War on Wheels
FAQ/Walkthrough
By: Darkstar Ripclaw
The most recent version of this FAQ may always be found at GameFAQs.com
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
Table of Contents
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
How to Play [HELP]
Passwords [PASS]
Desired Information [DESR]
Credits [CRED]
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
How to Play
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
[HELP]
War on Wheels is a NES game that was never released to retail.
Purportedly it was developed in an attempt to cash in on the popularity of
roller derby in the U.S., but was canceled due to poor reviews, a superior
available product in Konami's RollerGames, and the fizzling popularity of roller
derby by the time the game was actually done development. Nothing was known of
the game for 20 years before a copy of the game was released, and a reproduction
run of 250 games was done with a physical cart, manual and box.
War on Wheels' version of Roller Derby is not precisely the same as
real-life roller derby. In War on Wheels, each match is split into three rounds
of three jams of 90 seconds each, and the timer only starts when someone scores.
Only four players from each team are on the field.
As you go around the jam, you will often run into obstacles. During the
first round of each game, you will only encounter speed bumps. These are easy to
clear as they can be merely jumped over. In the second and third round, you run
into three more field obstacles: grates and holes, which you will trip and fall
over you run over/into either of them, and ramps, which do not give you a speed
boost but give you a nice automatic jump.
To hop over any obstacle, you merely need to press the A button. Failing
to clear anything causes you to fall, and it takes a couple of seconds for your
character to pull himself or herself up. The derby arena does not change except
for every round, so during the three jams of each round you can get used to the
layout and begin to anticipate obstacles ahead of time.
When each jam starts, you face off with one player from the opposing
team. Pressing the left button allows you to build and maintain speed to go
around the track. Once one of you manages to pass another player from the
opposite team, the 90 seconds on the jam begins to tick down, and ONLY the team
who already scored during the jam will be able to continue to score.
If you were the one who managed to score, then obviously you will want
to continue to outlap members of the other team in order to build up your score.
However, to advance on opposing players, you need to be able to fend off the
roller blader who is shadowing you and prevent him from constantly stopping you
from building up speed. This is not very easy most of the time, as the rubber
banding of the game means that any time either of you gains a lead over the
other, the person lagging behind gains an enormous boost in speed.
You can play interference with your opponent by skating up beside or
behind him and pressing the B button to make a push attempt, or pressing the A
button to make a jump and try to bowl your opponent over in the process. Both
methods can serve to cause him to stop, if not trip over to the floor, delaying
his progress while the skating pair ahead of you gain ground. If you are near
another set of two players, you can set it up so your opposite gets tangled up
in falling with the other two players, and you can gain a pretty good lead.
Eventually, however, he will still rubberband skate back up to your position.
Your opponent, however, is capable of several more moves, such as
grabbing a hold of your player and tossing you around, and even pushing you off
the track. Your opponent can sometimes also fall off the track, but the author
has never been able to execute this on his own - only his A.I. teammates were
able to do it, or sometimes his opposite would fall off the track. In the event
you get pushed off the track, you will be put into a brawl.
When in a brawl, you and your opponent each start off with a health bar.
The person who fell off the track sometimes but not always has a lower health
bar to start off with. You can attack the other person and defend against his or
her strikes to reduce his or her health, with the intent of knocking that person
out. A little bit more of an in-depth explanation on controls can be found below
in the Brawl Controls section.
Whoever loses the brawl will also lose some stamina. Stamina appears to
be affected both by being hit on the field and losing a brawl. In between
rounds, some players may be shown to have low stamina on your selection screen.
Low Stamina players, the author believes how it works, can be knocked out
completely in a jam, with their bodies lying on the floor. If the knocked-out
player is of the team who was scored on first in that jam, then every time the
lapper passes that passed-out body, the scoring team scores again (this also has
the effect of freeing the knocked-out person's opposite to harass players from
the other team).
If you or your opposite is knocked out, then another person will take
over the position of the lappers, and your POV will be changed if your own
person was knocked out and you are switched to a different rollerblader.
Sometimes the crowd will throw junk into the arena. Stuff does not stay
on the ground, but if you get hit by something it will knock you over.
----------------
Regular Controls
----------------
Left - Move left, speed up
Right - Move right, slow down
Up/Down - Move up and down on the track
A - Jump
B - Push your opponent with your arms
Start - Pause/Unpause the game
--------------
Brawl Controls
--------------
Left/Right - Moving left and right
The 'A' button is used for attacking, while the 'B' button is used to
defend against the specified attack.
Left - Knee jab
Down - Kick
Up - Head jab
Right - Chest jab
In general, you will find your opponent tends to get a lot of hits in.
The best way to try and win is to make a strike, usually a kick or head jab,
then tap the Left button to move back left. As you have a cooldown period in
between when you can make strikes or blocks, moving left gives you a little bit
of time on the cooldown.
------------
1Player Mode
------------
1Player Mode appears to play through a Season of an indeterminate number
of games, possibly with a playoffs after, with the number of victories of each
team being tallied after each match. You are given a 24-character password at
the end of every match, which you can enter in at 'Continue' on the front screen
to resume from that point.
To see the in-game ending, with the L.A. Illegals as the winners, enter
this password:
8-PJ36 R!:RGW :11T?F Q2V2DK
Credits to doommaster1994 off of GameFAQs for this password.
--------
Vs. Mode
--------
In this mode, you can play against a friend. However, the game does not
have a split-screen mode: therefore, neither player can ever get so far ahead
that the other person falls off-screen, as you will instead hit an invisible
wall.
--------
Continue
--------
This is where you enter the passwords that you receive after every game
you play to resume from that point.
----------
Team Names
----------
All of these teams are (obviously) fictional teams, with no real
differences that the author can see outside of outfit colours and the names of
players (who do not have any listed stats). Nevertheless, you may find some
amusement in some of the names (also, every team has alliteration in their name
except for L.A. for some reason).
L.A. Illegals Miami Maimers
Boston Blueblood Chicago Crush
Philly Phangs New York Nasties
Oakland Outlaws Atlanta Arsenic
To enter these passwords, go to the Continue option on the main menu.
L.A. Illegals after one game, 1-0 in the season
KW?J36 LLGW::
-1???P J36FF!
L.A. Illegals after one game, 2-0 in the season
MW:J36 OLWW:-
-TP??J J36FF!
L.A. Illegals Victory Ending
8-PJ36 R!:RGW
:11T?F Q2V2DK
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
Desired Information
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
[DESR]
STUFF THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE INFORMATION ON
------------------------------------------
If you happen to be one of the people who actually bought the prototype
reproduction release and have the manual, any extra information the manual may
have that this guide does not would be extremely helpful. You can reach the
author at the email at the bottom of this guide.
Need help with something that's not in this FAQ? Got a comment to make? Find
something wrong in this FAQ, or else just want to contribute something extra?
Email me at darkstar.ripclaw AT gmail DOT com if you need any of these things.
Do NOT ask stuff that is answered in this guide; unless the wording is truly
ambiguous, a bit of toying around never hurts. Please refer to the actual
in-guide FAQ first before asking a question.
If you are reading this document from a site that is NOT GameFAQs.com, please
go and examine the version on GameFAQs.com and see if it is the same version
as the one you are reading. If it is not, then you may yet be able to find the
answer you are looking for in the GameFAQs.com version.
If you wish to ask whether or not you can host this on your site, go right ahead
in hosting it. The only thing that I ask you to do is to keep the 'The most
recent version of this FAQ may always be found at GameFAQs.com' line at the top
completely intact as well as the paragraph right above this one, as that is the
main site that I always update to. If your site's version gets even one version
out of date, I would like for people to be aware of a more up-to-date version.
