Acclaim's VCR WWF Wrestlemania Game:

- Usually, I review these tapes in my usual way... rambling incoherently, sticking a meaningless rating at the end, and then eating some pizza. Because the tape is of an unsual nature (a.k.a impossible to review in a normal fassion), I'll try to tackle the subject with an easier method... rambling incoherently, making shitty jokes, watch some porn, and then eat some ravioli.

For the unaware, Acclaim is one of the worst companies when it comes to video games. Although they have given us a gem or two (Mortal Kombat), they've given us our fair share of crap (9(% of all games they've made not named "Mortal Kombat"). The opening of tape gives us previews of such awesome games like the NFL VCR Quarterback, NBA VCR Basketball, NHL VCR Hockey, and PGwhatever Golf Board Games. The main selling point was that you played the board based on what happens on the tape. Sounds like a good concept, doesn't it? Let's trudge forward...

But first... I have to admit actually having this board game, but didn't actually play it until I was 5 years old (sometime in 1990), which was about 2 years after the game came out. Back then, I thought it was the most awesomest thing ever, but boy, did I sure enjoy Acclaim games too much when I was younger. I've lost the game a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, but have a copy of the tape thanks to one of the members of this board... he should be ashamed of himself for actually making money off the damn thing from suckers like me.

1. Footage Selection:
Now, this is really where the game shines. While WWF was never full of workrate horses, the Acclaim guys did their best to bring you some rare stuff from Madison Square Garden, the Boston Garden, the Philadelphia Spectrum, the Maple Leaf Garden, Saturday Night's Main Event, and last but not least... Wrestlemania IV? Yes, Acclaim put a good 20-25 minutes of an 110 minute tape with Wrestlemania IV Footage, and most of it is crap, like Don Muraco v. Dino Bravo, and Jake Roberts v. Rick Rude.

Almost everyone on the WWF Roster from the Spring of '88 was represented in at least one match here, other than notable losers like Sam Houston, Danny Davis, and newcomers, like Bad News Brown and... yeah, basically Bad News. Although they do feature footage of George Steele v. Talent Enhancers Rick Ganter and Dusty Wolfe, the footage only runs about 1:50, so trying to use that point to say the tape sucks is lame. However, some people are represented more than others. For instance, Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage appear in 6 different matches each (although 3 of Hogan's are against Race, and 3 of Savage's are against Honkytonk Man), Harley Race in 5, Jim Duggan appears in 4 (against legends Dibiase, Andre The Giant, Harley Race... and Ron Bass), Ted Dibiase and The Honkytonk Man in 4, and the list goes on.

However, some of the choices are hardly classics. For instance, they decided to use a Koko B. Ware v. Dino Bravo match (blech...) from what appears to be the absolutely shittiest arena WWE has ever came to since holding shows outdoors in a rain storm. Duggan comes back to haunt us, stinking up the ring with Andre in no less than 7 clips of a match from Boston Garden, and the less said about George Steele in everything,, the better. The good still outweighs the bad, but when the matches aren't complete, it can be a real mess, which brings me to...

2. Editing Performance
Here comes the pain... for people trying to keep up with the damn tape. Like mentioned, all of the matches are clipped down to highlight bigger spots of a match, or a lot of stalling. In cases like the Hart Foundation v. Strike Force, there are a total of 11 clips shown, and the match is pretty good, but the finish isn't showm which totally kills the point of showing so many damn highlights from a single match, while we get the finish of Steele v. Loser #1 when the match was barely 90 seconds to begin with. The clips of from each match ranges from a measly 10 seconds to a lengthy 1:20 in time, depending on the situation, but the majority of clips run betwee 25-35 seconds, so the most you'll see of a match is 4-5 minutes.

Now here is what pisses me off... the clips are fine and dandy, and could be spliced together to make a neat clipped match, but Acclaim felt they had to confuse everyone, by jumbling around the clips! For instance, the Hogan/Dibiase of the match is shown in 10 different clips, and they put the finish of the match as the 2nd clip of the match on the tape! This isn't the only time on the tape it happens. Demolition v. The Rougeaus from Boston does the exact same, but with less (and a couple of lenghtier) clips. Spliced together, it's fun, but trying to figure out which clip goes where is a pain in the royal ass.

3. Things That Really Annoy Me
To start off, the scoring system for this game is rather questionable. Each wrestle is assigned a color of either red or blue, and depending on what they do during the match, they are awarded points, ranging from a few to 10, and a grand total of 20 points for an actual pinfall. However, some of the scoring makes no sense, like when blue babyface dominates, but gets jipped in the scoring, and the heel gets a signifcant amount of points depsite getting slaughtered. Also, the negative points makes less sense, since it was never explained anywhere else, and it just happens at random.

Oh, and then there is one thing. For example, from Wrestlemania IV, Dino Bravo fought Don Morraco. Wait, you're saying Muraco and that I'm a complete idiot. Well, Acclaim sure as hell didn't do their homework, because they misspell his name not once, but FIVE TIMES! Somehow, despite having a bunch of archive footage at their disposal for the game, no one bothered to read an on-screen graphic to get the proper spelling of his name. I'm sure this happend again somewhere else, like with the Rougeaus name, but I didn't care to notice.

4. Miscelanious Comments:
There's really nothing left to say. They really pulled out some stinkers when it comes to the matches, the editing jobs were on level with some of WCW's when it came to Turner Videos of the PPV's from back in the day, and they can't even spell a simple name! I'm not surprised though, since we all know the reputation Acclaim has when it comes to video games, except this was a VCR board game. For those who love to FEEL MY PAIN, I actually came up with a list of what is seen on this tape, but ignore the "**" excuse, since that's for my personal list only.

1. Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake v. Greg "The Hammer" Valentine (SNME)*P (4)
2. Hulk Hogan v. "Million $ Man" Ted Dibiase (Sam Houston Arena)*P (10)
- Hulk Hogan Interview (SNME)
3. Hulk Hogan v. King Harley Race (SNME)*P (9)
4. "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan v. Andre The Giant (Boston Garden)*P (7)
5. Jake "The Snake" Roberts v. "Ravishing" Rick Rude (WM IV)** (9)
6. "Macho Man" Randy Savage v. The Honkytonk Man (SNME)*P (9)
7. Bam Bam Bigelow v. One Man Gang (WM IV)**
8. Hulk Hogan v. "The Natural" Butch Reed (Spectrum)*P (6)
9. "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan v. "Million $ Man" Ted Dibiase (WM IV)**/*P (6)
10. Strike Force v. The Hart Foundation (MSG) (11)
11. Koko B. Ware v. Dino Bravo (???) (6)*P
12. "Macho Man" Randy Savage v. "Million $ Man" Ted Dibiase (WM IV)** (6)
13. Hulk Hogan v. One Man Gang (MSG) (4)
14. Bam Bam Bigelow v. "Million $ Man" Ted Dibiase (MSG)** (7)
15. The Ultimate Warrior v. King Harley Race (SoW)**
16. The British Bulldogs v. The Islanders (Spectrum) (6)
17. Koko B. Ware v. "The Natural" Butch Reed (WM III)**/*P (4)
18. George "The Animal" Steele v. One Man Gang (Spectrum) (2)
19. Strike Force v. Demolition (WM IV)** (5)
20. Hulk Hogan v. King Harley Race (MSG) (3)
21. The Rougeau Brothers v. The Hart Foundation (MLG) (4)
22. "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan v. "Outlaw" Ron Bass (MSG)** (6)
23. "Macho Man" Randy Savage v. "The Natural" Butch Reed (WM IV)**/*P (2)
24. "Macho Man" Randy Savage v. The Honkytonk Man (MSG) (7)
25. "Macho Man" Randy Savage v. "Million $ Man" Ted Dibiase (SNME) (5)
26. George "The Animal" Steele v. Rick Gantner (Challenge) (3)*P
27. "Macho Man" Randy Savage (Green Tights) v. The Honkytonk Man (MSG) (3)
28. The Ultimate Warrior v. Hercules (WM IV)**/*P (2)
29. "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan v. King Harley Race (MSG)**/*P (8)
30. Hulk Hogan (White Tights) v. King Harley Race (MSG)**? (2)
31. The British Bulldogs v. Demolition (MLG)
32. "The Rock" Don Muraco v. Dino Bravo (WM IV)** (5)
- Randy Savage Interview (SNME)
33. The Rougeau Brothers v. Demolition (Boston Garden)*P (5)
34. The British Bulldogs v. The Islanders (Boston Garden) (3)
35. Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake v. The Honkytonk Man (Challenge)*P
36. Jake "The Snake" Roberts v. "Million $ Man" Ted Dibiase (Boston Garden) (3)
- The Honkytonk Man Interview
37. George "The Animal" Steele v. Dusty Wolfe (Superstars) (2)

*P - Includes pinfall
** - Match available elsewhere
(#) - Number of clips from match

5. Final Judgment:
Simple enough here, as I'll break it into a nice little Pros and Cons section, because it's easier and more clear to read when it comes to reading shit I type up. So with that said, let's check out the scorecard for this thing-a-ma-jig here...

Pros:
+ Cool footage not seen by most fans from MSG, Boston Garden, MLG, and the Spectrum
+ Classic highlights of Savage/HTM matches, Hogan before his hips were broken, and a neato Strike Force/Foundation match (that doesn't have a finish).

Cons:
- Poor choices in selections. Way too much of Harley Race, considering his WWF run was less than impressive. Also too many helpings of George Steele against Jobbers.
- Horrible editing. Stop jumping from beginning, to end, to middle with the matches, bastards!
- Too many damn clips from Wrestlemania IV, one of the most overrated in WWF history.
- They spelled Don Muraco's name wrong. IT'S NOT THAT HARD!
- Some clips are no more than 10 seconds, which is really awesome. IF you thought matches were too long during Russo's run writing for Raw, these are the clips for you!

So Let's see... the cons definitely outweight the pros, so I'll say the tape sucks, and the board game probably sucked more. I won't bother doing any recommendation, since you probably can draw your own conclussion, and you can't find the damn thing anywhere, and even eBay rarely has the board game available for sale.

Coincedentally..I was packing tonight and found this game in my dresser. I also found a cache of old Bill Cosby LP's from the 60's and 70's ..and a Shazam figure (WTF?!).

I tried watching these matches about five years ago and you're right..there's some weird stuff on here. The DiBiase/Hogan features Mike McGuirk on color, I believe. She does nothing but cheer "c'mon Hulk!". I think the Hogan/Race match has Pete Doherty on commentary, but I'm not sure. Whoever it is has a weird nasally voice and I recall him saying "hey-uh...Hulk Hogan's not doing too good. heh-heh".

These games were quite abundant in 88. I remember getitng it for Christmas that year. There was also an NFL and an NBA game. The NFL version was overproduced --popping up in toy stores, hobby shops, sports shops and even in men's apparel stores (KG Men's, etc). It came out in 1988 and I remember seeing them STILL sitting on shelves for the 93 Xmas season.

There may have been an MLB one, too. Same concept: move around the board, then watch a clip for bonus points. I think I played the game about four or five times. It was interesting and a fun novelty.

So I'm gonna' go eat some Cheez-its and watch some Skinemax porn. Goshdarnit, I haven't seen one with Tracy Ryan in awhile. She musta' "retired".

You're right about the nazzly sounding guy. It's everyones favorite Jobber, the Duke of Dorchester, Pete Doherty. God damn, was he awful. The PBP team during Hogan/Dibiase was Bruce Prichard, Mike McGuirk (like mentioned), and him. Talk about a fucking strange threesome.

Kudos for that review. And yeah, the fact that the Strike Force/Hart Foundation match had no finish was really deflating. I got a horrible copy of the whole match from someone just cause I wanted to see for myself how it ended.

DQ win for Strike Force via the megaphone in the ol spot where the heels think they've won the titles but The Fink is quick to correct them.

I hate that spot... did the referee tap the heels shoulders during the pin like Morella did at WM IV during Morraco/Bravo? :lol:

IIRC, I think so. Dumb Al Hayes thought there were new champs but Monsoon was right there to bring the logic.

In other shocking news, the sky is blue again.