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The WWF, THQ and Yukes did it again! In a joint partnership THQ and Yukes have released a title exclusively for the Sega Dreamcast. Unlike WWF Attitude, WWF Royal Rumble is from an arcade game of the same title and not previously released for any other console. This 
title is very different from titles released for the Playstation and Nintendo 64 and definitely stands out on its own. But is this a good thing?
WWF Royal Rumble looks very much like Smackdown for Playstation. The graphics would actually be equivalent to Smackdown on the Dreamcast with the aid of bleem! software. What sets WWF Royal Rumble apart from the Playstation title is that the emphasis is not really on depth, but more about getting as many people on the screen as possible.
Unlike the other wrestling titles for Playstation and N64, there is no career mode, King of the Ring tournament, stable mode or a create-a-wrestler mode. They just have the Royal Rumble and a regular single player mode similar to other fighting games like Tekken, without any story lines. The Royal Rumble is the highlight of the game as nine wrestlers can fit in the ring at once making the game feel like the Royal Rumble seen on pay-per-view.
But the wrestlers move too fast and you can't see yourself at times. The wrestlers seem to clump together in one corner and at times you don't even know you're eliminated. Also, for a Royal Rumble where you can include 90 wrestlers, there are only 20 in the game. There are no Dudleys, no Too Cool, no Benoit, and no Chyna. The same wrestlers will come in, sometimes wearing different outfits and sometimes not. That kind of sucks.
The single player mode is ok. You can also play against friends in triple threat and fatal four-way matches. That's cool. You can even fight in backstage areas, but the way they do it is somewhat bootlegged. The lights go out, everyone looks around, and "boom" you are in a parking lot. That's retarded.
What would make this game better? Well, a real career mode would have been nice. Can you imagine a Smackdown style game where nine people can fit on the screen at once? Also, more wrestlers could have been added to the game so you could form stables. Then they could have had a Survivor Series mode. Imagine having two men in the ring with three other men for each side waiting on the apron for a tag. The match would be an elimination-style match, so it would get crazy toward the end and mad fun to play. Why didn't they think of that? That would have been the first thing I would have done. Oh yeah, and a create-a-wrestler mode would have been nice, too. But, this was their first Dreamcast effort so I will cut them some slack.
Badseed's Bottomline: 3 out of 5. While not as good as Wrestlemania 2000, or WWF Smackdown, WWF Royal Rumble is still worth the purchase. The Royal Rumble mode is a lot of fun to play and when you play with friends, you stay on for hours. So, I suggest you buy this game and share it with the ones you love, or hate for that matter. And that's the bottomline cause Badseed said so.
Send your comments to me at Bandwidth@ybfree.com.