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I like haveing feedback, so this isn't in the reviews section (as someone else said).
The sequel to the best-selling WWF Wrestelmania 2000 is finally here, but does it live up to the hype? Is it better than Smackdown 2? Have THQ done the job? And more importantly, can Scottie 2 Hottie do the worm? The answers? Yes, yes, yes, and yes!
From the moment you turn the game on, the games smacks of authenticity. You are treated to a brilliant game-rendered intro, which is fully customizable (you can change the Rock to look like Angle, or one of the women to look like good old JR). Then, once in the game proper, you have many options: Exhibition, Career, and Smackdown Mall among others. The first thing you notice is loading. Whereas Smackdown 2 needed long, long loading times, No Mercy is on a cartridge, so you get instant loading. This is most evident in the backstage arenas and the Royal Rumble. The graphics are also far superior to SD2, with deep, crisp colour schemes. But you can have fast loading, and you can have great moody graphics but loading speeds and graphics does not maketh the game. Which is why THQ have spent a lot of time implementing an easy to learn, hard to master control system. Strangely for an N64 game, you use the D-pad instead of the analog stick, but you soon get used to it. You have your basic grapple moves on A, punches on varying power on B, run on C-Down, and a plethora of other moves that are not essential but do help. In total, each character has around 100 moves. Once you get a string of moves together, you get Special. Once this is flashing, you can do your finishing maneuver. This is different for each character, but all of them are pretty powerful.
The move animations do not flash by as fast as SD 2s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it steroid-fueled versions, but they all move slickly with almost no clipping. There is an amazing amount of move animations, from your basic Back Drop and Suplex to the popular moves like the Stone Cold Stunner and Rock Bottom to never before seen moves that THQ seem to have made up like the Six Seconds Magic and the Dragon Rana. These would be good on any of the real characters, but the wide range of moves really comes into play in the Create A Wrestler mode. Your wrestlers are putty in your grubby hand. You can create a 7’4 bikini wearing man/woman hybrid, a 500-pound Rock lookalike, or your alter ego. And it’s not only the appearance you can change, its all-100 moves. You can make your 500-pound Rock do moves like a 450 splash or a Swonton Bomb and laugh. That is, if you want to.
The single player career mode is my favorite bit of No Mercy. You go through matches in the usual way, but depending on if you win/lose, the storyline changes. You also get some bits where you can choose what you do. For example, Shane McMahon asks for help in his upcoming match. You can reject his offer, in which case you’ll start to be the face and feud with him, or you can join him and become a heel. You can also hire the APA, if you are wet. The game does make it so you HAVE to lose some matches in order to see all of the storylines, and to unlock some characters, but the stories are so good you won’t mind. They are ripped straight from the ‘real’ thing – most fans will be able to guess what happens next in some stories, especially those in the WWF Championship mode. You can take the part of the Rock against Triple H in the build up the Wrestelmania 2000. You can relive the classic Foley VS Triple H feud which led to Foley being taken out of the WWF, cumulating in the Hell In The Cell match (which, as No Mercy has no HITC, is cunningly replaced with a cage match). Your actions are less predictable in the other belt modes, like Hardcore, which have very different stories. You get into pseudo-table matches, where you must put your opponent through the announcers table then pin, into Ladder matches against the Hardys, First Blood cage matches against Test, and submission matches against Shamrock. Which are all very fun, as is this whole mode.
Multiplayer is where wrestlers really shine, and No Mercy is no exception. Although Veterans (unlike Smackdown 2) always beat beginners, when you get a group of equally skilled players you can have some great back and forth matches. If one of you is winning every match and starts boasting (I’m very guilty of this), theres the handicap match in which 2 of you kick the poo out of a poor victim (heh heh heh). And if you’re all equal, the ladder match is always brilliant fun, although they do tend to last for a long time. Hardcore matches are funny, with some extremely unlikely weapons like a lump of cheese and a foam Rock logo. The backstage areas are all good, and the absence of loading times makes it more fluent. There are handily placed tables to put your opponents through, including a cool pool table. With four players the action does slow down a bit, but with the graphics on this it is to be expected. Not as much fun for beginners, but with two pros going at it you’ve got a top quality game.
There are not as many match types as there are on SD2s massive list, but the ones that have been implemented are all very polished. Whereas SD2 had a lot of matches that were almost identical to normal (the Anywhere Falls and Hardcore matches are very similar, and the TLC and Ladder match have almost no difference), the NM matches don’t have a dud among them. The Ladder match is much tenser than the SD2 one, which is probably more down to the game speed than implementation, but it makes a big difference.
The Cage match gives you a few more moves than normal, as some buttons let you slam your opponents face into the metal, and you can make them run right into the cage wall. Apart from that, the cage match is a bit weak compared to the other modes, because you only need to do your finisher once on your enemy, then climb to victory.
Tag matches are good, because there are some awesome double team moves, and there is an emphasis on not letting your opponent tag, as in the real thing. Hardcore Tags are also very sweet, as you can both put people through tables at one, or do twin chair shots.
Special Ref is better than SD, because you have to at least do a reasonably good move to keep your opponent down and get a quick 3 count. Inevitably, the guest referee mode results in someone turning the N64 off and storming off home or it starts real fights (this happened with me. I got my opponent into my own finisher, the MacMission, which is a modified sleeper).
The Survivor mode is a 100 man royal rumble. The best thing about this is that secret characters come out at random, and if you eliminate a secret, you unlock it. You also get walletloads of money to spend at the Smackdown Mall. A HITC would have been much better on No Mercy, because of the slower speed. If you watch the proper HITCs, the action on top of the cell is always slow paced, which builds tension. And I can’t see NM letting you get straight up after being thrown off the top of the cell for the fifth time.
The Smackdown Mall is my second fave bit of the game. You spend money that you earn in single player on bonus clothing, moves, characters, arenas, and weapons. The good thing about this is the choice. On some games you might unlock the Rocket Launcher, when you actually want the not as powerful but slightly cooler machine gun. Well, this is the perfect solution. Although the best characters must be unlocked on Survivor or Career, everything else is available from here, including the Holy Grail of the game, the Ho. She costs $500,000, and you don’t get much for your money apart from bragging power. All her moves attack the groin in some way. A secondary function of the SD mall is the Create a Wrassler. This could be a game in its own right, albeit a boring one.
There is no part of this game which is not perfect, I thought, as I played it in a state of bliss, for my first day. I saved my career mode, remembered I had some money, and went to the Smackdown Mall. ‘That’s odd’, I thought, ‘wheres all my money gone? And it says that
The sequel to the best-selling WWF Wrestelmania 2000 is finally here, but does it live up to the hype? Is it better than Smackdown 2? Have THQ done the job? And more importantly, can Scottie 2 Hottie do the worm? The answers? Yes, yes, yes, and yes!
From the moment you turn the game on, the games smacks of authenticity. You are treated to a brilliant game-rendered intro, which is fully customizable (you can change the Rock to look like Angle, or one of the women to look like good old JR). Then, once in the game proper, you have many options: Exhibition, Career, and Smackdown Mall among others. The first thing you notice is loading. Whereas Smackdown 2 needed long, long loading times, No Mercy is on a cartridge, so you get instant loading. This is most evident in the backstage arenas and the Royal Rumble. The graphics are also far superior to SD2, with deep, crisp colour schemes. But you can have fast loading, and you can have great moody graphics but loading speeds and graphics does not maketh the game. Which is why THQ have spent a lot of time implementing an easy to learn, hard to master control system. Strangely for an N64 game, you use the D-pad instead of the analog stick, but you soon get used to it. You have your basic grapple moves on A, punches on varying power on B, run on C-Down, and a plethora of other moves that are not essential but do help. In total, each character has around 100 moves. Once you get a string of moves together, you get Special. Once this is flashing, you can do your finishing maneuver. This is different for each character, but all of them are pretty powerful.
The move animations do not flash by as fast as SD 2s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it steroid-fueled versions, but they all move slickly with almost no clipping. There is an amazing amount of move animations, from your basic Back Drop and Suplex to the popular moves like the Stone Cold Stunner and Rock Bottom to never before seen moves that THQ seem to have made up like the Six Seconds Magic and the Dragon Rana. These would be good on any of the real characters, but the wide range of moves really comes into play in the Create A Wrestler mode. Your wrestlers are putty in your grubby hand. You can create a 7’4 bikini wearing man/woman hybrid, a 500-pound Rock lookalike, or your alter ego. And it’s not only the appearance you can change, its all-100 moves. You can make your 500-pound Rock do moves like a 450 splash or a Swonton Bomb and laugh. That is, if you want to.
The single player career mode is my favorite bit of No Mercy. You go through matches in the usual way, but depending on if you win/lose, the storyline changes. You also get some bits where you can choose what you do. For example, Shane McMahon asks for help in his upcoming match. You can reject his offer, in which case you’ll start to be the face and feud with him, or you can join him and become a heel. You can also hire the APA, if you are wet. The game does make it so you HAVE to lose some matches in order to see all of the storylines, and to unlock some characters, but the stories are so good you won’t mind. They are ripped straight from the ‘real’ thing – most fans will be able to guess what happens next in some stories, especially those in the WWF Championship mode. You can take the part of the Rock against Triple H in the build up the Wrestelmania 2000. You can relive the classic Foley VS Triple H feud which led to Foley being taken out of the WWF, cumulating in the Hell In The Cell match (which, as No Mercy has no HITC, is cunningly replaced with a cage match). Your actions are less predictable in the other belt modes, like Hardcore, which have very different stories. You get into pseudo-table matches, where you must put your opponent through the announcers table then pin, into Ladder matches against the Hardys, First Blood cage matches against Test, and submission matches against Shamrock. Which are all very fun, as is this whole mode.
Multiplayer is where wrestlers really shine, and No Mercy is no exception. Although Veterans (unlike Smackdown 2) always beat beginners, when you get a group of equally skilled players you can have some great back and forth matches. If one of you is winning every match and starts boasting (I’m very guilty of this), theres the handicap match in which 2 of you kick the poo out of a poor victim (heh heh heh). And if you’re all equal, the ladder match is always brilliant fun, although they do tend to last for a long time. Hardcore matches are funny, with some extremely unlikely weapons like a lump of cheese and a foam Rock logo. The backstage areas are all good, and the absence of loading times makes it more fluent. There are handily placed tables to put your opponents through, including a cool pool table. With four players the action does slow down a bit, but with the graphics on this it is to be expected. Not as much fun for beginners, but with two pros going at it you’ve got a top quality game.
There are not as many match types as there are on SD2s massive list, but the ones that have been implemented are all very polished. Whereas SD2 had a lot of matches that were almost identical to normal (the Anywhere Falls and Hardcore matches are very similar, and the TLC and Ladder match have almost no difference), the NM matches don’t have a dud among them. The Ladder match is much tenser than the SD2 one, which is probably more down to the game speed than implementation, but it makes a big difference.
The Cage match gives you a few more moves than normal, as some buttons let you slam your opponents face into the metal, and you can make them run right into the cage wall. Apart from that, the cage match is a bit weak compared to the other modes, because you only need to do your finisher once on your enemy, then climb to victory.
Tag matches are good, because there are some awesome double team moves, and there is an emphasis on not letting your opponent tag, as in the real thing. Hardcore Tags are also very sweet, as you can both put people through tables at one, or do twin chair shots.
Special Ref is better than SD, because you have to at least do a reasonably good move to keep your opponent down and get a quick 3 count. Inevitably, the guest referee mode results in someone turning the N64 off and storming off home or it starts real fights (this happened with me. I got my opponent into my own finisher, the MacMission, which is a modified sleeper).
The Survivor mode is a 100 man royal rumble. The best thing about this is that secret characters come out at random, and if you eliminate a secret, you unlock it. You also get walletloads of money to spend at the Smackdown Mall. A HITC would have been much better on No Mercy, because of the slower speed. If you watch the proper HITCs, the action on top of the cell is always slow paced, which builds tension. And I can’t see NM letting you get straight up after being thrown off the top of the cell for the fifth time.
The Smackdown Mall is my second fave bit of the game. You spend money that you earn in single player on bonus clothing, moves, characters, arenas, and weapons. The good thing about this is the choice. On some games you might unlock the Rocket Launcher, when you actually want the not as powerful but slightly cooler machine gun. Well, this is the perfect solution. Although the best characters must be unlocked on Survivor or Career, everything else is available from here, including the Holy Grail of the game, the Ho. She costs $500,000, and you don’t get much for your money apart from bragging power. All her moves attack the groin in some way. A secondary function of the SD mall is the Create a Wrassler. This could be a game in its own right, albeit a boring one.
There is no part of this game which is not perfect, I thought, as I played it in a state of bliss, for my first day. I saved my career mode, remembered I had some money, and went to the Smackdown Mall. ‘That’s odd’, I thought, ‘wheres all my money gone? And it says that
Page:
Although you can fall of the top of the HIAC on SD2 5 times, and still get back up. Hows that for realism.
And I actually enjoy the SD2 multiplayer matches for a bit, but after about an hour they get very repetitive.
I spose that could be said for any wrasslin game.
One more thing: Why, in all wrestling games, do the cage matches not have a 4-way mode?
And I actually enjoy the SD2 multiplayer matches for a bit, but after about an hour they get very repetitive.
I spose that could be said for any wrasslin game.
One more thing: Why, in all wrestling games, do the cage matches not have a 4-way mode?
Ant wrote:
> errrr...
SD2 maybe fast, but it's a lot more FUN.
Dan_uk says:
Uh uh! No Mercy is more fun!
I've never laughed at a computer game so much in my life!
I laughed so much I was streaming with tears!
It's hilarious, the gameplay is brilliant with a well thought out system.
As a game I'd say that No Mercy is better as non wrestling fans are more likely to enjoy it as the game that it is!
However, I noticed that SD2 was a lot more like real wrestling, being faster and not having to "tie up" everytime you do a move.
> errrr...
SD2 maybe fast, but it's a lot more FUN.
Dan_uk says:
Uh uh! No Mercy is more fun!
I've never laughed at a computer game so much in my life!
I laughed so much I was streaming with tears!
It's hilarious, the gameplay is brilliant with a well thought out system.
As a game I'd say that No Mercy is better as non wrestling fans are more likely to enjoy it as the game that it is!
However, I noticed that SD2 was a lot more like real wrestling, being faster and not having to "tie up" everytime you do a move.
Cyclone wrote:
> Ant wrote:
> errrr...
SD2 maybe fast, but it's a lot more
> FUN.
No Mercy is
> annoyingly
> sloooooooooowwwwwww.
"Look!! He's on top of the
>
> ladder!! Why isn't he reaching for the belt!! Oh no!! He's not
>
> tapping fast enough!! We'll have to wait another couple of days
> for
> this match to finish!"
Oh yeah, one more
> thing....
> GLITCH!!!! and sloooooooowwwwwww
So overall, I
> would say SD2 is a
> lot more fun, a lot faster, and overall
> better.
The create a PPV
> Mode in SD2 beats NM's easily, as
> well.
I played on a Royal Rumble. Every time a player got knocked
> out, the PS took about 10 seconds to load in a new onw. Slow?
I meant the actual gameplay, mate.
And anyway, yeah, the Rumble ain't brilliant, but I don't play on it much. Most of the time I create PPVs.
> Ant wrote:
> errrr...
SD2 maybe fast, but it's a lot more
> FUN.
No Mercy is
> annoyingly
> sloooooooooowwwwwww.
"Look!! He's on top of the
>
> ladder!! Why isn't he reaching for the belt!! Oh no!! He's not
>
> tapping fast enough!! We'll have to wait another couple of days
> for
> this match to finish!"
Oh yeah, one more
> thing....
> GLITCH!!!! and sloooooooowwwwwww
So overall, I
> would say SD2 is a
> lot more fun, a lot faster, and overall
> better.
The create a PPV
> Mode in SD2 beats NM's easily, as
> well.
I played on a Royal Rumble. Every time a player got knocked
> out, the PS took about 10 seconds to load in a new onw. Slow?
I meant the actual gameplay, mate.
And anyway, yeah, the Rumble ain't brilliant, but I don't play on it much. Most of the time I create PPVs.
Ant wrote:
> errrr...
SD2 maybe fast, but it's a lot more FUN.
No Mercy is
> annoyingly sloooooooooowwwwwww.
"Look!! He's on top of the
> ladder!! Why isn't he reaching for the belt!! Oh no!! He's not
> tapping fast enough!! We'll have to wait another couple of days for
> this match to finish!"
Oh yeah, one more thing....
> GLITCH!!!! and sloooooooowwwwwww
So overall, I would say SD2 is a
> lot more fun, a lot faster, and overall better.
The create a PPV
> Mode in SD2 beats NM's easily, as well.
I played on a Royal Rumble. Every time a player got knocked out, the PS took about 10 seconds to load in a new onw. Slow?
> errrr...
SD2 maybe fast, but it's a lot more FUN.
No Mercy is
> annoyingly sloooooooooowwwwwww.
"Look!! He's on top of the
> ladder!! Why isn't he reaching for the belt!! Oh no!! He's not
> tapping fast enough!! We'll have to wait another couple of days for
> this match to finish!"
Oh yeah, one more thing....
> GLITCH!!!! and sloooooooowwwwwww
So overall, I would say SD2 is a
> lot more fun, a lot faster, and overall better.
The create a PPV
> Mode in SD2 beats NM's easily, as well.
I played on a Royal Rumble. Every time a player got knocked out, the PS took about 10 seconds to load in a new onw. Slow?
Yeah, I did.
Some poeple are rather odd, don't you think.
Re. smileys
I'm a man of many faces. *_* +_+ 0_0
Some poeple are rather odd, don't you think.
Re. smileys
I'm a man of many faces. *_* +_+ 0_0
meka_dragon wrote:
> Ant wrote:
=b
That's smiley
> face, right??
Yes,
> slitty eyes with it's tongue out.
Also:
;-p
:b
=-)
=-b
>
=p
I like to use lots of different smileys.
Maybe each
> should mean something different?
Hey, read my reply to that Nintendo zealot in the N64 VS Playstation forum.
> Ant wrote:
=b
That's smiley
> face, right??
Yes,
> slitty eyes with it's tongue out.
Also:
;-p
:b
=-)
=-b
>
=p
I like to use lots of different smileys.
Maybe each
> should mean something different?
Hey, read my reply to that Nintendo zealot in the N64 VS Playstation forum.
Ant wrote:
=b
That's smiley
> face, right??
Yes, slitty eyes with it's tongue out.
Also:
;-p
:b
=-)
=-b
=p
I like to use lots of different smileys.
Maybe each should mean something different?
=b
That's smiley
> face, right??
Yes, slitty eyes with it's tongue out.
Also:
;-p
:b
=-)
=-b
=p
I like to use lots of different smileys.
Maybe each should mean something different?
meka_dragon wrote:
> Ant wrote:
Yes Master. Would you like a cold beverage,
>
> master??
{:)
=b
That's smiley face, right??
> Ant wrote:
Yes Master. Would you like a cold beverage,
>
> master??
{:)
=b
That's smiley face, right??
Ant wrote:
Yes Master. Would you like a cold beverage,
> master??
{:)
=b
Yes Master. Would you like a cold beverage,
> master??
{:)
=b
meka_dragon wrote:
> Ant, I wouldn't bother argue this point any more, it's like talking
> to a brick wall.
N64 NM fans will swear that it's the best and
> PSX SD2 will swear that it is better.
Just accept that people
> have personal opinions and leave it!
Yes Master. Would you like a cold beverage, master??
{:)
> Ant, I wouldn't bother argue this point any more, it's like talking
> to a brick wall.
N64 NM fans will swear that it's the best and
> PSX SD2 will swear that it is better.
Just accept that people
> have personal opinions and leave it!
Yes Master. Would you like a cold beverage, master??
{:)
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