Soulless cash-in (ECW Hardcore Revolution (DC))

Member Name: shaneo632

Product:	ECW Hardcore Revolution (DC)
Date:	03/09/09 (3 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Barbed Wire mode

Disadvantages: A shameless copy of Attitude

Acclaim were a very strange creator of wrestling video games back in the day - after Midway gave it a very arcadey approach, they decided to opt for a more refined approach that requires you to think about the match and press special combos to pull of moves. The only problem is that it becomes rather mechanical, and of course, most people aren't going to remember any of these, resulting in both players pressing pause every few seconds to figure out how to do a dropkick. WWF Attitude was well crafted enough that I let them get away with it, but ECW Hardcore Revolution is a pretty naff addition to the wrestling game genre.

The reason why Acclaim tackled ECW was because their license expired with the WWF, and presumably they couldn't afford to renew it, so they close the sloppy seconds that are ECW. It's not so much that the game is terrible - it has a fairly large roster considering how few ECW wrestlers there actually are, and all the favourites such as Rob Van Dam, Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman are in there, but the controls are just too cumbersome for the casual viewer that it's really a rather awkward and not too satisfying experience.

The only real spice of the mix is the new Barbed Wire Match mode, although sadly that's all that's new - it wasn't until the later game Anarchy Rulz was released that insane modes such as Inferno matches were added. Sadly, aside from that, it's as though, aside from bringing in Joey Styles to do some admittedly fairly decent voiceover work, they've just overlaid the ECW wrestler details over WWF Attitude, changed some of the visuals and added some new music - even when it was first released, and I was about 12, I wouldn't have been suckered in by this. A very crude cash-in if I've ever seen it, and a disappointment considering what could have been.

Summary: A cheeky attempt to make a new game on the cheap