WCW vs. nWo: World Tour

WCW vs. nWo: World Tour
Developer(s)	Asmik Ace Entertainment Inland Productions
Publisher(s)	THQ
Platform(s)	Nintendo 64
Release	November 28, 1997
Genre(s)	Sports
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

WCW vs nWo: World Tour was a video game released in 1997 on the Nintendo 64 game console. The game was released at a time when World Championship Wrestling was the number 1 wrestling promotion in North America and the (then) World Wrestling Federation was facing severe difficulties financially and were recovering from from the last several years of a creative nadir.

Background

When the WWF was at their lowest point probably ever in the mid 1990s two very popular wrestlers did manage to emerge from their roster. One being Razor Ramon played by Scott Hall as a direct take off on Al Pacino's Cuban gangster Tony Montana from Scarface. Hall had struggled in regional promotions in the Florida area and in Turner's NWA (Scott "Gator" Hall), and later when that territory renamed itself as WCW in 1991 he became The Diamond Studd to a similar lack of fanfare. When he surfaced in the middle of the hot Ultimate Maniacs vs. Ric Flair and Mr. Perfect feud on the side of the heels he became a superstar almost overnight. He reached the highest point of his career at WrestleMania X when he defeated Shawn Michaels in a ladder match that some consider to be the greatest wrestling match of the 1990s.

At the same time Hall became famous, a near 7' former basketball player named Kevin Nash who had similar gimmick issues in WCW (Vinnie Vegas, The Great And Powerful Oz), took off as a bodyguard for Shawn Michaels named Diesel. Diesel didn't start off as a wrestler but after a year eventually became a full time in ring performer capturing the Intercontinental Title, and eventually beating Bob Backlund to win the WWF World Heavyweight Championship in a record breaking 8 seconds at Madison Square Garden in November of 1994.

When their contracts expired in early 1996, the WWF saw their resources drained and found themselves financially unable to sign these two wrestlers to new contracts. The logic at the time was that without their gimmicks (which are owned by the WWF) that Hall and Nash out on their own weren't a big threat. The split was amicable and Hall and Nash were ready to leave for a bigger paycheck and easier workload in Ted Turner's WCW.

On their way out something happened that started Scott Hall and Kevin Nash on a road to being more famous than their own WWF gimmicks, following a fantastic cage match between Kevin Nash and Shawn Michaels at Madison Square Garden, the two were joined in the ring by friends Scott Hall and Triple H for a big group hug and celebration among the real life friends. The WWF was livid over the incident because Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon were faces and Diesel and Triple H were heels, thus breaking kayfabe, but Shawn Michaels was the champion so the only person they could punish was the up and coming Triple H who wallowed in lackluster feuds in the midcard for a whole year.

When Hall showed up on WCW Monday Nitro in May of 1996 as himself he interrupted a match and demanded to know where all the big WCW talent was and offered an open invitation to any of them who wanted a fight. He started talking about someone who would join them soon and that turned out to be Kevin Nash who with Scott Hall formed The Outsiders. Despite being real life friends in the WWF both were always feuding on TV. This gave viewers the perception that the occurences going on in the storylines were real and that Hall and Nash were sent from the WWF to destroy WCW, a rumor they had to dispel for legal reasons at The Great American Bash.

Lex Luger, Macho Man Randy Savage, and Sting formed a team to represent WCW at the July Bash at the Beach pay-per-view to face The Outsiders and a mystery partner to be named later. There was a lot of industry speculation at the time as to who the partner would be, with most signs pointing toward Bret "The Hitman" Hart who was taking time off from wrestling due to burnout and contract negotiations at the time. In a crucial moment in the match for the WCW team, Hulk Hogan came down to appear to be saving WCW, but announcer Bobby Heenan suspected shenanigans and asked "But who's side is he on?".

Hulk made whose side he was on clear when he dropped a leg on Randy Savage and he and The Outsiders chased the WCW wrestlers away to party and celebrate this newly formed union. In one of the most famous promos in the history of professional wrestling, with Hall and Nash doing Hogan's famous poses in the background, Hulk Hogan tells the fans to stick it. The ring is immediately pelted with garbage as Hogan announces the "New World Organization" of wrestling, which then became the New World Order or nWo for short.

Soon members from the group came from the WWF including Ted Dibiase as the group's "money man" and Sean Waltman as "Syxx", the sixth member of the nWo.

The feud between the outsider bad guys of the nWo and the now all de-facto good guys of WCW became the primary feud in wrestling for the next three years. This game came out when the feud was at it's hottest point.

The Game

Although in the past the then WWF had been known as a marketing machine with wide appeal to children and families, its attempts to produce a successful video game that captured the feel of actual pro wrestling were rather unsuccessful. WCW's young president, Eric Bischoff, wanted WCW to not just compete with, but effectively beat the WWF in all aspects of multimedia and marketing. The past WWF games, and the current ones of the time like the generally despised WWF In Your House and WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game were cartoony, silly, and hard to play and had little basis in actual wrestling.

WCW had one foray into the SNES with WCW Superbrawl Wrestling, a lackluster title that was inoffensive, and before that on the NES there was an NWA game simply called "World Championship Wrestling" that was very sophisticated for it's time, including many grapple holds, a weapon (a wrench), and specific finishing maneuvers for all characters, but it was maligned for its difficulty.

Asmik Ace and AKI began producing a wrestling game that was similar to Japanese Puroresu and fighting games for WCW. The game was very well received due to it's tight construction and ease of play, especially compared to Acclaim Entertainment's comparatively more difficult and convoluted game WWF Warzone.

WCW vs nWo revolutionized wrestling games much like the nWo storyline did for wrestling. It was the first fully 3d wrestling game and introduced THQ's critically acclaimed grappling system where all moves are started by holds initiated with the tap of the "A" button. The game sold phenomonally well, and soon reached Player's Choice status. Unlike today's wrestling games, World Tour featured no create-a-wrestler mode, no "real" story mode and had a limited amount of actual wrestlers. But Asmik Ace and THQ got creative with the game and introduced a fictional cast of characters including many based on actual wrestlers from around the globe (including knockoffs of Hayabusa and Abdullah The Butcher). A sequel, WCW/nWo Revenge, was released in 1998.

Seeing the success that the WCW had with their video games and knowing that as they were rising again in 1999, the WWF decided they needed a marketable series of games for their fans. The WWF signed an exclusive contract with THQ to produce their wrestling games. This was a fruitful pairing and produced WWF Wrestlemania 2000 and WWF No Mercy for the N64, which play like sequels to the two aforementioned WCW games.

Even though AKI and Asmik Ace no longer work on WWE titles, there is a strong demand for them to return to making wrestling games, and many current series including WWE Day Of Reckoning and WWE Smackdown vs. Raw use traits built from the AKI engine.