Here on the Game Boy Color, THQ - with their WWF Betrayal title - turn their back on the wrestling genre to take a sensational stab at the scrolling beat-em-up!

The story goes - you are on the verge of winning the World Wrestling Federation's Heavyweight Championship only to be knocked unconcious by a "heel". Vince McMahon then grants you another shot at the title, but only should you manage to rescue Stephanie McMahon, who has been kidnapped.

Graphically, the deformed wrestlers don't look good - their posture is not natural and the animation is average. The backgrounds, despite the static crowd at the beginning, are not too bad - the scenery often repeats itself but each level looks nice. The action stays fairly clean with sprite flicker being slight amongst there being at most three enemies on screen at once. Audio-wise, the music is okay but the renditions of the wrestler themes are not great.

Given the wrestling background, it's disappointing that there is no grappling, with moves being limited to punch, kick, drop-kick, and a signature move as finisher. To say the fights are one-dimensional is not far from the truth. Enemies are quick to trade blows but there is no real scope for approach play and the boss battles become an exercise in button mashing. Both enemy and player are suspect to being stunned, of which the former in their numbers can capitilise on cheaply.

Running past smoking pipes, fighting on a lift and a neat transition to 2D stroll make up short, but hardly sweet, sections of the game. Unfortunately WWF Betrayal can be over within half an hour, yet the game opts for a needless password system over say, a scoreboard. The biggest blow being that there is no real difference between playing as the four wrestlers, and once the reversal of roles in the story has been found out there really is no incentive to replay WWF Betrayal. Luckily, I never pay much for games - this would have left me feeling cheated.