If you are a WCW wrestling fan, and you were disgusted with WCW Thunder from THQ. You will be glad to hear that Electronic Arts has taken over the WCW franchise. EA's freshmen title is WCW Mayhem and its available for Playstation and Nintendo 64. Electronic Arts has never made a wrestling game before, so considering that fact, WCW Mayhem is not a bad effort.

Mayhem's graphics are a little bland. The color looks to have been completely washed out of the characters. Besides that, these wrestlers look a little stout to be real. As they wattle out to the ring, its hard to be intimidated. The control is combo based, more in the style of WWF Attitude from Acclaim, rather than any WCW game THQ ever put out.

You probably won't want to attempt any of the printed moves in the manual, unless your an extremely fast contortionist. You'll do much better if you just pound the buttons at random.

WCW Mayhem features over 50 of your favorite wrestling stars and an attempt at a Create-a-wrestler feature. Mayhem's C.A.W.s are decent, lame in comparison to Acclaims legendary format in their WWF games. Which is where the problem lyes. It looks as though EA was trying to imitate Acclaim's WWF games with their combo moves and C.A.W.s, instead of being an original and trying something new.

WCW Mayhem features six match types, Pay-per-view events, and even backstage areas to rumble in. Mayhem is not an incredibly bad wrestling game, but its not an overwhelmingly good one either. Its mediocre.

WCW Revenge for the N64 still remains the best WCW game ever made. Mayhem is the best WCW game on Playstation, but that's not a huge accomplishment. WCW Mayhem for either system is a nice first try. EA is a rookie at this, in due time they have the power and the experience to succeed and dominate in this field.

PUBLISHER: ELECTRONIC ARTS

PLAYSTATON / NINTENDO 64

GRAPHICS: 6 / 7

SOUND & MUSIC: 7 / 6

CONTROL: 5 / 4

SECRETS: 10 / 9.5

ORIGINALITY: 8 / 8

FUN & REPLAY: 8 / 8

OVERALL: 7 / 6