When discussing wrestling video games, there are a lot of good ones and plenty of stinkers. The genre has always had ups and downs, even the kings of wrestling entertainment, WWE has had ups, and downs, and a few stinkers. However, I’ve noticed a lot of people stating WWF Betrayal is one of the worst WWE games ever made, which is a very bold statement to make indeed. I actually own this game myself, so let’s see what the fuss is about and if it’s warranted.
WWF Betrayal is a GameBoy Color game released in 2001. The game was published by THQ, and developed by Centipede Infestation developer, WayForward. WayForward is always a development studio I look forward to, and less than a year later, they would make Shantae, which holds a lot of value today for being rare, and great, so I was really looking forward to this. You turn on the game, and after going through the menu, you get a character selection screen. You can pick Triple H, The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, or the Undertaker, sporting his American Badass attire. I went with The Rock, and proceeded to the intro cutscene. The Rock gets defeated by Triple H, due to a distraction by Austin. After that happens, Vince Mcmahon informs the Rock that Triple H has kidnapped Stephanie McMahon, and because Vince guarantees you a title shot if you help him, The Rock goes on a journey to save Stephanie Mcmahon.
You proceed to the locker rooms to begin the first level. Unlike most wrestling games, this game is not taking place in a ring, where you do wrestling matches. This game is a side-scrolling beat-em-up, where you fight enemies on a screen to advance in the level. This game is a very basic beat-em-up though. You only have two buttons, A, and B, and a d-pad, which makes a very limited move set. You can only punch and kick enemies most of the time. You do perform finisher moves, by filling the gauge, by using your attacks, and combo them up. Once you hit five attacks, the next move is your finisher. You can also sometimes pick up pipes to use as powerful weapons, but that’s it in terms of combat. It’s pretty lacking nowadays, but for the Gameboy Color, it’s fine. The only other gameplay bits to mention is that you can run by double-tapping a horizontal direction on the d-pad, and there are hidden healing items throughout the stages, they can heal your life bar. That’s the entire game.
This game is fun, it’s very satisfying to attack your opponents, especially with the pipe weapon. The game is very forgiving as well. If you die, you start at the level you die in, which is nice. This game is very simple to pick up and play, however that could be a problem.
WWF Betaryal’s biggest issue is its lack of content. There are only six levels, which last about five minutes on average, and only three boss fights, being the three characters you didn’t select. You can beat this game in half an hour if you know what you’re doing. This game also uses passwords to save the game. For those who are even younger than I am, passwords were codes that you were given to save the game. If you forgot the code, well you’re going to have to restart, or I mean just look up passwords on the internet, the technology today is amazing. This was fine for its time, and the password for Betrayal was just a 4-digit code, which is very simple. You might not need it though, because the games not even hard. I beat the game, which means it’s not that hard, but I can say some enemies are annoying. The police officers are annoying because if you are on low health, you get stunned when attacked. The police officers will stun-lock you if you are in low health, which means you die. The guys with the gun are also annoying. They can stun locked, and take off a third of your health, which is annoying. One more complaint is that the boss fights are just button mashing tests, they’re not hard at all. The music is terrible as well, not something I would ever listen to again. Since this game came out in 2001, I wanted to look at other reviews to see what people thought of this game at the time. Most reviews complain about things I complained about, and score the game around the five of the ten, and called it a day.
I do like this game, but I can see why it’s not that good. WWF Betrayal is not bad, it’s playable, and works fine, which sadly I can’t say that about every WWE game ever. This isn’t the worst wrestling game ever, there are so many things I can list that I see as worse, however, I don’t see why anyone would play Betrayal nowadays. The game is okay, but don’t play it unless you like beat-em-ups, and like the Attitude Era of WWE.
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