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WCW Backstage Assault Hands-On

Electronic Arts' WCW Backstage Assault is shaping up to be a totally different kind of wrestling game from WCW Mayhem, and we got our hands on an early build to find out how different it really is.

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Electronic Arts' WCW Backstage Assault is shaping up to be a totally different kind of wrestling game from WCW Mayhem. The game has a much faster-paced arcade feeling to it, and the whole game takes place entirely outside of the ring. We got a chance to sit down with the game's product manager and play an early build of the game. Here's what we found.

WCW Backstage Assault is simply packed with features. The game has more than 50 WCW wrestlers, including Goldberg, Vampiro, Ms. Hancock, Sting, and Jeff Jarret. The game also includes a create-a-wrestler mode with tons of options and varying features. You can select your wrestler's physical look as well as move set. The interface lets you see not only how to perform a move, but also a preview of the move in action. This is important, since Backstage Assault now has twice as many moves as Mayhem.

All the action in the game takes place outside of the ring, in seven interconnected backstage environments with a total of 14 different rooms. Some of the areas and rooms have been modeled in the likeness of locations that were the scenes of real backstage WCW action. The rooms and environments include the boiler room, media center, loading bay, bathrooms, and locker rooms. Within the rooms, you'll find typical weapons and objects such as two-by-fours and crates, but you'll also find that you can use a lot of other objects as well. For instance, when you fight in the bathrooms, you can literally rip the urinals, sinks, and mirrors off the wall to use as weapons. Ripping a sink off the wall causes the water to run onto the floor, which in turn causes the wrestlers to slip and slide on the wet surface of the tile. While your opponents struggle to keep their balance, you can throw an electrical cord into the water to shock them.

The game has several modes of play such as exhibition, hardcore challenge, and hardcore gauntlet. Exhibition lets you pick a wrestler and jump right into the action. You can also choose to play special exhibition matches such as first blood and human torch mode. A first blood match, as its title infers, is a match that continues until the first wrestler bleeds. The human torch mode goes until one of the wrestlers picks up a two-by-four, sets the end of it on fire by holding it over an open flame, and then uses it to set his opponent on fire. In the hardcore challenge, you can compete for three WCW championships: hardcore, US, and world. Along the way, you'll unlock new venues, wrestlers, and weapons. The hardcore gauntlet mode is a fighting-game-styled survival mode in which you have to face seven of the fiercest WCW wrestlers one right after another, without any replenishment to your health. Succeeding in this event unlocks even more secrets and rewards.

The differences between the PlayStation and N64 versions, aside from graphical styles, are minor. Each version has the same roster, areas, and features. The only real differences between the two versions are the commentary and the full-motion video. The PlayStation version has a lot more commentary and FMV than the N64 version, including a slick opening intro to the game and character-specific video packages that play before a match.

In the gameplay department, WCW Backstage Assault's controls and overall gameplay is very similar to WCW Mayhem's, but with major improvements. For instance, in Mayhem, it was very hard for a wrestler to fight back once his opponent started kicking or punching him; in Backstage Assault, this has been fixed so that the action can go back and forth. The collision detection in Backstage Assault has been greatly improved; wrestlers hit and grapple one another more realistically than in Mayhem. Another noticeable difference is the speed of the game; in Backstage Assault, the wrestlers move and react much faster than in WCW Mayhem, and they don't feel sluggish at all.

The ability to simply move from one small area to a completely new one midmatch gives the game a free roaming feel that WCW Mayhem barely touched upon. While some players are sure to miss the ring, it's a whole lot of fun to carry the match through several different areas. And for those who get weepy-eyed and find themselves reminiscing about the ring itself, EA has incorporated ringlike elements into several of the backstage arenas. For instance, in the semi-truck arena, truck tires are stacked in one of the corners, which you can Irish-whip your opponent into as if they were the ring ropes. You can also find tons of stuff to jump off, such as boxes and crates that act as the top of a turnbuckle in the ring.

The game still uses the momentum meter just as it appeared in Mayhem, which acts as a sliding health bar. Whoever is in control of the match gains momentum, while at the same time, the opponent who's taking a beating loses momentum. The wrestler, who has a full momentum meter, has an easy time pinning the wrestler, who has an empty meter.

Visually, the game looks about on par with the graphics in WCW Mayhem. Little touches and differences such as steam, fire, and water effects really dress up the game's visuals. In addition to cleaner, more detailed wrestler models, all the wrestlers are now of varying heights and sizes. The areas and rooms that you fight in are all very detailed, with lots of movable objects that you can climb, pick up, and interact with.

So while we'll have to wait until this Thanksgiving to find out how the final game comes together, it's fair to say that Electronic Arts is working to improve and fix many of the problems that were found in WCW Mayhem.

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