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Electronic Arts is well known in the sports entertainment world. Wrestling fans were ecstatic when they heard EA were planning on publishing a wrestling game, WCW Mayhem for Playstation and Nintendo 64. For years, there only have been two types of good wrestling games here in the United States: WWF Warzone/Attitude and WCW World Tour/Revenge. Does EA have a winner with WCW Mayhem? Read on.

Presentation/Graphics : 85
The graphics in WCW Mayhem are not that bad. The wrestlers are very easily distinguishable. You won't mistake Hollywood Hogan for Lex Luger. The frame rates in WCW Mayhem are very good. They rarely ever slow down. The wrestlers move fluidly and lifelike. Most of the time they do not move like robots. The game does have problems where wrestlers 'blend' in with the other wrestlers. Speaking of that, when one guy goes outside the ring but stays on the apron, and if the other wrestler tries to run straight into him, the two will just clash graphically and nothing will happen. The wrestler will just run right through the guy on the outside of the ropes. The backstage graphics are only 2D not 3D which is probably due to Playstation's limitations.

The cameras in WCW Mayhem show the action pretty well most of the time. There are times when you can't see your wrestler, but that only happens about two percent of the time. For instance when a wrestler comes out and helps the computer and both current wrestlers are outside, and one of the original wrestlers runs inside, the camera switches to the guy going into the ring and thus leaving you blind on the outside while you get beat up. Other than that, the cameras in the game are better than views in the other wrestling games. WCW Mayhem, for the most part, zooms at the appropriate time as well as giving you different perspectives of the action.

The crowd graphics are acceptable. I can live with a motionless crowd. I'd rather have the game focus on the action in the ring. I did notice the crowd is missing from the aisle in WCW Mayhem. I have no idea why there isn't a crowd there.

Presentation/Audio : 90
The audio in wrestling games has always been lacking. The commentary of the acclaimed WWF Attitude is its weakest category. However, that does not hold true for WCW Mayhem. I really enjoyed the team of Tony Schiavone and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. The commentary during the wrestlers' entrance is very accurate. They aren't just random lines of audio. What Schiavone and The Brain say actually makes sense. Also when making a title defense or winning a belt, the announcer, Mean Gene, will actually say, "The winner and new Cruiserweight Champion..." or "The winner and still Cruiserweight Champion..."

Yes the commentary does get repetitive sometime, but it is a few steps from where Acclaim is with WWF Attitude. There also is some inaccuracy in the audio. For instance, when my wrestler hits my opponent with a chair, the announcers will sometime say that I missed with the weapon.

The crowd noise in the game isn't that bad. True, sometimes I get annoyed with the random calls for a shooting star press when neither of the wrestlers in the ring perform that move but you can definitely tell when the crowd is content or angry.

I wished EA included the wrestlers' actual voices in the game for taunts. Probably would have taken a little longer for the game to come out, but the game could have felt more realistic. If Acclaim can do it, why can't EA?

Interface/Options : 75
The overall controls in WCW Mayhem are not as good as WWF Attitude. The game does not allow you to customize any move sets. The block button seems to be a little slow in response time. There is no button to rotate a stunned opponent 180°. You have to manually move around him and hope he doesn't recover before you get behind him and perform a move.

The menus in WCW Mayhem could have been worked on a little more. Sometimes its a little confusing where you need to go to tweak the game to how you want it. After a few matches, it gets a little easier.

WCW Mayhem features Television Belt, Cruiserweight Belt, and the World Heavyweight Belt. [Note: The game also includes the U.S. Heavyweight Title Belt.] The whole career mode in WCW Mayhem is referring to the Quest for the Best mode. A wrestler starts out unranked and has to fight six wrestlers who aren't exactly the big names of WCW. After winning the sixth match, the TV Belt is yours. Then, you are ranked in the Cruiserweight division. Again, you have to go through six more matches fighting guys a little harder. Then you go through a process in which you defend your belt against five wrestlers. After successfully defending the Cruiserweight belt, you are placed in the World Heavyweight division. You need to win 6 matches till you win the belt. Afterwards, you just keep on defending it. The computer does get harder as you move up in the ranks. So, Bobby Blazer will not be as difficult as Goldberg.

Also, the game does not offer any sort of mode to compete for tag team belts, which is a big no-no.

The create a player option in the game is pretty in-depth, but not as in-depth as WWF Attitude. However, I can live with WCW Mayhem's create-a-player option. You are still able to edit your created wrestler's shirt, pants, shoes, face, hair, kneepads and other accessories. The gripe I have about the feature is it takes way too long for the apparel to load. This is probably due to Playstation's 2X CD Rom, but WWF Attitude did not have a problem with this, so who knows.

The rosters are also out of date. The game went gold somewhere near the 10th of September. Too bad EA didn't include an edit a costume feature to allow people to change the wrestlers' costumes and alliance as they change in real WCW. Hogan fans will be disappointed since he is not in his yellow and red in the game. The game also does not have the West Texas Rednecks 'alliance' in the game. It does have some of its wrestlers but does not have its own 'alliances.' Alliances included are: WCW, NWO Black and White, NWO Red and Black, Hardcore, Cruiserweight and Horseman.

Modes of play include single, tag-team, battle royal, four way dance, triangle and handicap matches. All are self-explanatory. You are also able to select any special rules for your match. Those include: pin anywhere, Raven's rules, no DQ, weapons match and a regular match. Players can as well set options for run-ins, rope breaks, count outs, and submissions.

Gameplay : 78
Everyone is probably wondering what about the gameplay? The gameplay, sadly, is nothing special but it is viable. The gameplay is sort of a hybrid of WWF Attitude and WCW Revenge. Most of the wrestling moves are performed by initializing a grapple first. After starting a grapple or tie-up, press one of the buttons or a combination of a direction with the arrow pad along with a button will perform some sort of move that will take the wrestler off its feet. Don't like grappling? Players can just press forward and punch, for instance, to just knock down the opponent. I did not like that at all. A power punch and a body slam can leave the wrestler on the mat for the same amount of time. It was frustrating for me when I spent five minutes doing slams, elbow drops, submissions to all of a sudden have the opponent get up on his feet and with one kick, my wrestler end up down on the mat for a few seconds and have the tide turn in his favor.

There are some features that I did like about the gameplay. Wrestlers can knock other wrestlers so hard they will go flying over the ropes or just outside onto the apron. The game also does not allow you to hit someone with the same weapon over and over. After around three successful attempts at hitting the opponent with the same weapon, the opponent will automatically reverse the next attempt, which is a very good thing. This prevents anyone from just playing cheap. This is also true with moves; well, at least on the hard difficulty setting.

Now to some more of the downfalls. WCW Mayhem is structured in a way where the momentum can turn within a few seconds. So if you have been beating someone up for five minutes, and he goes on a one-minute rage, the match can easily be turned to his favor within a matter of seconds. Why didn't EA decide to at least have an option for energy bars so players can tell how much energy their wrestler and their opponent have?

Also, when a wrestler climbs to the top rope, the only way to knock him down is to go up and punch him. Running to the ropes will not work. I also found a strange 'bug' in the game. Maybe its not a bug but whenever I go to the top rope, the computer will run to the opposite side of the ring and stand there taunting till I come down. EA has the right idea here but maybe if the game was designed so you can knock a wrestler down from the top rope by running into the ropes, the game could have been more realistic. I also found a cheap strategy relating to the computer running away while I'm on the top rope. Sometimes the computer will call out their wrestler tipping the balance of the match to 2 on 1. I still have not figured out how to call someone out. Anyway, instead of trying to fight 2 on 1, which is pretty hard on the hardest difficulty setting, just run to the turnbuckle and get yourself on the top rope and stand there till the other guy leaves. It's cheap but hey, it works.

A lot of you are wondering about the backstage feature. I have to admit that the backstage feature was not what I had hoped. In a perfect world, when fighting in the backstage, you would be able to open other doors that are in the backstage area and move to other areas like the parking lot or bathroom. WCW Mayhem only allows wrestlers to wrestle in the same backstage area. It does not allow you to open other doors in the back. Too bad, that would have made the game really exciting. However the game is still revolutionary in being the first wrestling game to allow wrestlers to fight in the back. It's not that bad in the backstage area. There are weapons there, along with some nice graphical touches, which include posters of the ever so famous Nitro Girls.

Replay Value : 80
EA and Kodak Interactive intelligently structured the game so players would be able to unlock matches as they meet certain criteria. For instance, to unlock Jimmy Hart, all you need to do is win a match in their Quest for the Best mode on easy. For other wrestlers, you might need to win a match while defending your World Heavyweight Belt on hard. Although I personally do not like having to play so many matches to just unlock characters who I do not even care about. Come on, who wants to win Jimmy Hart?

Like I mentioned before, there are no tag-team championship belts. I still cannot think of a good reason why not to include it beside to have it in next year's version and promote it like crazy just in case they can't think of any other new features. Who knows?

Overall : 81
WCW Mayhem should keep gamers playing for a while. Even though the game is not revolutionary, with the exception of the backstage feature, WCW Mayhem is still fun to play.