War Gods

Written by Steve Graff  on June 27, 2000

Review: A taste of Hell

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Well, Midway, being the ever so clever folk they are, decided to port one of their most unsuccessful arcade games, onto the Nintendo64. This is a bad idea. See, the reason why it never did well in arcades is because no one likes it. Midway, do you see your mistake?

The visuals were actually pretty good for it's time, but things change quickly. The characters look very un-godlike in their almost funny costumes; for instance, Pagan, who is dressed more like a...temptress. Most of the projectile attacks look thin as paper, like it belongs in Parappa the Rapper. A stable frame rate wouldn't hurt the game. Perhaps the only good thing about the visuals really is the stages. Yes, the stages, each character has their own stage, and each stage is accustomed to each character fittingly. For instance Voodoo the... voodoo guy...has a jungle stage. That's because all of the voodoo people live in the jungle. At least Midway got that right. Oh, and if you like the camera, then you can die.

Perhaps an upside would be the audio. The music is sounds more like a Roman fanfare which brings up the question on why didn't they just make this game a gladiator event. The "narrator" of the game does sound very clear when he announces the character names, or when he starts off the battles. Mortal Kombat-ish screams are found here. It is strange how a god can scream when they've been pounded into the ground like a golf tee, and then have their head kicked past the camera. Well I guess it's just a god thing.

The gameplay is bad. You've got the standard Mortal Kombat controls plus a 3d side step feature. In fact, this could have been a very early test version of Mortal Kombat 4 that just happened to make it to final game stages. It isn't much worse for your average MK. The game should have more originality. Well, at least the game actually played, I'll give them that.

War Gods features nothing that I care about. See, the game was so bad that I don't care to go back and look at the box to see if it uses the Rumble Pak, and by the way, it doesn't. Memory does however tell me that War Gods does NOT use the Memory Pak. There aren't any secret characters or stages to unlock, just a few boring codes. Multiplayer is based on how fast you mash the buttons in sequence. Not much skill used.

The replay of War Gods is probably the worst feature. The game isn't difficult on the highest setting, and once you beat the game you don't want to play anymore. Perhaps even you won't want to play it again after you played one match. That is how boring this game is.