Ringside Review: Extreme Warfare Revenge
Welcome to the first, proper edition of the renamed “Ringside Review” (formally the “Bottom Line”). We’re going to kick things off with a look at “Extreme Warfare Revenge (EWR).” Created by Adam Ryland as a sequel to “Extreme Warfare Deluxe”, the previous instalment in the “Extreme Warfare” series, “Extreme Warfare Revenge” has achieved a worldwide cult fanbase. Ten years ago this month, EWR was released making this an opportune moment to have a look back at it.
In EWR, you are responsible for booking events and matches, getting sponsors, signing talent, recruiting staff, attempting to get your promotion TV deals, creating stars and crown champions: you have complete control. Whether you take control of a worldwide company such as WWE, a national company, a cult company like RoH or a company smaller than that: you are responsible for its’ wellbeing.
While there is some fun to be had with WWE, the game really shines when you take control of a smaller company. Sure, there is some satisfaction in booking the WWE, but to start with it can be a bit daunting booking three shows a week as well as a pay per view every month! To get a sense of the game it’s probably better to start with a cult size company like Ring of Honor or Major League Wrestling for instance (I chose Ring of Honor). It’s easier to learn how to learn how to book matches, feuds and managed in a smaller fed before looking to take charge at a more renowned federation with weekly TV. This isn’t an easy task. Naturally the bigger the promotion, the more viewers you’ll realistically be able to achieve. So if you’re in control of Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW-an ultra-violent American promotion for those of you that don’t know), don’t be expecting to have a primetime show on UPN anytime soon! Likewise, “Extreme” promotions are not going to be able to have shows on family orientated networks (or if they are it’s going to be at hours with little exposure). So if you have a product similar to the Attitude Era WWF, there’s little point in sending your promo tapes to the Disney Channel!
EWR is addictive. There is almost no limit to what you can do. Personally, my favourite thing to do is to start with a company like Stampede (the original database with the game is circa 2003) and build it into being a bona fide worldwide competitor to the WWE. It takes time and patience, but it’s great when your hard work eventually comes off. However, the real thing which ensures EWR’s longevity is the online community. By this I mean that you can find mods for pretty much any scenario you could imagine, and also multiple historical situations. You want to play a WCW revival led by Bret Hart? It exists. You want a situation where Raw/Smackdown/ECW brands have split into different companies? You got it.
There’s so many conceivable scenarios that you can download which are totally free and have hours of fun with. On top of this, there are still monthly updates of companies and wrestlers being released to this very day. Personally speaking, I’m currently playing a 1996 mod. I ended up with a situation where my developmental roster was actually more talented than my active roster. I had guys like Chris Jericho, RVD, Kurt Angle, Rocky Maivia, Edge, Christian, Jeff Hardy and AJ Styles to name but a few who were in development while I had guys like Lex Luther and Hulk Hogan stinking up my main event scene in WCW. I’m just using this as an example to demonstrate how compelling this is. The feeling of bringing a guy up from development and watching him (or her) working their way up to the main event is addictive.
One of the crucial elements in getting a worker over is the gimmick you set them. For instance, take Big Show as an example. He is not going to get over with a Daredevil/Highlight Reel type gimmick. Meanwhile a worker like Jeff Hardy or AJ Styles is going to be a complete disaster if you try and push them as a monster. Furthermore, a gimmick has to be relevant to whether the wrestler is a face or heel. A heel is not going to get over if their gimmick is one which would generally be associated with a face. The reverse is also true, where a face is not going to get over with the fans having a heelish gimmick. It’s simply not going to come off and you’re going to bury the guy in the process. Although if you feel like giving Triple H a little payback then this may not be a bad thing…
The depth of the game is also fantastic. There are even internet sites in game that report on the in game wrestling world. Some of it is ridiculous: according to the rumour sites, there are always announcements that female workers are posing for Playboy! It also isn’t inconceivable that that big feud you’re planning on doing for the next pay per view will be ruined by a wrestler announcing that they’re checking themselves into rehab to deal with a cocaine habit. The dilemmas thrown up by this are truly endless.
Your champion goes into rehab. What do you do? Do you have an authority figure declare the title vacant? Do you stripe the title without much of a fanfare and book a tournament for it? Or do you leave him with the title and have an opponent bate him in interviews while he’s away, setting up a grudge match for the champion’s (eventual) return. Or say one of your top guys on a massive pay check gets injured or checks into rehab. Do you stick by him, or do you look to cut your losses and fire them, not only potentially upsetting the locker room but also risking him going to the competition when he’s out of rehab/fit again. The beauty is there are no wrong answers! It’s all up to the individual playing on what they choose to do. There also a lot of neat little touches should raise a smile from those who get some of the references. It’s nowhere near a make or break aspect of the game, but for a wrestling fan there is quite a bit of humour that appeals to the fan base it’s aiming at.
One gripe I would have with EWR is the starting statistics of some of the wrestlers. If you feel inclined you can change this in the editor, but some of it really is ludicrous. For instance, Brock Lesnar, according to EWR is a better interview than Sting. Also, it isn’t uncommon to see the guys in the “Big Leagues” looking really poor in comparison to indie workers. While I’m not saying that everyone who works in the major promotions is amazing, Mr Ryland really needs to have a look at himself with some of these ratings! However, this really is a minor gripe on two levels: You can edit the database pretty easily and, given the amount of fan made scenarios, historical databases and updates, it’s more than likely you’ll end up barely ever using the original database anyway!
In summary, if you’ve ever watched a wrestling show and thought: “What are they doing!” (honourable mentions to late 1990s WCW and TNA here), then this is your opportunity to book a wrestling promotion however you see fit.
PS: In the “other credits” section of the main menu, Ryland credits wrestlers who have apparently played the game themselves. Two of the names included were William Regal and Shane “Hurricane” Helms. I decided to ask them if they’d ever played it, which brought total confusion from Helms while Regal stated that he’d never played a game like EWR in his life! So, as for the claims that Rey Mysterio and John Cena have played it…I wouldn’t believe it!
Feel free to follow me on twitter @MichaelBrown_91
I’ve always wondered what “EWR” meant. Fantasy wrestling…with the Divas involved?
Yup! Complete with Bra and Panties match ups if you choose to book one (and if your promotion is risque enough)! If you choose to have female wrestlers in your promotion that is.
Nah, I’d bring “hardcore” a whole new meaning.
I was about to type a reply saying you can book death matches before I got your meaning!!
It would be fun to be a part of…
Extreme Warfare Revenge. Later versions of the game like TEW have all female promotions
You can choose to do it in EWR as well if you want to go that way. Unfortunately there aren’t that many good female workers in EWR, even after development to have a roster full of girls who can work.
Oops my bad. EWR is so old I forgot. I remember I used to exploit the hell out of the game and everyone was mega over. Then things were corrected in future versions.
I don’t think I have ever heard of this but it sounds to me it’s like Football Manager. Since I played FM for hours upon hours per day up until a few years, I got the feeling it’s the exact same as EWR, only wrestling not Football. I got to a point I had to throw FM in the bin, so fucking addictive.
I don’t know if I’ll ever play a ”manager” type game again but EWR does sound fun and addicting.
A wrestling Football Manager is a good assessment of it.
Really can’t believe you threw your FM away, I literally spent the time I should’ve been revising on that game. Meant I passed instead of getting pretty good grades, but I digress…
You really should give it a go though man, it’s addictive but you can’t play it for hours on end like FM (more an hour or two a day kind of game). Even just to experience something a little different and have some fun you should give EWR a go!
If that’s the case then I might give it a go. With FM I could literally play it for 12 hours straight.
I’m exactly the same. I was on 11 league titles in a row with Hibs!
This is interesting. Sounds like a fun way to spend someone’s time
It definitely is! It’s doesn’t take much time to download and and start playing either (5 minutes maximum!). You should definitely give it a go
!
Sounds amazing! Nice insight into the game there. I’ve actually never heard of it before but now I want to play it, which begs the question: WHERE DO I PLAY THIS?
It’s a free download man, I can give you the link on twitter if you want the link to the game and all of the historical/fantasy scenario’s and updates if that works for you? I would post it here, but I really haven’t a clue on the rules in posting links to sites hosting files and whatnot! (Just to stress that it IS freeware!)
I got it downloaded! Michael, I hope you know I will be on this 24/7 and my mummy won’t be pleased. I’ll forward your contact details to her so she can shout at you. haha! Thanks for the review, now I got the game to see what your hype’s about
Good to know man, hope you enjoy! Let me know how you find it!
If it’s anything like GM mode in SVR, I’m going to suck at it.
So, you download the main game, and then you have to download each storyline/situation(mod)? Will it work on a Mac?
I’ve no idea if it will work on Mac I’m afraid, sorry.
No, you download the game which has a default database (August 2003 to be precise). But you can download the datafiles and transfer them into the folder where the data is kept giving you a different starting database. It’s pretty simple to do and given the size of the game (it’s pretty small, under 20mg unzipped), it isn’t hard to have multiple versions of it saved on your computer with different databases. There’s guides that explain a hell of a lot better than I’ve attempted to on how to do it if you choose to use a different database to the default one!
Ok, so I’ve downloaded the game, and it brings up a window telling me to make a file, then make other files (Pics, guide,banners, etc) in the main file. My problem is, I’ve no idea what zipped files are, or how to create them.
The entire folder you downloaded should be a zip file? Banners and pics are totally optional, I choose to play without them personally speaking. Too much effort to find them for something that is a minor aesthetic improvement!
Alrighty, so I’ve downloaded an app that gets me Windows. Unfortunately, TWR keeps running into an error before it can even try to install. However, TEW2005 WILL install, but I can’t find it anywhere after. (using Wine to install it).
Suggestions anyone?
I didn’t really like TEW. Took too long to get through, although there was a lot more flexibility in booking your TV shows and it was the amount of detail was just overwhelming in my opinion!
Shame that EWR didn’t work for you though!
I used to have this on my old laptop, and got highly addicted to it. Only thing that annoyed me was wanting certain stars for my promotion, but unable to get them as they were tied up to a Japanese tour. Oh, and also those that would suddenly marry the boss’s daughter, tying them to a contract where they couldn’t be fired and had control (fuck you Jeff Hardy for doing this!!).
Will need to see if I can find this game again, and see if it will work on my laptop.
I only had the marriage thing once…thankfully it was Rey Mysterio who was one of my main eventers in WCW anyway and a pretty decent guy. If it had been Hogan I would’ve just started again! The Japanese tour commitments is irritating as well but they do eventually get freed up (Christopher Daniels anyone?).
If you a need a link to it and the databases give me a shout on twitter!
I’ve played these games for so long that I know the numerical science behind it. Sometimes it feels more like I’m working than actually playing a game. Especially spending 8 hours a day to do 16 shows.