I’ve been having soreness in my right thumb area for a few days after a couple of intense days playing Hades (if for some reason you still have not played Hades yet, it’s on Game pass, or even better- buy it cause it’s that damn good). While I’ve had downtime from gaming, I’ve knocked out a fair number of reviews for 365-2. In an effort to not burn myself out so soon with creative writing, I decided to take a break and go archive.org diving for some of my old content. I decided to pay a visit to a site I created over two decades ago called Tyrant’s HellHole. I might have made a reference to the site once via Twitter, but I never went ahead and tried to share anything directly from there.

This though, I really wanted to get some eyes on this (and how awfully cringe it reads today).

I wrote a preview of WWF Attitude for the PS1, complete with an email interview I had with a developer from the project, Jeff Robinson. Back then, for some reason, I absolutely loved WWF Warzone, the precursor to Attitude. It’s still in my top five most anticipated games ever, up there with the likes of Ocarina of Time, San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto IV and Cyberpunk 2077. In fact, my irrational love for WWF Attitude had me give it a perfect score on my site (hey, we all have our embarrassing starts). But before I could give it a perfect score, I put out a preview – my first ever attempt at one, with my first interview as well.

I’m going to copy and paste the text in its entirety, misspellings, grammatical botches and all, with the only changes being adjustments to images and/or image placements. This would be the part where I’d say “enjoy!”, but I don’t think joy would be derived from this!

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Originally posted: 1999? – https://web.archive.org/web/20130307100938/http://tyranthh.8m.com/preview/PSX/wwf_attitude_preview.html

WWF Attitude blowout!!!!

Less than one year ago, Acclaim released a wrestling game that would top the charts around the US. WWF Warzone, in a way, redefined the wrestling genre in more than one way. Photo realistic wrestlers with many wrestling moves at their disposal, great animation, actual entrance themes, great multiplayer action and many modes of play were just the tip of the iceberg. Create a Wrestler, probably the most innovating mode to come in a video game for some time, enabled gamers to create their own wrestler to brawl against the WWF roster present in the game. Players could spend literally days building armies of wrestlers and boosting their attributes. I spent a total of 1 hour and 34 minutes custom creating my own wrestler! Acclaim out did themselves with Warzone, so much so that I thought a sequel would not hold such innovation as Warzone did. Boy was I wrong! Cause Acclaim has Attitude, WWF Attitude that is, the next, and unfortunately final installment of the WWF series under the careful and professional eyes of Acclaim.

WWF Attitude takes what Warzone was, and multiplies it nearly ten fold. Dozens (yes dozens) of modes and match options along with more than double the WWF roster from last year just tells part of the story. Take a glance at the default roster present in Attitude:

Stone Cold Steve Austin
The Rock
Mankind
The Undertaker
Edge
Christian
Gangrel
Val Venis
X-Pac
HHH
Road Dogg Jesse James
Bad Ass Billy Gunn
Kane
Farrooq
Bradshaw
Big Bossman
Al Snow
Goldust
Mark Henry
D’lo Brown
Ken Shamrock
Jeff Jarrett
Owen Hart
Mosh
Thrasher
Steve Blackman
Taka Michinoku
Dr. Death Steve Williams
Kurrgan
Droz

There are 11 hidden wrestlers in the game as well….

Shawn Michaels (yes! HBK!)
Chyna
Jacqueline
Sable
Marc Mero
Brian Christopher
Jerry “The King” Lawler
The Godfather
Commissioner Slaughter
Paul Bearer
Head (yes, Al Snow’s dummy head, with a body)

Finally, there are six “jobbers” (jobbers are the nobodies in wrestling that get their faces beat in with every match they are in)

Mr. Showtime
Stickboy
Killer
Whimpy
Biohazard
….and the King of Jobbers
The Trainer, jeLLo

When everything is calculated, the roster can reach as high as 46 wrestlers, not counting the number of created wrestlers that you can add to the lot.

With all these wrestlers, where could we have them wrestle? Simple….one of a huge number of modes and options. Total, there are 35 game modes and 11 different match options/rules for those modes. Of the 35 modes, 25 are Adjustable and for the options/rules, you have five match modifiers and six win modifiers. Here is a sample of what is to come:

Regular Modes

1P Versus
Triple Threat
3-way Dance
War
Royal Rumble
Battle Royal
Lumberjack
Tag Team
Tornado
2 on 1
3 on 1
Gauntlet
Tag Gauntlet
Tornado Gauntlet
Survivor Series
Stable match
King of the Ring
Career Mode
Tag Team Career Mode
Training Mode
Pay-Per-View Mode
Create-a-Wrestler Mode

Match Options

Hardcore Match
Cage Match
Last Man Standing
Falls Count Anywhere
Iron Man Match
I Quit Match
Finisher Only
2 out of 3 falls

Impressive to say the least, but certain modes need further explanation, like Career Mode, Create a Pay Per View Mode and more on the Create a Wrestler Mode.

First, Career Mode spans one full year, from April 1st right on through WrestleMania. Select any wrestler, created or default and start the mode. You begin as a nobody, clawing through the ranks slowly. You start out doing house shows (house shows are non major wrestling shows done regularly). If you do good, you start getting TV appearances on Saturday Night Shogun, not to mention, a possible European Belt shot. Keep blazing through the ranks in the WWF, you’ll get more television appearances and start wrestling on Sunday Night Heat and then Monday Night RAW. Eventually, you’ll get an Intercontinental Belt match. Keep going strong and its Pay per View time for you. You might appear, depending on your record, in King of the Ring, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, In Your House and the Royal Rumble. If by luck, you win the Rumble, you automatically qualify for a title shot against the champ. To make sure things don’t get repetitious during your trek through the rankings, random grudge matches will occur, not to mention run ins.

Pay Per View mode is what it says, create your own In Your House, WrestleMania, Royal Rumble or any other pay per view event. You can sign a total of eight matches to the event, adjust logos to fit whatever PPV event you are creating, change the color of the ropes and even the light color! Hey, you can even have a Royal Rumble PPV event with just title matches and no Royal Rumble! You could designate title holders and put up the belts in the event. If you choose to do so, you could play every match or have it compute controlled during, say matches 1, 3, 4 and 6 and play 2, 5, 7 and 8. There is so much to mix and match that the potential of sleep lost fooling around with this mode is unimaginable! This mode has a lot of potential.

Create A Wrestler Mode has been expanded to further accommodate the creative spices in us all. There are more costumes, more body weight selections and even the ability to write text on clothing. The player will have different skin types to choose as well as separate eyes, noses and mouths amongst other things. You can now even give your wrestler whatever moves you want, from a list of over 400. You could even have one button designated as the People’s Elbow, but the damage will be minimal unless you have a complicated button sequence (similar to Warzone, but not as hard) and of course you can’t lay down a person with a Rock Bottom 3 seconds into the match and expect a fair 3 count. There will be more of everything! Between Pay Per View Mode and Create a Wrestler Mode, the potential replay value alone seems incredible.

But what about the little things of Attitude? Well, blood will be present, but not in splashes like in Warzone, two man commentary by Vinnie Mac’s son, Shane McMahon and the ever funny Jerry “The King” Lawler (who will also be a hidden wrestler). There will be more camera angles, choose your own opponent (created even) more moves, more weapons (including Bedpan McMahon, Vince McManon’s bedpan from when Vinnie Mac was put in the hospital) four costumes per wrestler, more digitized music and so much more.

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An Interview with The People’s Designer

All of the questions in this interview are about different aspect of the game. I just want to quickly thank Hans Moleman, booboo, Doug Moore, BBF, Tick, D_Generation_X, canadian_bacon and the rest of the chat visitors at TWR2 for listening to the questions that I have fielded to Mr. Robinson. For the best WWF Attitude dedicated web site, visit TWR2, the only place for your Attitude needs….as well as this preview/interview. So without further adieu, I present to you my short, but sweet interview with Jeff Robinson.

Jason Velez: For the PlayStation version of Attitude, you decided to include the Royal Rumble. If I am not mistaken, the reason for the PSX removal the Royal Rumble was because of load times. How have you gone about in tackling this issue? How exactly will things go?

Jeff Robinson: Similar to In Your House

JV: On a somewhat similar subject, will it be easier to throw my
opponent over the top rope and will there be more than one way?

JR: Yes

JV: Are there any plans for an instant replay feature, whether it be during the match (a la WCW/nWo: Revenge), after the match or a manual replay option available in the pause menu?

JR: No

JV: Are entrances available in every gameplay mode or just in certain modes like Career Mode?

JR: Most if not all of the modes.

JV: At this stage of development, how do I go about winning championship belts? For example, If the first thing I wanted to do when I power on Attitude for the first time ever, could I set a match between The Rock and HHH for the Heavyweight Belt in a First Blood Steel Cage match or do I have to earn the belts somehow?

JR: There are free to use in create your own PPV.

JV: Will the crowd be more interactive? Will they have different levels of cheering and booing, not just one cheer and one boo for all wrestlers?

JR: This will be improved.

JV: When a wrestler has multiple titles in his or her possession, could the player choose which one to defend?

JR: No

JV: Let us briefly divulge this interview into one of the more anticipated modes- Create A Wrestler Mode (CAW) and Pay Per View mode….

What are the height and weight limitations in the Attitude CAW mode? Could I create a 5’1″ 150 lb. wrestler or are all the created wrestlers the same height and cannot adjust the weight?

JR: Similar to Warzone

JV: Will there be enough long hairdos to select for created wrestlers this time around?

JR: Similar to Warzone

JV: I noticed a picture of CAW mode where a Blue Blazer mask and a Hawk & Animal of LOD 2000 facepaint were available for use. Will you accommodate the creative ambitions of us wrestling fans and gamers more so this time by having more clothes, movesets and other little things to help more accurately create past and present, WWF and WCW wrestlers?

JR: Mr. Fuji is suing WCW for like 5 million right now for using his likeness in WCW/nWo. We will stay away from putting in recognizable clothing.

JV: Are the wrestling outfits of the default WWF superstars readily accessible in CAW mode?

JR: A lot of the stuff is. Kane and Mankind’s mask are quick examples.

JV: Its been mentioned that players could add text to clothing in CAW mode. Is this restricted to just shirts and shorts or could I wrote on bandanas and belts?

JR: You will have 5, I believe, pre-determined spots to place text. Across chest, on butt, down arms, etc…

JV: At the <Bagpipe Report>, where you gave the low down on almost everything that will be in Attitude, you talked about the Pay Per View Mode. I was confused about a certain passage you gave, let me briefly mention the passage in
question:

“Recreate any past event of future event and rewrite history. Want Andre to will the belt in WM3? Make it happen.”

What exactly does this mean? If I attempt to recreate WM3, I would have to create Andre, Hogan and the rest of the WM3 card in CAW mode as well as every other PPV wrestler from the pas or will they be readily accessible when I attempt to recreate the PPV event? Are the old logos from old PPV events readily available in PPV mode?

JR: You would have to make Hogan and Andre of course. The Logos are as standard as possible, to work with old and future pay per views.

JV: I read about an inclusion of a “buddy system” in other previews. To make a long story short, what I gathered about it is this: the buddy system will pair off certain wrestlers with certain wrestlers (Road Dogg with Bad Ass, HHH with X-Pac). When you are in trouble, you can call out your “buddy” to even the odds. Would this feature be available in CAW mode so I could select who I want my “buddy” to be or will the selection be automatic?

JR: You may only select a featured wrestler as your buddy. He will be helping you out with all run-in’s.

JV: Unfortunately, Acclaim has lost the WWF license. But in its absence, will you create a generic wrestling game with unknown creations or will you peruse the ECW franchise?

JR: A comment would not be appropriate.

Thank you Mr. Robinson for the interview. Expect WWF Attitude to be in your house late May for the PSX and LateJune for the Nintendo 64.

Pictures courtesy of IGN64.

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Worth noting that Acclaim did move on to making two ECW titles, though I have never had a chance to sit down with any of them.