WWF In Your House is a Good Arcade Wrestling Game

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up In Your House on the PS1/PSX. Aside from being a WWF wrestling game, I knew nothing about the game. I think I was expecting something else, but I wasn’t disappointed with what the game had to offer.

This game plays like a sequel to the WrestleMania arcade game. Well, it is more of a follow-up and is not tied to an arcade game. This lets the developer do more with the game. It is a much better game than WrestleMania: The Arcade Game.

I hoped I was done talking about the arcade game, but I guess the PS1/PSX library had other plans. I’m looking forward to getting into some other wrestling games on the system. However, this was a fun little distraction from the other games I was playing.

It has a larger roster, but the graphics aren’t as good. It is closer to a fighting game, and it leans into this by having multiple backgrounds instead of an audience watching a wrestling match. Let’s get into the game and figure out what is going on.

TLDR: A Better Version of WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game.

Narrative

There is no story mode in this game. There is a season mode, but it is just another gauntlet match. It bugged me more than you could imagine.

If Midway could jam an overly complex story into a fighting game, then surely Acclaim and Sculptured Software could sneak something into one of these games. Then again, Vice Russo is listed in the credits, and based on some of his rejected ideas for WWF storylines, I think we are better off. No one needs to see the 1996 version of Beaver Cleavage.

Gameplay

You can play with up to four people. Assuming you can find a multitap and three friends who want to come over and play 25-year-old video games. I didn’t have that luxury, but maybe you have some friends with nothing better to do.

The game plays like a fighting game. It isn’t surprising since it shares similarities with Mortal Kombat. The game has finishing and wrestling moves, but you can get by with punches and kicks.

Each match is two out of three falls, much like a fighting game. All you have to do is beat your opponent down, and you’ll automatically pin them. This eliminates submission wins, but I guess that isn’t all that bad.

I have the manual for this game. I wish I could talk to the person who wrote it because I have no idea what it is trying to tell me regarding the game modes. Here is a list of them so you can hopefully make sense of them:

• Season (10 matches)
• Intercontinental – Easy Ladder
  • 1 opponent 5 times
  • 2 opponents 4 times
  • 3 opponents at once
• World Wrestling Federation Championship – Hard Ladder
  • 2 opponents 5 times
  • 3 opponents 4 times
  • 10 opponents once (3 at a time until all 10 have been wrestled)

That is the single-player mode. There is also a two-player, three-player, and four-player mode. These modes are centered around tag-team matches and player-vs-player modes.

While I like that there are a bunch of ways to play, I wish this was done differently. I don’t want to fight in a bunch of gauntlet matches with no payoff. It is like this game is trapped between an arcade game and a simulation.

There are nine wrestlers in this game. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with the weak roster of the WWF at this time. It isn’t a bad roster, but it could’ve been better and isn’t as good as what the later WWF games would have. Here is the roster; sadly, there is no Savio Vega:

• British Bulldog
• Bret Heart
• Owen Hart
• Hunter Hearst-Helmsley
• Ahmed Johnson
• Shawn Michaels
• Ultimate Warrior
• The Under Taker
• Vader

Overall, the gameplay is okay. I like it but would’ve liked it to be closer to a wrestling game. How I feel about In Your House is similar to how I feel about WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game.

Visuals

In Your House uses digitized sprites, similar to those used in WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game. However, they don’t look as good as that game. It would be fun to learn how these sprites were captured.

The game ditches the crowd and looks more like a clone of Mortal Kombat or other fighting games. Each wrestler has a themed background. There is still a ring, but you’ll get something different to replace the crowd.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. It is something I would expect from a fighting game, but I don’t think I like it in a wrestling game. The character sprites are more of a concern for me.

The character sprites look okay. They don’t look as detailed as the sprites on the SNES and Genesis. Sometimes, they look excellent, but then there are times when things look off.

The animations and moves all look great. There are other little things that make the game look fun. Things are over the top, and it feels more like a Mortal Kombat game than something you would see in a wrestling game.

I like the graphics overall, but small things keep the graphics from looking as good as the other WWF games made by Sculptured Software.

7.5/10.

Pros

• Simple Controls
• Decent Graphics
• Lots of Game Modes

Cons

• Repetitive
• No Story Mode

Conclusion

This was a fun game to play. I hadn’t heard about it before playing the game for this review, and I’m glad I did. In Your House isn’t an amazing game, it is actually rather average, but it is a fun game to play.

The digitized sprites don’t look as good as they did in WrestleMania: The Arcade Game. The gameplay is largely unchanged, but there are more game modes than the previous game. However, the modes are mostly gauntlet matches where you wrestle all the characters on the roster.

I had fun with this game. It isn’t anything special, and it feels more like a fighting game than a wrestling game. However, it is more entertaining than watching what the WWF was putting on TV in 1995 and 1996.