WWF In Your House
System: Playstation
Publisher: Acclaim
Developer: Sculptured Software
Released: 1996
Genre: Wrestling
Capabilities: Multi-Tap Compatible

The Game

This is the sequel to WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game. The game I just mentioned pioneered a new game engine to Acclaim’s series of wrestlers, which is really a mix of the Mortal Kombat engine mixed with WWF wrestlers and moves. Will this prove to be a worthy sequel? Let’s get onto the review and find out.

Graphics

Well, first thing that happens when you pop in the game is that you’ll notice a really nice FMV featuring all of the game’s wrestlers, now at the time, FMVs were new for wrestling games, and the opening one for In Your House is really well done which shows highlights off of WWF television. The menus are nicely laid out and easy to navigate, and the wrestlers look pretty good in the game too. The costumes they were look exactly like the real thing, like Shawn Michael’s heartbreak pants, and the UK pants from The British Bulldog. The ring looks pretty good too, and each wrestler has their own ring environment to fight in, like a weight lifting gymnasium for Vader, or a night club for Shawn Michaels, all which look great! My only complaint in the graphics department is that the animation tends to be a bit sloppy, and an un realistic, like I couldn’t even make out the HHH was doing the Pedigree until Vince called the move on commentary! And most of the moves in the game only have a couple frames of animation.

Sound

Well, Vince also navigates you through the opening menus, and man does he get repetitive. Him and Mr. Perfect also do color commentary during the match, but it’s just mostly Vince calling the moves, plus doing the pre-match versus announcements, and Perfect throwing in an occasional comment here and their. They do call everything pretty much down the line though. Sound effects are a bit on the crazy side, with most of the slams and punches being replaced by unrealistic bells and whacks. You do get nice little comments from the wrestlers after they win their matches. I was also pretty disappointed when I found out their was no wrestler themes in the game. That’s always my favorite part in the sound category. You do get one heavy metal tune though (I believe it was an old opening theme for RAW also), which sounds pretty good, that plays while you navigate through the menus. But sound could’ve been improved a lot in here.

Game play

The wacky Mortal Kombat engine is back, where you press button combinations to do moves, for example, you press, left, left, circle, to do a body slam. This does get really tedious and annoying to do, especially when the computer just wails on you while you’re attempting to press in the combination. There’s also power ups to be found in the ring, like a “white” WWF Icon to regain life, and a “red” Icon to lose life. You move around in the ring in which game play is a bit on the 3-D side, and fight your opponent, once you drain all your opponents life, you just press a button to do a pin, the average round is about a minute or two long, who ever wins two rounds first, wins the match. Even more wackier moves are in the game than before, like The British Bulldog’s head turning into an actual Bulldog’s head and taking a “bite” out of you, and Owen Hart throwing a playing card at you. Now even though it’s arcade nature, it’s just hard to imagine wrestler’s actually doing the wacky stuff I just mentioned.

A big complaint with WM: The Arcade Game was the lack of wrestlers, that only being eight of them, well, In Your House ups it up a little bit to ten wrestlers: Bret “Hitman” Hart, Ahmed Johnson, Vader, Goldust, The Ultimate Warrior, The British Bulldog, Owen Hart, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, The Undertaker, and Shawn Michaels. Even though it’s not the biggest selection I was expecting(because games like RAW and Rage in the Cage that preceded In Your House featured 12 and 20 wrestlers), it gets the job done. The game can be played by up to four players. And each number of players playing can have a different number game play modes available. For one player modes, there is two type of season modes: Intercontanental (Where you must win 5 single matches, than four 2-on-1 matches, and one 3-on-1 match) and World Championship (Where you must win five 2-on-1 matches, four 3-on-1 matches, and a 10-man gauntlet match). Then for two players modes, there’s a standard singles vs. mode, then a co-operative mode, where you and a friend are a tag team, and you must win 5 tag matches to become tag champs. Then there’s buddy mode, which is just one human and friend against the computer match. And finally season mode, where you team with a friend to win four tag team matches. For 3 players, there’s the war mode where all three wrestler fight all for all, and tag team mode, where 2 humans take on one human and a computer. And for four player modes, there is a 4 player war mode, which is an all for all battle. And a tag team battle mode. Now even though that is a lot of modes, there really is no “bonus” modes like cage match, Royal Rumble, etc. You’d think the developers could’ve taken the time to add them.

Replay Value

Well, four player can play the game for a nice little party with your friends. But there really isn’t much to do than a War and tag team mode, and some extra modes could’ve boosted the replay is a lot, but none were seen here. The single player title ladder matches are a nice addition to play in solo mode, but there’s no memory card compatibility to save your progress. Another annoying feature. So don’t look for some long life in this game.

In Brief

+: Nice visuals, up to four players can play

-: Poor sound effects, sloppy move animation, lack of wrestlers and extra modes

The Final Ratings Rundown

Graphics: 6.3
Sound: 4.7
Game play: 5.7
Replay Value: 3.6

Overall: 5.0

Rounded to fit GameFAQs Score: 5

Comments

WWF In Your House is a fun game to play, for about 30 minutes any ways, the arcade action gets old rather quickly, and the frustrating game engine doesn’t help either, and while it may have some pluses like some pretty looking visuals and nice championship modes, its lack of modes, wrestlers, and Crappy engine, just make this game unplayable. This one’s only good for a rent.