Poll of the Day > Wrestling confuses me

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF5Qn1hC-iM" data-time="

How the hell am I supposed to comprehend this mess?

I loved the shit out if that game and I knew nothing about wrestling
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That game was fucking awesome. Most people loved no mercy but that was the one I loved the most

WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game is probably the best wrestling game for me. I'd love a game like that with todays graphics.
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The best wrestling game of all time (for me) was Here comes the pain. Easy. So fucking great, and had basically every wwe wrestler that should have been there.

The next one was SvR and while the voice acting was cool and all, it really limited the story, since things could only happen if the wrestler really said then as opposed to the text only one where anything could happen

Also it had the best caw of any game I ever played

MICHALECOLE posted...

The best wrestling game of all time (for me) was Here comes the pain.

That is indeed a good one too. It really confuses me that wrestling games these days can't reach that standard. I think the problems began when they turned into a wrestling simulator rather than a arcade game. Although with that said WWE All Stars happened and was great.
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I also loved wrestle mania x8 and x9 for the GameCube, but wasnt a huge fan of day of reckoning 1 or 2

wwinterj25 posted...

I think the problems began when they turned into a wrestling simulator rather than a arcade game.

I think that's part of the problem. But honestly, what killed my interest in the newer games is when they stopped caring about Career mode and just wrote shitty scenarios (or focused more on real wrestlers as opposed to making CAWs feel awesome). What I basically want borders more on a story-intensive RPG with branching narrative and dialogue trees, interspersed with wrestling matches.

The real problem these days is that they turned wrestling games into online multiplayer shitshows, with all the mechanics geared towards the sort of person who is going to make a character and play online, and not to the sort of person who makes a dozen and then runs their own joke fed with friends and play couch co-op matches for fun. And what passes for Career mode now winds up having shittier stories, because the actual wrestling shows themselves have shitty stories these days.

What we really need is for someone to make a wrestling game where the Career mode plot is like a halfway cross between the Bullet Club Being the Elite show and Matt Hardy's broken universe. I'd pay $120 for that shit.


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you're playing it all wrong. you are suppose to play it like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV6Z9Ot1oGg" data-time="
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My favorite one was Day of Reckoning 2, but I haven't played that many wrestling games. I think the only ones I owned were DoR2 and some game for the PS1.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

But honestly, what killed my interest in the newer games is when they stopped caring about Career mode and just wrote shitty scenarios (or focused more on real wrestlers as opposed to making CAWs feel awesome). What I basically want borders more on a story-intensive RPG with branching narrative and dialogue trees, interspersed with wrestling matches.

I don't normally miss "the old days", but this is one exception. Smackdown vs Raw 2006 (along with similar entries) was an RPG by most definitions - a fairly sophisticated one with branching stories, great character creation, and a fairly involved progression system.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The real problem these days is that they turned wrestling games into online multiplayer shitshows

That's a symptom. The real problem these days is that the WWE doesn't understand that these are separate entertainment products capable of finding their own markets among video gamers (who might have NO interest in watching pro wrestling, but would play a wrestling game), and not merchandise for their wrestling shows.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

What I basically want borders more on a story-intensive RPG with branching narrative and dialogue trees, interspersed with wrestling matches.

That would be a great idea. I thought with WWE 2K18 they would do this but it turns out the roaming backstage and talking too talent who were backstage never amounted to much. WWE 2K19 apparently has a fully voice acted story mode this year. It seems a improvement but I've not played it yet so idk.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The real problem these days is that they turned wrestling games into online multiplayer shitshows, with all the mechanics geared towards the sort of person who is going to make a character and play online, and not to the sort of person who makes a dozen and then runs their own joke fed with friends and play couch co-op matches for fun.

I don't agree. The online still is and always has been shit. 2K have basically gave up on it.
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The first (non pc) online game I ever played was SvR for the PS2. Stupid unblockable head butt move ruined that shit.

wrestling games turned to shit 10~ years ago when they tried to make something "fake" into a simulation. wtf were those boners smoking?
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Kungfu Kenobi posted...

I don't normally miss "the old days", but this is one exception. Smackdown vs Raw 2006 (along with similar entries) was an RPG by most definitions - a fairly sophisticated one with branching stories, great character creation, and a fairly involved progression system.

Yeah, that's why I don't necessarily feel crazy or out-of-line for asking for something like that, considering the games basically HAD something very close to that during the Smackdown/Smackdown vs Raw eras. It wasn't until the later SvR games dropped the CAW storyline in favor of GM Mode and storylines focusing on actual WWE wrestlers (which were mostly kind of shit - though to this day my one friend and I still jokingly reference "Zombie Finlay" and John Cena's best friend "Tony" when we're watching PPVs) that they kind of dropped it. And while they've sort of brought it back since, it's never really as good as it used to be. Because it's painfully obvious it's no longer the main concern, in spite of the fact that it used to be one of the most important parts of the games.

For instance, what I can tell from the current version, they basically just make you play through the season as a gimped loser with limited outfit selection and limited moves, and the first couple hours are basically just them shitting on the concept of indie feds to make themselves feel better. And honestly, they just want you to get into online play so they can push the "live service" model and get you to invest in microtransactions.



wwinterj25 posted...

That would be a great idea. I thought with WWE 2K18 they would do this but it turns out the roaming backstage and talking too talent who were backstage never amounted to much. WWE 2K19 apparently has a fully voice acted story mode this year. It seems a improvement but I've not played it yet so idk.

Fully voiced season modes are almost never a positive, because nearly every wrestler who appears in them sounds bored as hell or mildly confused whenever they're delivering their lines. The fact that none of them are professional VAs is painfully clear, and it seems like most of them have absolutely no desire to be in the recording studio at all, and are just doing it out of a sense of obligation because they've been ordered to do it. I've watched a couple people go through the first few hours of play, and Hunter, Albert, Alexa Bliss, and Braun are all blatantly guilty of it. I can only assume most of the others are as well.

The only voices that DO tend to be better are the non-WWE ones who are more focused on the character (like the CAW voice), but that also falls down because he's constantly saying stupid things that annoy me more than make me want to play as that character. And the lack of different personalities is a huge minus (if you don't want to play naive white-meat babyface, you're kind of fucked).

I find it way more immersion-breaking than characters being almost entirely silent and just having their dialogue posted as text.



wwinterj25 posted...

I don't agree. The online still is and always has been shit. 2K have basically gave up on it.

It may be shit, but it's still the core focus.

It started back during the SvR era, when they reworked the entire control scheme mainly to cater to online players (to create a "fairer" playing field), and it's basically been a problem since. It's not entirely surprising considering which company publishes the title these days, but it definitely skews into the same dark, shitty corners that most of the 2K sports games do.


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