WWE 2K18
Unplayable is the word I believe best describes WWE 2K18. It was worth a shot, but they missed the mark on this one. The old cowboy made room for the young buck and had to come out of retirement to save the town...Is that enough metaphors yet. What I am saying is it is no good.
All right now let me explain myself before an angry WWE fan kicks in my door and body slams me through the mat. Last years game was entertaining but had its flaws. The promo system was weak with option titles vaguely hinting at what you are character would say and that made it hard to complete 100% promos for those of us who did not spend hours trying to figure it out. They improved the promo system this year, but it still felt a bit wobbly. Of the few promos, I was forced to play, I won two and lost one. I only lost by a margin, but it still counted. Fortunately, I was much better at the actual wrestling portion than the promo portion, and I still won the rivalry.
The wrestling portion I want to go over next. There will always be a disconnect from what you see on TV to what translates on video games. That is true for the NFL, NBA, NHL...etc. However, it seems especially true with WWE games. Heres what I mean by that. On TV wrestlers have to fake being hurt, sorry to ruin any fantasies, so they might not move as quickly or may stumble here or there and fall. All things to make it seems like the other wrestler has the upper hand. In the video games, you lose that sense of upper hand when you go to pick someone up to do your signature move on them, and they reverse it like they just entered the match. I recall one match with John Cena where I used my signature move and finisher move on him five times before I won by pinfall. FIVE TIMES! That is not even counting the times he reversed my signature during the match. This was also a big problem with the previous game. For some reason, though it seems worse in this game.
The damage model in these games is just as impressive as the promo system. Again it comes down to the disconnect between the show and the game. I mean in some cases it is probably more realistic that they are not that hurt and could pop right back up but that is not why I play these games. I play because I want to pretend wrestling is real and when I do G.T.S. on someone they actually go to sleep. Not kick out at 1 when there stamina and damage are both in the red.
Creation mode is limited this year by the amount of popularity you gain in the game. Entrances more so than anything else and that is what I am going to focus on. In the previous game, you could painstakingly create an advanced entrance that was unlike anyone else. In this one, you have to gain 100 popularity first before you could do that. Having a unique entrance that doesn't use anyone else's stuff is pretty integral to the idea of being a WWE superstar. That said you could still create an Entrance but it was limited to what you could change, and for me I never got it to fit right with the persona I was trying to push for my character. I admit it is a bit petty, but that is why I play.
Lastly, I want to go over the newly added in backstage interaction where you can run around backstage and talk to and get objectives from. First, there is the movement backstage. Your character walks slower then a snail crawls and when you run it is like you are watching slow mo. It is excruciating to interact with, the Hallway you have to walk around is maybe 150 ft long, and it takes you five minutes to go from one end to the other without stopping. That is unacceptable for something that you are forced to interact with. The menus they had in the previous game worked just fine and if you wanted to interact backstage then give us the option to walk around but don't make it integral.