2001 · Board game · Card game

With Authority!

WWE with Authority! is a discontinued online card game featuring the WWE license.

Released: 23 July 2001
Platforms: Windows
Genres: Board game Card game Strategy Turn-based strategy
Developers: —
Publishers: THQ
Modes: Single-player
Country: United States
Age ratings: ESRB T

About

WWF With Authority! is a professional wrestling digital collectible card game developed by Genetic Anomalies and published by THQ and Jakks Pacific. It was officially released for Microsoft Windows on February 21, 2001, and was discontinued in January 2003 with the online servers shutting down a few months later, with official support discontinued. However, offline versions of the game still exist. It was the first WWF game released solely on home computers since 1992's WWF European Rampage Tour.

In May 2002, the game was updated and renamed to WWE With Authority!, following the WWE abandoning their trademark dispute with the World Wide Fund for Nature. Unlike other WWF interactive software releases at this time, Genetic Anomalies managed to remove most of the "WWF" references out of the gameplay and replace them with "WWE".

Keywords

digital distribution
card based combat
box art - real photos
card collection
discontinued mmo

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

There is a single-player mode, which was intended as a tutorial. The first edition tutorials were against the Mean Street Posse and narrated by Kevin Kelly, while the second edition tutorials were against Scotty 2 Hotty and narrated by Triple H. After the second edition, 3 computer opponents became available, with each opponent being a harder difficulty (X-Pac, then Triple H, and then The Big Show). The game was primarily geared towards the online multiplayer game, where as many as 1,000 people were available at any given time during the game's height.

The game kept track of the player's wins, losses and draws, as well as the number of times a player has been cut off in the middle of a match. This feature was to discourage players from terminating the program to avoid taking a loss.

Reception

WWF With Authority! was one of the first online collectible card games, along with Chron X, also from Genetic Anomalies. While subsequent online collectible card games have enjoyed success, including Magic: The Gathering Online, Genetic Anomalies would not survive to see the genre flourish. The game itself was met with mixed reception, as Metacritic gave it 53 out of 100.

There was also a WWF collectible card game released at about the same time entitled Raw Deal, which was considered to be a better alternative to the online version.