Publisher - Midway Home Entertainment
Developer - Eurocom
Platform - N64
Type - Fighting
Score - 7/10
The Nintendo 64 console is a powerful little box. Anyone who has played Mario 64 or Turok has seen that the
N64 can push a lot of polygons and still look incredible while doing it. Ever since the N64 hit the shelves in
September '96, I've been waiting for a 3D fighter. Now we have War Gods, and all I can say is, "It's about
time!"
Midway has had some hit and miss title up to date, but War Gods (in addition to NBA Hangtime and Doom
64) proves that Midway is shaping up. War Gods isn't the best fighting game ever produced, but it's ranks
highly in the annuls of three dimensional pound-somebody-to-a-pulp-games.
While you may not be able to tell from watching the game, anyone playing the game can tell it's based off the
Mortal Kombat fighting engine. All the ingredients of Mortal Kombat are intact: tapping keystrokes for special
moves, using a block button instea d of pushing backwards, extremely overpowered uppercuts, and fatalities.
Even with all of this evidence, War Gods is a bit more than a Mortal-Kombat-in-3D clone.
It looks like Midway fixed some of the fighting engine problems that plagued Mortal Kombat Trilogy. The first
improvement is running. Mortal Kombat Trilogy used an awkward run button, but War Gods uses an extremely
intuitive method- tapping forward twice. This seems like a minor change, but it drastically affects gameplay.
Running in Mortal Kombat Trilogy was a profound error, but the same maneuver in War Gods is tactically
sound. Another improvement is the combo system. The combo system in Mortal Kombat Trilogy seems like it
was tacked on as an afterthought. In contrast, War Gods' combo system is well integrated. Combos are not
peripheral to the engine (see Mortal Kombat Trilogy) nor the totality of the game (see Killer Instinct Gold).
Even without knowing the combo mechanics, anyone can pull off simple 3 or 4 hit sequences. A final
enhancement to the Mortal Kombat engine is the push maneuver. This is accomplished by pressing block twice
in succession. This seems like a minor addition at best, but it robs your opponent of pulling off moves which
require that they stand very close. It's also great in a two player match as it is un surmountably insulting.
In addition to polishing the ailing Mortal Kombat engine, this game explodes it into three dimensions. War Gods
is a true 3D fighting game, not a 2D game masquerading as a 3D game, such as Tekken or Killer Instinct Gold.
If you've played War Gods in the arcade, you couldn't have missed the gargantuan button labeled "3D". The
3D button is essentially a shift key that changes up and down on the control pad from jump and crouch to move
right and left in 3D. An improveme nt in the home version that the arcade game lacks is the ability to assign 3D
jump buttons to the N64 controller. If you don't like using a shift key, then you can use simple one button
presses to leap into separate parallels. War Gods also
keeps you facing your opponent at all times. The use of a
3D modifier button (or separate 3D jump buttons) and
the fact that you automatically face your enemy frees War
Gods from movement problems that other 3D fighters
suffer fro m. Both Soul Edge and Virtua Fighter are
plagued by movement problems that interfere with game
play. War Gods may not give the player quite as much
freedom as other 3D fighters, but it makes trade offs to
keep the action lightning fast and manageable.
War Gods made a smooth transition from the arcade to
the N64. The Nintendo 64 doesn't seem to have any
problems keeping up with the arcade machines graphics or the speed at which it spits them out. There are some
minor graphics improvements in the home ve rsion. The characters appear to be the same as in the arcade.
They are composed of polygons, yet they have a smooth, rounded appearance. The characters don't move
quite as believably as they do in Turok: Dinosaur Hunter . It doesn't happen very often, but you may catch
characters falling in the wrong direction or see two fighters stepping into each other. As far as background
graphics go, the N64 version fixed some problems the arcade game had.
The background in War Gods is separated into three sections: the arena floor, the wall, and the backdrop
image. In the arcade game, the floor of the arena easily becomes over-pixelated when the camera zooms in.
N64 never has over-pixelation problems. The wall, which always partially obscures the backdrop had some
trouble rotating in the arcade. The wall appears to segment during rotations and other transformations. The N64
cart doesn't have any trouble whipping the wall around the screen. And finally, the backdrop images have not
lost any detail in the port.
The background music also survived the transition. The scores in War Gods don't hold a candle to other N64
games. There are considerable gaps in musical transitions. While there are problems, the music doesn't really
affect gameplay. The grunts, screams, and sounds of combat are also less then fantastic. When you knock
someone to the ground, the bass speakers should rumble. End of story.
War Gods is a fun, exciting game, but there are some problems that keep it from becoming a truly great game.
The characters in War Gods may look very different, but they all have similar secret moves. It seems like
everyone has a capture and a fireball ma neuver. Granted the designers adapted each move to a particular
character's motif, but a rose by any other name is _still_ a fireball.
Another glitch is the depth of game play. It won't take a single player very long to play through the entire game.
War Gods pits you against all of the ten fighters plus two bosses. This is still more characters than early fighting
games had, but War Gods lack many of the ploys that extend gameplay. The original Mortal Kombat stretched
gameplay with endurance rounds (rounds in which you face two opponents in a row), and most every fighting
game has shows of strength (breaking blocks, destroying cars, etc. ). This isn't an incredible weakness of the
game, but you may find yourself at the end thinking, "Is that all?"
In spite of all its problems, War Gods still meets the fighting game formula:
no plot + lots of blood + 2 controllers = a good time
War Gods is definitely one of the better games Midway has made for N64, and it may be the best fighting game
currently available for the console. I do have two warnings. The first one is to parents. Parents, if you buy this
game for your children, it will mess them up for life. This game is for mature players only. Warning number two
is for the people playing this game. Midway doesn't tell you how to do ANY of the special moves in the
instruction manual, so I've decided to include some of them here.
The bottom line is that War Gods is a fun game. So, if you want to kill your friends, use this cart and not a blunt
object.