Background Info
THQ released WCW Nitro 64 in early Feburary. Why? Probably to cash in on wrestling fans. Most wrestling fans will buy anything with wrestling in it. WCW Nitro 64 is based on WCW Nitro for the PC and WCW Thunder for Playstation. WCW Nitro PC is a joke. WCW Thunder does not fare much better; however, it did generate a lot of revenue as a result of the WCW endorsement. How is WCW Nitro 64? Read on.

Presentation/Graphics : 70
WCW Nitro game will disappoint you in the audio department. There is no play-by-play, as well as no color commentary. Well, THQ incorporated what they called color commentary but it is nothing more than the occasional remarks of "It's the power bomb!" or "Its the piledriver!". The sound effects just don't sound right. During submission holds, I heard bones cracking constantly. There isn't really much to say about the audio since there is hardly any audio in the game which may be due to the lack of space in the N64 carts.

Presentation/Audio : 55
WCW Nitro game will disappoint you in the audio department. There is no play-by-play, as well as no color commentary. Well, THQ incorporated what they called color commentary but it is nothing more than the occasional remarks of "It's the power bomb!" or "Its the piledriver!". The sound effects just don't sound right. During submission holds, I heard bones cracking constantly. There isn't really much to say about the audio since there is hardly any audio in the game which may be due to the lack of space in the N64 carts.

Interface/Options : 65
WCW Nitro 64 uses the same gamepad setup as a fighting game such as Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. In WCW Nitro 64, just about all the moves were performed by pressing a button, another button, and a direction or something like that. Each wrestler has only 3 or 4 unique moves. All the wrestlers share basically the same move. Also, the game did not include a co-op tag team option. I am really disappointed with that. There is no excuse in leaving that option out. WCW Nitro 64 did include real finishing moves for the 16 given characters. However, for all of the hidden wrestlers, THQ doesn't list the moves in the instruction booklet.

Gameplay : 65
Since I thought WCW Nitro 64 was almost identical to WCW Nitro on the PC, I was hoping that the game would have a more advanced tie-up system. (where two guys grab each other by the necks). The development team made a wise decision in including lockups, although the lockup feature isn't really good. Whoever grabs the other wrestler first will get the advantage. That isn't the way it is in "real wrestling." While playing against the computer, if you get the computer in a lockup/tie-up, you don't have much time to perform a move before the computer does some sort of reversal move. However while playing human vs human, you can leave the two wrestlers in the tie-up for a while. It's maybe that I still haven't figured out how to do a reversal.

The game just isn't any fun. It's basically a race between the wrestlers to press the buttons more rapidly. Whoever succeeds will perform the wrestling move. No reversal or anything of the such.

Wrestlers in WCW Nitro 64 cannot bounce off the ropes on their own. Sounds funny, but sadly, it's true. However, your opponent can fling you to the ropes and your guy will bounce off it and head back in the direction of your opponent.

WCW Nitro 64 also does not give the ability to change the wrestler's allegiance. There are a lot of hidden characters in the game. I don't understand why developers have more hidden characters than default characters. Do they actually think people will keep playing the game till they get all the hidden characters? Well, not me. I found a cheat that gives you all the wrestlers. There is only one championship belt in the game--the heavyweight championship belt.

Overall : 65
If you are looking for a WCW N64 wrestling title, stay away from WCW Nitro 64 and get THQ's other N64 wrestling title, WCW Revenge. WCW Nitro 64 only exacerbated the wrestling gaming genre. WCW Nitro 64 lacks depth and replay value. Stay away from it!