Revisiting WCW Mayhem on the PS1, It’s a Decent Game

I got this game for Christmas back in the 90s. At the time, I didn’t know much about WCW. My friends and I were watching WWF, and I only heard about WCW near the end of the NWO storyline.

I did know a few of the wrestlers in this game. However, most of them were a mystery to me. It was kind of refreshing to discover the WCW roster through a video game.

I like WCW Mayhem. It isn’t as good as the WWF Smackdown games, but I like it. Looking at it now, I think the controls are pretty good, the graphics are decent, and it has a huge roster.

TLDR: It’s a Decent Wrestling Game that Could’ve Used More Content.

Narrative

There isn’t a story mode in the game. However, you have a mode where you work your way up the ranks. This is one of the ways that you could make a story in the game.

It is nice that you can work your way through the roster. It is also how you can unlock other wrestlers. You start by chasing the WCW Television Championship. Then you go after the Cruiserweight Title, the U.S. Title, and finally, the Heavy Weight Championship.

What title you go after is determined by the wrestler you choose. If you don’t pick a Cruiserweight, you won’t go after that championship. It would be interesting to see if the game makes Hulk Hogan start with the mid-card titles.

Now that I think of it. That would’ve been an interesting storyline. Of course, Hogan probably would’ve said, “That doesn’t work for me, Brother,” and the storyline would’ve been dropped.

This part feels like a fighting game. You start on with the lower tier and work your way up to the main event talent. It is always fun to take one of the wrestlers that WCW didn’t care about and turn them into a champion.

Gameplay

The gameplay is pretty good. The controls are easy to learn, and you have a lot of wrestlers to choose from. There are also a good number of wrestlers to unlock.

The game has long loading times by today’s standards. Back in the 90s and early 2000s, this wouldn’t have been a big deal.

Game modes:

• Quick Start
• Main Event
• Quest for the Best

There are also some other options on the start menu. You can also select different types of matches from the quick start and main event selections.

The controls are relatively easy to understand. When I started, it felt like there were a limited number of moves, but as I kept playing, I learned how to do more. It can sometimes be a little awkward, but it is a solid wrestling game from the 90s.

There is no life bar for the wrestlers. This is odd, but it isn’t the worst thing about the game. This bar at the bottom of the screen lets you know how well you’re doing. You can also see when the wrestlers are fatigued. They slump their shoulders and breathe heavily.

Every once in a while, there will be a run-in during your match. These make the game annoying, but you can handle it. Eventually, the other wrestler will leave. It is a little odd, and I’m not sure what it adds to the game.

It might make sense if this was tied into a storyline, but as it stands, these run-ins feel random and unnecessary. In that sense, it makes this the most WCW thing in a game that is branded WCW. It is chaos for the sake of chaos.

Overall, I like the gameplay quite a bit. This was a nice alternative to the Smackdown games. I still prefer those to this game, but Mayhem is fun. There isn’t much to complain about when it comes to the gameplay.

Visuals

The wrestlers look okay. It is what you should expect from a game released in 1999. I haven’t played the N64 version, so I can’t comment on how it looks compared to that game.

The audience looks horrible. Instead of having some recognizable people, there is a mosaic of random garbage that is supposed to be the fans. It doesn’t look good, and I can’t remember how I felt about it in the early 2000s.

The wrestlers are given a generic entrance. They look fine, but I wish the entrances from Saturday Night Slam Masters were in this game. The pyrotechnics look awful.

There are pyrotechnics in the game. At least, that is what I hope they are! During the entrance, the characters will stop for a bit, and the pyrotechnics will pop out of the stage. They look like a series of fountains shooting water into the air or like smoke.

Not every wrestler gets this intro. I’ve noticed a few of the cruiserweights don’t get it. I’m unsure if that is a good thing or not.

The different pay-per-view sets and television sets are here. The game says there are 12 backstage areas, but I haven’t experienced those.

Some of the animations are a little goofy. I noticed this during the wrestler’s entrances only. The animations for the moves look good.

Overall, the visuals are what you should expect from a late 90s wrestling game. It looked good for the time. The crowd and the pyrotechnics are the only things I can say are bad about the visuals in the game.

8/10. This might be nostalgia talking, but I like WCW Mayhem. It was one of the few WCW games I played in the 90s, and it got me interested in checking out their TV show. After I did that, I was disappointed, but I still liked the video game. It controls well, and there are some unlockable characters to find.

Pros

• Easy to Play
• Huge Roster
• Create-a-Wrestler
• Decent Graphics

Cons

• Repetitive Entrances
• No Story

Conclusion

This was a fun game to revisit. I remember having fun with it during a Christmas holiday, but I went right back to Smackdown once I grew tired of it. Playing it now was fun.

The graphics and gameplay are good. The entrance scenes were probably cool then, but now they’re a little lame. It is also a little strange that not every character gets pyrotechnics.

At the time of writing this, I would say that I like Power Move Pro Wrestling a little more than this game. Mayhem looks better, but something is missing from it that I can’t quite put my finger on. It is a fun game, but I would rather play Smackdown.