There are a total of twelve different wrestlers in WCW Mayhem, including such superstars as Goldberg, Sting, Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart. Each of the characters has their own signature moves that can be pulled off via a shot button combination that is located in the manual. Other than signature moves and appearance, however, there is no real difference between the twelve wrestlers.

Comparing WCW Mayhem to Acclaim Entertainment’s ECW Hardcore Revolution on the Game Boy Color is like comparing night and day when looking at pure visuals. The graphics and characters in WCW Mayhem are crisp, detailed and have a relatively nice amount of animation dedicated to each of them. ECW, on the other hand, looks akin to a pile of steaming crap in comparison. WCW also allows for the player to head out of the ring into other fighting environments, each varied and looking cooler than the next.

While WCW happens to beat out ECW in most areas, ECW clobbers WCW in the number of modes department. While ECW offered numerous modes of play, all that WCW has is a quest mode where you combat all the available wrestlers, a single match against the computer and a single match against another human competitor using the link cable. The quest mode is actually somewhat fun – until you reach the final match. In the final match you are forced to fight a duplicate of yourself, except the problem is that he is indistinguishable from you every way. There is no color difference, no nothing. Besides him countering every single attack you throw at him, it becomes a battle within itself simply to figure out which character you are.

There is still a ways to go in creating a great wrestling title on a hand held platform, but Electronic Arts has definitely taken a step in the right direction.