WWF European Rampage logo

An insider at Ocean said of their new game, "If you think you're going to get something like last year's crap - forget it!" OK, it speaks volumes about last year's tactics, but maybe we should give this year's offering a chance. After last year's effort, surely Ocean wouldn't unleash another dog on an unsuspecting public. Would they?

Meanwhile, in another dimension, we wake up and smell the coffee. WWF European Rampage Tour arrived too late for our pre-Christmas issue, but in time for the shops' Christmas crush. It will sell on the strength of its licence - and not one bad review, until it's too late. Which is unfortunate.

We would've told you so...
Those who bought before reading the AF review will have experienced its delights. But for those smart enough to hang on, read on...

The game begins with chrome-effect text screens and two fat uglies shouting "Whadda rush!" Cue sports-show music and flashy logos. A button-push later, you select one of the three types of wrestling match: one and two-player tag-team, and a two-player practice mode. Then you choose your team from Randy Savage (snigger, snigger), Ultimate Warrior, Hulk 'The well-known one' Hogan and Bret 'Who he' Hart. Choose two and select your controls. Player one uses joysticks or keys, with the second player using the second joystick only.

While fighting you get to read some guff on the wrestlers. After a while this gets annoying, because you can't skip it, and you have to read the whole tedious thing, between each bout. This is made worse because WWF won't recognise an external disk drive. But even this is preferable to what happens next.

You find yourself transported to C64-land where the graphics are not the sleek-and-smooth digitised things they were a moment ago. Nope, we're back to poor-quality, lumpy-pixel sprites and second-rate, 2D backdrops.

When you start moving, the word sluggish springs to mind. Try a run by double-clicking with the joystick left or right, and you see an excuse for a running wrestler. If Randy Savage saw the way he's made to mince along, he'd be looking or a few Ocean heads to to bust.

This game is aimed at WWF-influenced kids or those with a short attention span and no taste. You can strut around the ring, desperately trying to find your opponent's collision-detection, or try a special move. These are entertaining, but seldom useful in a punch-up (the method favoured by the predictable computer opponents).

You can roll on the floor, or even throw your opponent out of the ring and then jump out on top of him, but it's not really a meal for one, let alone two players.

Same idea next year?
WWF is a triumph of presentation over gameplay. The theme tunes and effects glide along with the slick opening titles. But that's it. There are only six opponents to beat twice then the legion of doom to take and you've won the whole thing.

And then there are only four guys to choose from your side. The kids will be disappointed - a fact you can judge for yourself when they've given it up by Boxing day. Happy Last Year, all over again.


WWF European Rampage logo

Fast ein Jahr ist es nun wieder her, daß uns Ocean mit dem ersten halbwegs spielbaren Wrestling-Game für den Amiga Überraschte. Jetzt betritt der Nachfolger die Arena - und kassiert leise, aber vernehmbare Buhrufe...

Jeder weiß, daß Wrestling in Wirklichkeit ein abgekartetes Spiel ist. Am Computer ist dem jedoch nicht so, hier hängen Sieg und Niederlage tatsächlich von den Fähigkeiten der Teilnehmer bzw. der Leute, die sie per Stick oder Keyboard durch den Ring jagen, ab. Leider ist nun auch Oceans Europa-Tournee im Grunde wieder auf einen einzigen Spieler zugeschnitten, der sich zwar mit einem menschlichen Kollegen bei der Klopperei abwechseln und im Training auch gegen ihn antreten kann, doch echte Teamarbeit ist halt nicht drin. Ganz zu schweigen von einem Vier-Spieler-Modus (Tag-Team), der gerade bei diesem Showsport sehr reizvoll gewesen wäre.

Na, immerhin stehen jetzt vier statt drei Muskelberge zur Auswahl: Hulk Hogan, der Ultimate Warrior, der "Macho Man" Randy Savage und Bret "Hitman" Hart. Die werden im Vorspann gleich mit SW-Portrait und den wichtigsten Leistungsdaten vorgestellt, also Größe, Gewicht, Geburtsort, bevorzugter Schlag zum Fertigmachen und Lieblingsspruch. Die böse Gegenseite bietet ebenfalls lauter First-class-Killer auf, unter anderem die Legion of Doom, Money Inc. und den Million Dollar Man. Sobald man sich für seine(n) Leib- und Magen-Schläger entschieden hat, erscheint ein Fernsehansager und kündigt den ersten Fight an.

Wenn es dann endlich richtig losgeht, fallen einem aber zunächst die Dinge auf, die es jetzt nicht mehr gibt: Die Schimpftiraden am Anfang wurden gestrichen, die "Special-Moves" fehlen ebenso wie die lästige Joystick-Rüttelei. Die Steuerung ist dafür vielfältiger in ihren Möglichkeiten geworden, was sie allerdings auch wesentlich komplizierter macht. Bezeichnenderweise besteht daher ein Großteil der Anleitung aus Erklärungen über das richtige Arm-verdrehen, von-den-Seilen-herunterhüpfen, Purzelbäume schlagen, zur-Seite rollen etc.

Auch die Gegner sind hinsichtlich Stärken, Schwächen und der von ihnen verfolgten Taktik nun etwas individueller ausgestaltet, vor allem aber sind sie deutlich schwerer zu besiegen. Ansonsten gibt es die gewohnten Energiebalken, die auszählende Hand auf dem Screen und zwei Credits für die Revanche nach einer Niederlage; bloß das beigelegte Video sucht man diesmal vergeblich.

Grafisch hat sich die Geschichte eindeutig zum Schlechteren entwickelt, die Sprites sind kleiner als früher, und auf Scrolling wurde komplett verzichtet. Die Kampf-FX sind dünn wie eh und je, dafür kommt die Musikbegleitung von Titel- und Auswahlscreens recht knackig rüber. Zur Handhabung ist noch nachzutragen, daß die Disks vor jedem Kampf gewechselt werden müssen.

Insgesamt haben sich die Programmierer hier also nicht gerade mit Ruhm bekleckert, denn von einem Nachfolger erwartet man normalerweise eigentlich eine Verbesserung - und keine Verschlechterung, mag sie noch so unscheinbar sein! (mm)


WWF European Rampage logo

But whatever happened to Kendo Nagasaki?

Meanwhile, in another part of town, four men with strange accents and even stranger costumes are discussing this evening's entertainment.
THE CAST: Macho Man Randy Savage™, Ultimate Warrior™, Hulk Hogan™ & Bret 'Hitman' Hart™.

ACT I
The locker room.
RANDY: Great build-up. Wasn't that a great build-up?
HULK: Yeah, Ult. I loved that digitised growl.
RANDY: My too. And I'm Randy.
HULK: Sorry, man.
RANDY: That's okay. We all look uncannily similar.
BRET: Maybe it's because we're so small.
HULK: Who you callin' small?
BRET: No, but we are. We looked better than this in Ocean's first wrestling game.
RANDY: And that's not saying much.
BRET: Anyway, let's get out there! We've got some Nasty Boys to flatten!
HULK: Woop!
RANDY: Way to go!
ULTIMATE: Feel the power of the Ultimate Warrior.

ACT II
The wrestling ring.
Scene I
BRET: Have we started yet? Oof! Ooyah! Someone could have told me.
RANDY: Try your special move, Hulk!
BRET: Bret! The name's Bret, man!
RANDY: Sorry, buddy. Do your special move!
BRET: I ain't got no special move. There ain't no special moves in this game, man.
HULK: We don't all just look the same. We are the same.
BRET: Ow! Ooch!
RANDY: This didn't happen in the rehearsal.
HULK: Looks like we lost. At least, I assume so. The screen's gone black.

Scene II
BRET: Okay, this time we can do it.
HULK: His energy's right down! Pin him to the floor and we've done it!
RANDY: Er, okay. Uh... ye-argh!
HULK: Idiot! I said pin him down, and you stamped on him! And now he's gone and tripped you up.
RANDY: I tried man, I tried! But it ain't easy with these controls.
ULTIMATE: Feel the power of the Ultimate Warrior.
BRET: We've lost again. One more go?
HULK: But that'll mean sitting through hours of disk accessing and swapping (even though we've got two disk drives) and stupid news reports.
RANDY: Yeah. Count me out.
BRET: Me too, then.

Hack up monsters and collect the parts of a poem

ACT III
The locker room.
BRET: ...so what you're telling me, in effect, is that the game consists of running around the ring trying to shake off your opponent for long enough to turn around and punch him.
RANDY: That's right.
BRET: And if you punch him enough he'll fall over and you can start stamping on him.
RANDY: Yeah.
BRET: And that if you manage to get his energy down far enough, and then knock him down, you can then 'pin' him for a count of three and you've won the match.
RANDY: That's right, buddy. Except the game never seems quite sure whether you want to stamp on your opponent or pin him, as the controls for both moves are the same. It's really frustrating.
BRET: Jeez, that sucks.
HULK: How about that 'jumping off the posts' stuff, and all the different arm and head locks?
RANDY: Ah, forget it, man. Punching and kicking's what this game's all about.
HULK: So once you've worked that much out, it's really easy to finish. Doesn't it get any tougher?
RANDY: Hah! Only in the sense that your opponent follows you round the ring more tightly, so you can't turn around to hit him. And that every time one of them goes off and lets his partner come on, he gets practically all his energy back so you've got to start all over again.
ULTIMATE: Feel the power of the Ultimate Warrior.
RANDY: And although you're meant to be fighting in cities all over Europe, you actually just keep meeting the same three teams over and over again. Only somehow they've got better since last time. Sorry, pal. WWF wrestling might be an awesome sport, but it ain't never gonna work as a computer game.


WWF European Rampage logo

The boys in spandex are back for a second Amiga outing, and this time they've hit Europe. Mark Patterson puts a choke hold on his pen...

HOLD DOWN
The aim of the game is to take your tag team through four bouts culminating in a challenge for the world title. There are four wrestlers to choose from: Bret Hart, Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage and the ubiquitous Hulk Hogan. Opponents include the Nasty Boys, Legion of Doom and the Natural Disasters (whose combined weight is almost half a ton!).

Each wrestler has an energy bar which is displayed at the bottom of the screen. As they take hits it starts to deplete and if it drops below a certain level the wrestler can be pinned to the mat with no hope of getting up. Out of ring combat is actively encouraged, mainly because hitting the hard ground does more damage. The only problem with carrying your battle outside the squared circle is that the ref starts a 10 count the second your feet hit the floor. If you don't get back in before he shouts 10, your team is disqualified.

Before your wrestler can start chucking his opponent around he has to stun him. Depending on how far away he is, hitting the fire button makes him lash out with either a foot, fist, or elbow. Three hits winds (I never knew it was possible to 'wind' 300 pounds of fallen chest packed into a leotard) the other wrestler leaving him ripe to be thrown. Merely hurling them onto the mat does a fair amount of damage, but for maximum effect they should be lobbed over the ropes to the concrete floor.

For a showy finish to a combination of moves, a wrestler can take to the top of a turnbuckle and launch a flying kick at a winded opponent. While making contact causes sizeable damage, missing with such a high-risk manoeuvre leaves the leaping wrestler sprawled on the mat at the mercy of his foe.

Getting in close allows your wrestler to put the other guy in a hold. Unlike TV wrestling where they go for the submission the characters in the game just lose plenty of energy when on the receiving end of a head lock. This move is best followed up with some kind of throw, to cause enough damage to leave the recipient flat on his back for some time.

AERIAL SPIN
Most of the time winning a bout is dependant how fast you can hit the fire button. When you're on your back you have to repeatedly hit in the button to get up, when you're brawling you need to get your hits in first and when the wrestlers are grappling whoever gets the most button presses in comes out on top.

While this is a respectable game, there are several things that would have made it better. Out of all the WWF wrestlers you only get to choose from four, tow of which, Warrior and Hogan, aren't in it any more. Another things that bugged me was that all the wrestlers had exactly the same moves, whereas their real-life counterparts nearly always finish off their unfortunate opponent with some highly unlikely signature move. But the presentation is significantly better than in Ocean's previous attempt at a WWF game, as now there's sampled speech and each character has their own music.

DROP KICK
The character graphics are colourful, if not very detailed. Personally, I prefer the Megadrive and Super NES WWF games as the graphics are much better and there are far more moves.

Only having four bouts doesn't help the game much. Although I stopped playing out of boredom after a very short time, I'm sure it wouldn't have take much of an effort to complete it.

As wrestling games go this is about the best on the Amiga, then again, that isn't saying much. Definitely one for the kids.


MEET THE GUYS

BRET 'HITMAN' HART
One of Bret's most formidable weapons is the several pounds of grease her carries in his hair. Armed with this he can slip out of the tightest head lock. His trademark move is the sharp-shooter, which involves turning his opponent over, grabbing their legs, then trying to bend their spine 45 degrees in the wrong direction.

ULTIMATE WARRIOR
Ultimate usually kicks off a bout by running around pulling the ropes. For some reason his opponent never takes advantage of this and usually waits for Ultimate to run across and hit them.

HULK HOGAN
Until this guy hit the big time, wrestling was just a bunch of fat men in spandex throwing each other around, now it's a bunch of rich fat men throwing each other around. Part of his popularity is due to his ability to absorb enough damage to stun an angry bull elephant, roll around, then get up, suddenly immune to pain and further damage, then clobber his opponent into submission.

MACHO MAN RANDY SAVAGE
If his opponents aren't blinded by his ridiculous gear, Savage soon goes to work by launching him off the turnbuckle and elbow-first onto their heads.

LEGION OF DOOM
This formidable tag team consists of Hawk and Animal, two geezers with strange hair cuts and a passion for face paint. They ensure they aren't attacked before the bell goes by wearing spiked body armour.

NASTY BOYS
These ex-WWF Tag Team Champions are a bit of a push over in the game. In real life they're a lot tougher, especially with their trademarked pit-stop move, where Nasty Boy Knobbs rubs some unfortunate wrestler's face into the armpit of his partner Saggs.

NATURAL DISASTERS
These behemoths are the largest tag-team in WWF history. The drawback with being so large is that it's almost impossible for them to realistically lose a bout, which means they don't make too many appearances now.

MONEY INC.
Although the Legion of Doom are the team to beat in the game, Money Inc. are the actual tag team champions. They prefer bribery to actual fighting.