WWF No Mercy by THQ
for Nintendo 64
Review
by : Russ
Ray
A lot
of people are saying that No Mercy is nothing more than a
clone of Wrestlemania 2000 and all the WCW games that THQ
made before that. Bullshit. Although it runs on the same game
engine, the sheer coolness of No Mercy makes the old game
wet its pants and hide. The basics: you start off with 65
playable characters (including 9 female characters) that can
wrestle in all the major television and pay-per-view arenas
with 6 separate areas outside of the ring where you can fight.
Plus, this game has new play modes such as the Guest Referee
feature that was in Smackdown! for Playstation and a Ladder
Match feature.
No Mercy's
best feature is the storyline mode. THQ scrapped the crappy
Road to Wrestlemania, which often had you fighting the same
opponents over and over and over again (even after you had
beaten them all those times) with no extra stipulations to
the subsequent matches to make them different or interesting.
That, and perpetual lummoxes and jobbers like Gangrel, Viscera,
and Mark Henry were all waaaaaaaaaaay to difficult to beat.
Plus, it was way too easy to be holding 4 or 5 belts at the
same time. No Mercy has scrapped the career mode and allowed
you to focus your attention on one belt at a time. Opponents
get progressively more difficult as you proceed, and within
each belt mode, there are several storylines for you to carry
out. Depending on which matches you win and lose, the story
will change accordingly. After you make your way to the end
of that particular stage, you can look at the championship
screen and see the percentage of the storylines that you've
explored. That way, you can go back again and follow different
routes to the end. The game even helpfully shows you a decision
tree so you can see which paths you've taken and which one
you're on currently.
The storylines
themselves are hilarious and often mirror actual WWF events.
For example, once you become Hardcore Champion, Vince McMahon
will tell you that you have to defend it 24 hours a day, 7
days a week. This, of course, will get your character jumped
wherever they walk. At one point, you are even confronted
by the APA, who asks you if you want to pay for protection.
If you pay them, they help you out; if you don't pay them,
they beat you up. The Women's Championship division has a
match where The Kat asks you to referee the match. If you
don't help her win, she comes at you for revenge. In the European
Championship division, if you beat the champ early on, you'll
constantly feud with him. At one point, you're even allowed
to run into a match and prevent him from winning the Intercontinental
Championship. Don't freak out if you think these are spoilers
or something; I haven't even scratched the surface.
Another
neat thing about this game is that they've dropped the archaic
point system where they used to score how many aerial, mat,
and brawling moves you used. Instead, you get paid for every
match you win or goal you complete. Your money builds up in
a bank account, and when you complete a championship level,
you can use that money in the Smackdown Mall to spend to unlock
new moves, costumes, characters, arenas, props, and weapons.
Items range from the fairly common (Godfather's cane, Chyna's
bazooka) to the more esoteric (The Rock's book, a foam Steve
Austin middle finger, a giant block of Steve Blackman's head
cheese).
Most of
the hidden characters are unlocked in the Survival Mode (which
is basically a big Royal Rumble with every available character
in the game) or in the championship phases. When you beat
a hidden character, you've unlocked it (and a companion character,
if they happen to share the same space on the hidden character
screen). My advice is to try and unlock as many as you can
through these methods instead of buying them in the Smackdown
Mall, because some of the characters are quite expensive.
All the
other major window-dressings are here. Characters have pyro,
Titantron videos, and theme music (although some of the female
characters get generic ring music for some reason). All the
characters are correct as of around July or August. The music
is nothing to write home about again, but that's to be expected
with the 64. However, the actual game sounds are pretty cool.
Now, when you slam guys on the ring steps or garbage cans,
they make a crashing noise. Did I also mention you get to
break tables at ringside as well? Some of the hardcore environments
are interactive. For example, in the loading dock, you can
actually fight in the back of a semi trailer. The ladder match
is fun as well, particularly if you're against a skilled opponent.
I had a match between Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit go for
a half-hour because the guy just wouldn't stay down. Of course,
in true ladder match fashion, you can dive off the ladder
and attack an opponent (which is particularly nasty if the
guy happens to be laying on a table at the time).
The two
big downsides to the game are pretty major. One, when you
have four-player action, the game really slows down. I don't
know if an expansion pack could help that (since I don't own
one), but I've heard the same complaint from other gamers,
so I doubt it. In other words, if you're planning on putting
the Hardys and the Dudleys at each other in a ladder match,
you'd better plan on packing a lunch waiting for these guys
to do anything. It also hinders you in one-on-one mode if
both of your characters have valets.
My other
big problem is that the AI doesn't recognize tag teams like
it used to. When the Hardy Boys or the Brood or Too Much went
to the ring, they did it together. In No Mercy, you get Buh
Buh Ray Dudley's entrance, and then you get D-Von Dudley's
entrance instead of a single Dudley Boyz entrance. I find
that kind of backtracking to be particularly stupid.
All in
all, the game's good points outweigh the bad, and if you already
own Wrestlemania 2000, you ought to seriously consider trading
up to this year's model.
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