the options of Exhibition, Career Mode, King of the Ring, Pay-Per-View, Create Wrestler, Utilities (options), and Cheat Menu. Going into Exhibition gives us various modes of gameplay which is more varied than what we had in War Zone. In addition to your usual single and tag team matches we have Lumberjack, Gauntlet, Survivor Series, the Royal Rumble, Battle Royal, War, Stable, Triple Threats, and Triangle matches.
Pick any match type you want and have your choice of wrestler. Attitude also has a bigger roster of wrestlers when compared to War Zone, mainly because WWF in general had more people around the time this game was made. 96 and 97 weren't good years when it came to Superstar variety. All your top guys are here, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Mankind, Undertaker, Kane, Triple H, so on and so forth. Each wrestler has up to four costumes in total. This gets clever in the case of Mankind as picking an alternate costume will have him come out in his Dude Love or Cactus Jack persona. Something I wish SmackDown vs. RAW 2007 would have considered during.
After selecting your wrestlers of choice you're given more options to consider before starting your game. Man, this game really likes throwing options at you. You can decide to make the match a Hardcore bout, Steel Cage, Last Man Standing or Falls Count Anywhere to shake things up. Change what it takes to win with the Iron Man match, I Quit, First Blood, Finisher Only, or 2/3 Falls. Simulation pits the computer against each other, so if you enjoy watching your games you can always do that. What really sets Attitude apart from other wrestling game is the ability to modify the arena. Something we wouldn't see again until twelve years later.
Upon clicking on that option you can select a default arena like RAW, HeAT, or a House Show. I didn't accidentally the caps either Heat really was spelt that way. Then we have my personal favorite, Custom. From there you can select stadiums, ring lights, etc. I mean, it isn't as thorough as WWE 12, but we're still getting some good options here. Make a Pay-Per-View. Recreate SmackDown. Have the lights be either blue or red for The Undertaker and Kane respectively. Go nuts!
The rest is setting the time limit, if you want to allow a win to happen if you knock the opponent unconscious, and if you want announcing or not. The announce team this time is Shane McMahon and Jerry “The King” Lawler. Their commentary mostly consist of vague calls, and the occasional insult from King. We don't even have the same introduction that War Zone had with Vince and Jim Ross. We wouldn't get decent commentary again until the SmackDown vs. RAW series for the PS2.
The entrances are another thing the game has going for it. In War Zone, we only got an entrance in WWF Challenge, and that only showed them coming down the stage and taunting. Here, everyone has an entrance unique to them which duplicates their real life entrance to the best of the game's ability. Entrances are also affected by the stadium (house shows don't have the same pyrotechnic and lighting as RAW and Pay-Per-View stadiums do). Austin has the shattered glass and goes up all four turnbuckles. The lights go out for Undertaker with torches on either side. Kane has his fire. Triple H does his “Are you ready!?” speech and breaks the fourth wall. A real step up from the previous game.
Not much has changed in the way the matches go from War Zone. You still have the health bar, the chanting that grants you momentum, and the need to perform combos in order to perform moves. Some times they're simple like up plus triangle, but other times they'll be as tedious as up, down, up and then triangle! Or left, right, left, square. Even if you want to do something as simple as swinging the opponent into the ropes you need to press the directional buttons twice and then X. You need time to actually hit the buttons, but you know the CPU isn't going to give you any. Tap the buttons too quickly and you won't perform the move. Half of these moves can't be done unless the computer is stunned. This is ridiculous. I shouldn't have to go through this much trouble just to slam a guy onto a mat!
The Career Mode replaces the Challenge mode from the previous game. You're shown a preview of each match you'll be in with the wrestlers head shots next to a calendar highlighting what day it is. The Career Mode is separated by three divisions, European, Intercontinental, and Heavyweight. You start off mainly with House Show appearances before moving up to Shot Gun, HeAT and finally RAW is WAR, and Pay-Per-View. Your goal is to win all the Championships and be the best in the business. This is also how you unlock several other wrestlers, one manager and the only women in the entire game. It's a bit of a step down from Challenge mode since it doesn't have any FMVs, or cut-scenes at all. In War Zone we had the lady in the limo and actual promos. Here it's just a calendar and playing matches. Not a whole lot going on. Its main purpose is to unlock the rest of the roster.
Attitude was the first WWF related game to introduce the King of the Ring tournament as a game mode. You select up to eight WWF Superstars to compete in a singles elimination tournament to be crowned the King of the Ring. Each Superstar's portrait is shown on a bracket highlighting each match and roun,d and all your usual match options are there.
Attitude was also the first WWF game to have a Create a Pay-Per-View mode. From the Pay- Per-View menu you can select the name of the event, set up to eight different matches and then create the stadium saving you the trouble of having to set it up for each individual match. For those of us who enjoys booking our own shows and seeing dream matches happen this was a dream come true for us. While you can't book any title matches or anything it's still a good way to pass the time with friends.
Create a Wrestler makes a return in this game and has some new features to offer us. Instead of being able to just modify their appearance, attributes, and profile, you can also now edit their moveset and give them an entrance. To give just a little more personality you can even give them a voice from a list of custom voice overs, or from the Superstar roster. Now, while this is expanded and introduces a lot of things that carry over into future WWF/E related titles, it also doesn't have as many quality choices as we got in War Zone. Attitude gives you the choice to make a man or a woman from the get-go, whereas War Zone made you have to unlock that privilege, but War Zone allowed for more creativity and the wrestler's faces looked better. In this game your guy or gal is going to look ugly no matter what you do, and the custom voice overs are all terrible. Most of the custom music outside the roster's themes aren't much to listen to either except for a couple of selection such as Arachnia Dance, Chop Sticks, Gladness, Judge This, Snaggletooth, and my personal favorite, Spitoon Saloon.
The options menu has all your basic stuff in it, but what always stood out to me was the ability to censor language. WWF Attitude is a rated T game and has mild swearing in it, but the default option setting for the language is rated everyone, thus censoring all the things that help give it a T rating unless you manually put that you want the language to be rated T. With just a few simple clicks of language and blood you can take WWF Attitude from a friendly family experience to a not so friendly family experience. It's a nice option to have since some people don't enjoy language and blood as much as others, even if they are wrestling fans.
WWF Attitude expands on a lot of things from its predecessor, but also manages to lack a lot of the same magic that War Zone brought to the table. It also introduces a lot of things that would carry on in future titles, but both Attitude and War Zone are guilty of trying to utilize fighting games mechanics into a wrestling/sports game where it just doesn't work. Wrestling and the way moves are performed don't mesh up with combinations and health bars. In short, one step forward, two steps back.
Try it
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