Let's start out with what's good about Backstage Assault. Believe me, it won't take long. The premise is interesting: this is a wrestling game built entirely around anything-goes "hardcore" matches, with an emphasis on using your environment to injure your opponent. The level of interactivity in BA's arenas, which include such areas as a locker room and a loading dock, is fun for a little while; there's some novelty in being able to slam someone into a urinal or drop an elbow from atop a semi truck. You can fight from room to room, as well, allowing you to carry the fight to a new location if you get bored with the room you started in. The sound is perfectly competent, with unusually responsive commentary, and finally, Backstage Assault is LOADED with secrets. There are a great many hidden wrestlers, moves, and whatnot to uncover. The problem is, I can't imagine anyone wanting to put up with this game for that long.

The first and most obvious problem with Backstage Assault is that you can't wrestle in a ring. No...ring. What is this crap? Did Vince Russo book the design team? The result of this is that it's impossible to have a plain old wrestling match, causing most bouts to quickly devolve into a bunch of mindless clubberin' with the plundah, if you weeel (for those not up on their Dustybonics, that means whacking someone with foreign objects). Obviously, you can forget about running the ropes, as well. It's possible to give your opponent an Irish whip into a stack of tires or other rubbery object and perform a move as he bounces back, but this looks incredibly phony and doesn't work well in practice. The whole "backstage brawl" concept would make excellent gravy for a more complete wrestling game, but it doesn't hold up on its own. Furthermore, Backstage Assault is strictly one-on-one. No tag-team action here, kids.

The Playstation's graphical capabilities are no longer anything special, but Backstage Assault is hideous next to most other PS games. Character models? Blocky. Textures? Pixelicious, warp-happy. Animation? I don't even want to talk about it. There's really very little I can think of to say about BA's graphics; they're just bad from beginning to end.

Sometimes ugly visuals and limited options aren't enough to bring down a game if the play mechanics are good enough. Sadly, WCW Backstage Assault falls hard in that area, too. The controls are sluggish and unresponsive, and very poorly designed to boot; for example, climbing, grappling and picking up weapons are all assigned to the same button. I frequently found myself trying to lock up with an opponent only to have my wrestler turn around and pick up a crate behind him, grappling when I wanted to climb up for an aerial attack, and so on. Furthermore, for single-player modes, the designers seem to have eschewed decent AI in favour of simply making CPU-controlled characters nearly indestructible. It's usually not too hard to get a submission win, but I once thrashed a computer opponent for a solid half-hour using DDP, then hit two back-to-back Diamond Cutters (the 8th and 9th in that match, I might add), followed by an elbow drop off a truck. The CPU, controlling the almighty Don Harris, kicked out of my pin attempt at 2. This kind of thing is entirely typical in WCW Backstage Assault. Finally, the wrestlers' movesets are limited, and often have little basis in reality; how often do you see the real-life DDP use a Death Valley bomb, or Ric Flair bust out a flying crossbody?

Only a few redeeming qualities spare WCW Backstage Assault from the fiery depths of an F. Don't hate the playa, hate this game.