Is WWE Crush Hour The Most Unique Video Game In WWE History?
WWE has released a lot of video games over the years, some of them are good (very good), and some of them are bad (very bad). However, there is none more unique than WWE Crush Hour.
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In 2003, THQ used the WWE license to release a vehicular combat game on the PlayStation 2 and the Gamecube (an Xbox version was also planned but was ultimately canceled.) Why THQ decided to do that was unknown, this is a few years after the Attitude Era when the WWE license was a hot commodity, even WWE’s flagship games like the Smackdown series, with Here Comes The Pain also coming out in 2003, were not selling as well as they used to. Also, the game was released a few years after the Twisted Metal Black game which was the defining game of the genre for this generation of consoles. It couldn’t even ride the wave of Twisted Metal hype. Very bizarre.
The Plot Of WWE Crush Hour Is One Of A Kind
The plot of the game was equally as bizarre. Vince McMahon had bought up all of television and had control of all of the networks. There was a Kane cooking show, Edge had shampoo commercials, the Divas were stranded on a desert island, and the ratings were through the roof! A WWE Network is even name-dropped a whole 11 years before that would become a reality.
But Vince McMahon was revving up his most ambitious and dangerous debut to date! A No Holds Barred battle in which WWE superstars trade in their muscles for muscle cars. The project title was “Crush Hour,” a demolition derby type show featuring over 30 WWE superstars in their own custom cars attached with guns and foreign objects to enhance the destruction.
Each superstar on the roster had a vehicle that accompanied their gimmicks at the time. Some of the cars made sense, others not so much. Stone Cold Steve Austin drove a Monster Truck, The Undertake drove a 3 Wheeled Chopper, Vince McMahon drove a Super Stretch Limousine. That’s all good but why exactly was Booker T driving an SUV-Pickup Truck Hybrid, why was Jeff Hardy driving a Wood-Panelled Station Wagon, why was Kane driving a muscle car? Come on, Kane would drive a Fire Truck, right?
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Jim Ross did the play-by-play of the action, uttering lines you would certainly never hear on any wrestling shows with some very poorly-edited dialogue like “The Undertaker… Picked up the… Twisty Rockets!”
The Gameplay Is A Lesser Twisted Metal Clone
Players could choose their superstar as well as the arena to play in, there were 13 WWE inspired arenas: Raw, Hell in the Cell, Hardcore, Running the Gauntlet, Cage Match, Bottom Line, Battle Royal, Ironman, Royal Rumble, Lumberjack, King of the Ring, Smackdown!, and Survivor Series.
Strangely none of the arenas had anything to do with what they were named after. The Hell in a Cell arena was an Aztec Ruin for some reason.
Of course, Crush Hour doesn’t hold a candle too many other combat car games in the genre, the game is pretty low on weapons variety, special moves, destructible terrain, control as well as many other categories that better car combat games will have. Putting the game side by side with the much better Twisted Metal Black would not be kind to Crush Hour.
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The lack of depth is Crush Hour’s biggest flaw. There are different arenas and most are pretty large and varied however they are completely non-interactive, so there will be no blasting through a wall or triggering a switch to blow up your opponent. Crush Hour doesn’t have that kind of gameplay depth. There are different types of objectives like "destroy 10 opponents" or "hold the belt for 30 seconds," but the gameplay never gets any more complex or diverse than that.
However, what Crush Hour does, it does it well.
It is a mindless yet worthy time killer and was well worth the money, coming in at just $20 at the time. It’s a simple game, so not one you can spend months and months playing however it does effortlessly fill a gamer’s need to madly race around and blow things up. The sense of speed is good, the action is non-stop and the cuts scenes don’t overpower the gameplay, the end result is simple and straightforward. At the end of the day, the final mission in Story Mode sees the player blowing up Vince McMahon and the WWE wrestlers returning to the ring rather than car combat arenas. How can that not trigger a smile in any wrestling fan?
A little more variety in WWE games is far from a bad thing and there are much worse wrestling games than WWE Crush Hour.
