Gameplay from WWF War Zone was for the most part retained. Players execute wrestling maneuvers by grappling with an opponent then entering a sequence of motions and buttons presses. On-screen life meters indicate how close a wrestler is to defeat, with the meter turning red when a small amount of health is left. The previous edition's "Challenge Mode" was replaced by a Career Mode which allowed a player to wrestle as a WWF superstar. The player first starts wrestling on house shows winning matches to work their way up to RAW, then Pay-Per-View events and eventually getting opportunities to challenge for the European, Intercontinental and WWF championship titles. New match types were also added, including the First Blood and the I Quit Match. Features added since WWF War Zone include a Create-A-Stable mode and a Pay-Per-View mode, which allows players to set up their own wrestling event - a series of matches, the name of the event, and an arena. The game includes a customizable arena option, including the ability to edit the color of lights, ring ropes, turnbuckles, and logo on the side of the ring. WWF Attitude also features the audio commentary, provided by Shane McMahon and Jerry Lawler. Create-A-Wrestler mode was expanded with original entrance music, as well as superstar nicknames with unique commentary and crowd chants for each name. Vocals for the original entrance themes were provided by Road Dogg of The New Age Outlaws, a popular wrestler at the time of the game's release who would frequently show off his mic skills during events. The Game Boy Color version of the game is slightly different from its home console counterparts, using passwords as a way to save a player's progress.
Development
Acclaim added full superstar entrances to the game, improving over the short entrances from War Zone. Match commentary was recorded by Jerry "The King" Lawler and Shane McMahon. Instead of the commentators talking about each of the wrestlers before the match like on War Zone, each wrestler now has a set of pre-match taunts. Originally, the game was to include fictional jobbers that players would face early on in the Career Mode. For unknown reasons, the fictional jobbers were removed from the game; however, their voices, ring attires, and entrance theme songs remain accessible in the Create-A-Wrestler mode. Though not playable in the game, The Hardy Boyz provided the motion capture for the moves. The intro included a dedication to Owen Hart, who died shortly before the game's release and was featured in the game as a playable character. Although Owen was a "heel" prior to his death, his playable character is a "face" in honor of him. His death delayed the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 versions from its initial release of June 1999, likely to remove his Blue Blazer outfits as seen in early screenshots. The dedication is absent in the Dreamcast version. As of 2020, Attitude is the last WWF game to feature Owen as a playable character. The Dreamcast version was released several months after the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 games, around the same time as THQ's first WWF game WWF WrestleMania 2000 and features improved graphics compared to its PlayStation and Nintendo 64 counterparts, with higher-resolution texture maps and a better animated, less pixelated crowd.
Reception
Daniel Erickson reviewed the Nintendo 64 version of the game for Next Generation, rating it two stars out of five, and stated that "Worth a rental for WWF fans, but everyone else should just wait for THQ and EA to take their shots." Daniel Erickson reviewed the Dreamcast version of the game for Next Generation, rating it one star out of five, and stated that "A pathetic port - the only reason this game gets one star is that the jewel case was reusable." The PlayStation version received "favorable" reviews, while the rest of the console versions received "mixed or average" reviews according to review aggregatorGameRankings. The PS version was also a bestseller in the UK.
