Attitude used to be my favorite wrestling game, but looking back, it's gameplay is definitly not good as it once was.
Bad: Gameplay can be very frustrating
When I was ten, I bought WWF Attitude at a local video game store. When I played, I thought it was the best wrestling game ever. For the record, the first wrestling games I played were WWF Warzone and WCW Nitro. After I got my hands on the excellent N64 AKI games, I changed my perspective on what I thought "good" wrestling games were. Let's begin:
I have always thought, and still do today, that Attitude is a cool game, as the presentation makes it feel like a WWF game. The create-a-stadium is one of the things that I really wish current wrestling games would feature. One thing that I think is odd about that mode is that it features a "color of the ring apron" option, but no matter what you pick, it's always black. But other than that, it's an awesome feature.
The create-a-wrestler mode is vastly improved over Warzone, and, in my opinion, is the second-best of the PS1 CAW modes (behind SmackDown! 2).
The graphics are also improved over Warzone, with very realistic faces and costumes, but the bodies themselves look rather generic. The arenas are well-done, I guess. There are three different stages: Raw, Pay-Per-View and House Show (where no lighting effects or pyro occur). They're very generic, but you can change the logos as you please. The rings are alright, but the turnbuckles, posts and ropes just look like crap, like someone used Microsoft Paint and made a ring.
The sound is great, with all the wrestlers' theme songs in the game. However, when the "language" option is set to "everyone" instead of "teen", all curse words are cut. Set it to "teen" to hear the good stuff. My personal favorites are Goldust's hilarious taunts. The commentary is okay, with Jerry "The King" Lawler and Shane McMahon providing the announcing. However, like War Zone's commentary, it's too repetitive, and some of the lines are idiotic. However, it's still decent, as they really stay with the match.
The career mode is alright, with you working your way up from house shows to Raw, Shotgun Saturday Night and PPVs, but there's no story, so don't expect any drama.
For the most part, the gameplay works (mainly for one-on-one matches), and it is much more tight than Warzone, which was a bit more loose on the control. However, Attitude's controls are more responsive, which is a good thing. The way to victory is to beat your opponent until they're health is down to the point where you can pin him/her. Not much strategy involved, basically a fighting game with wrestlers. Here's where it gets frustrating.
The gameplay gets really irritating at times, especially in matches that involve more than two people. Switching targets is slow and tedious, and trying to hit your moves at the same time usually results in you on the receiving end of a beat-down.
The difficulty ranges from uber-easy to painstakingly difficult. You can easily beat opponents in under two minutes in singles matches and triangle matches, but in four-way matches, like the Royal Rumble, the CPU gets smart, and usually gangs up on you.
All in all, Attitude is fun. It's good for it's decent gameplay, and awesome create modes, it's also good for a little nostalgia for hardcore WWF fans. It's a very good game, but don't expect any strategic wrestling here.