A playthrough of FCI's 1990 license-based wrestling game for the NES, WCW: World Championship Wrestling.

This video goes through both of the game's single-player modes:

3:49 Single mode played as Nature Boy Ric Flair

1:20:20 Tag mode played as The Road Warriors, Animal and Hawk

Though the Nichibutsu-developed World Championship Wrestling was the first video game to carry the WCW license, it didn't start out that way. It's actually a localization of Super Star Pro Wrestling, a 1989 Famicom release that bears the distinction of being the only game to carry an official NWA endorsement.

WCW features twelve playable wrestlers (Ric Flair, Lex Luger, Mike Rotunda, Kevin Sullivan, Sting, Rick Steiner, Ricky Steamboat, Hawk, Animal, Steve Williams, Eddie Gilbert, and Michael PS Hayes), and the primary game mode is a ladder-style series of matches in which you take on every wrestler twice. After winning the minor title, you climb the ladder a second time for a chance to take on the mysterious "WCW Master" (Andre the Giant in a mask) for the world title and belt. There is also an extensive points-based tag-team championship mode that tests you with three rounds each made up of five matches.

I was a massive WWF fan as a kid, and at the time, I had no idea that the WCW even existed, so I totally ignored this game when it came out. If I wanted to play as a superstar, I had the WWF games, and if I wanted a good wrestling game, I could play Pro Wrestling or Tecmo World Wrestling ([ Ссылка ]).

I missed out, though, because WCW is a much better, more fun game than WWF Wrestlemania ([ Ссылка ]) was. The controls are easy to learn, the roster is much larger, the difficulty level follows a smooth progression, the animation is good, the ability to select your grapple moves at the beginning of each match is a neat touch, every wrestler has a flashy finisher, and the digitized voices are nice and clear, especially for an NES game. It's also a lot of fun to bash someone in the face with a wrench.

WCW isn't quite as fun or as polished as Pro Wrestling or Tecmo World Wrestling, but it's a strong first showing for the brand on consoles, and if you find yourself hankering for the simplicity of an old-school wrestling game, this one is worth a look. I really enjoyed it.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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