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WWF EUROPEAN RAMPAGE REVIEW - January 1993

Off to a flying start, this one. Despite claiming on the box that it supports 520STs, WWF European Rampage is in fact a 1 meg-only game. Then again, though, that's actually something of a plus point. Why? Because the fact that un-upgraded ST owners won't run the risk of being tempted to buy this lump of unmitigated trash is one that might just help to keep the much-put-upon ST games market alive and kicking just that little bit longer.

Really, with a game like this it's difficult to know where to start. You can always take it apart on its merits as a game. Not a difficult one, this. WWF European Rampage plays like it was written with a Beat-Em-Up Construction Kit - the entirety of the gameplay consists of walking up to your opponent and hitting the fire button to punch him a few times until he falls down then stompimg on him a bit, continuing until his energy is sufficiently low for you to flop down on top of
him and pin him down for three seconds, winning you the match. The tag-team aspect of the game serves only to drag each bout out for twice as long (if your opponent escapes to his corner, he can tag his partner, who then comes in with a full energy bar, forcing you to start the whole tedious process over again), and the more complicated moves are both awkward to execute and totally unnecessary.

Well, alright, so the gameplay is pathetic. Doesn't that usually mean that all the programming effort has been expended on making the game a visual and aural feast?

Nope. Your little sister could do better than this with a set of crayons and a Bontempi organ.

So, zero gameplay and crap graphics, then. However, as the first WWF game proved, that's not necessarily any barrier to huge success - sad WWF fanatics will lap up anything with the official logo on it. How, then, does this fare as a WWF licence?

If anything, even worse. You get a strictly limited selection of WWF 'wrestlers' to choose your characters from, many of whom are hopelessly out of date, and none of whom boast any of their real-life trademark moves or characteristics. The atmosphere-building insult-trading section of the first game has gone, and there's none of the showbiz razzamatazz that's the real secret of WWF's success as a spectator event. The 'tour' aspect of the game consists of repeating the same three bouts (you always have to fight The Nasty Boys, The Natural Disasters and the Legion Of Doom) in 'different' European venues which are actually exactly the same crude arena with different flags and banners each time, which means the game totally lacks any compulsion to play on to the finish.

So the gameplay's useless, it's unbelievably repetitive, and it's got next to sod all to do with the WWF. What's left? How about how successful WWF European Rampage Tour is as a quick-buck lazy cash-in rip-off aimed at separating gullible idiots from outrageous amounts of money? Well, that one's entirely up to you, folks. Last year Ocean got away with it with a game only slightly less appalling than this one, but a lot of people ended up with burned fingers and a strong
disinclination to fall for it again. This year they've upped the price (30 quid for a two-disk travesty like this?), cut their costs (no 'free' video this time round), and produced a game that's quite tangibly and unarguably dreadful. If it sells big-time once more, it's just possible that no-one will ever bother to write a halfway-decent ST game again. Imagine what it's like to be an honest, hard-working, ST-devoted programmer producing top-quality software which shifts a few hundred copies, and then watching utter, utter garbage like this
flying off the shelves. Wouldn't you just give up on the spot? Sensible Soccer or WWF European Rampage - the choice is yours.

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By Ocean


HIGHS

If you've got less than a megabyte, you won't have to worry
about resisting temptation.

LOWS

No gameplay, looks and sounds awful, no WWF feel, ridiculous price tag... need I go on?

STF RATING 7 PERCENT