WCW Nitro fails to live up to the near-exacting standards set by the Tekken or Virtua Fighter games. If you need a wrestling-specific example, take a look at Acclaim’s WWF Warzone. It’s a far more convincing game, and significantly more playable to boot (or, indeed, fist and knee).

While a fighter is ‘performing’ a particular move or animation in WCW Nitro, he is immune to any form of violence. Fists, therefore, simple pass through his (or possibly her) frame, dispelling any illusion of solidity.

Furthermore, bouts are often won and lost not by virtue of individual skill. Instead, it’s the player who hammers their C buttons with more vicious veracity who often triumphs. Obviously, button-bashing is a flaw indigenous to most fighting games, but rarely to the extent that typifies your average Nitro bout.

Sullied by piss-poor presentation, and decidedly cheap in appearance, WCW Nitro has few redeeming features. Its fights prove boring in a disturbingly short period of time, and there’s a damn good reason for this – each fighter has a maximum of three ‘individual’ moves.

Every other attack is ‘pooled’ – they’re available to any player familiar with the relevant button sequence. Future Gamer fully appreciates that, purporting to simulate its real life subject matter, WCW Nitro can’t limit ‘Piledrivers’ (for example) to one character. There must be other ways to establish each fighter’s individuality, though – something that developers Inland Productions have failed to discover.