The State of WWE Games

Hello folks! Blogging live to you and yours! It’s your boy TWOTALL4UFOOL. One of my favorite video games out there to play are WWE games. I’ve been playing them for as long as I can remember. From WWF Royal Rumble for the SNES, to WWF War Zone on the PS1 and N64, to WWF Wrestlemania 2000 on the N64, then the SmackDown! series, then SmackDown vs. Raw, etc,. You get the point. Sorry but I never bought a WCW game. I was on the winning side during the Monday Night Wars. But Since 2K games have taken over the series when THQ went under I have to ask myself. Are the games getting better or are they just mediocre? I’ll tell you what I think and you be the judge.

Let’s rewind back to 2013 when 2K sports first took over WWE games. That year we saw WWE 2K14 come out for the PS3 and the Xbox 360. It had a lot of great features. One of my favorites being 30 years of Wrestlemania where it highlights a match from every Wrestlemania. In some cases even two matches I believe. Other modes included the Streak Mode in which you defend the streak as the Undertaker or try to beat the streak with a wrestler of your choice. I used to love trying to beat the Undertaker with Shawn Michaels. Man that was pretty tough but I enjoyed playing it. The ever so famous Universe mode was present where you could pretty much create your own show by choosing the wrestlers, choosing the championships, and creating the feuds. DLC options included the nWo pack which had wrestlers from the nWo including Hollywood Hogan, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner, Syxx, and The Giant (Paul Wight). And of course you could create your own wrestler, and upload entrance music for that wrestler. I had to say this but in my opinion it was the last GOOD WWE game. And since 2K had just taken over I feel it was more THQ’s game with the 2K name on it. Let’s go to the next game now.

WWE 2K15! It was the first one on the current gen systems. Since I didn’t have one at the time I ended up buying it on the PS3. I can’t judge the PS4/XB1 version of the game but PS3/XBox 360 version of the game in my opinion was a watered down version of the previous years game. The campaign sucked so all you really could do was universe to have a good time. It had showcase which I wasn’t a very big fan of. When I play these games I like to see original story content. Now 30 years of Wrestlemania was pretty cool but I don’t care to play through a rivalry of Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels, or Christian vs. Randy Orton. I don’t want to keep playing a campaign that is a history lesson. If I want to re live those rivalries again I could just watch matches with those Superstars on the WWE Network. Overall I wasn’t very happy. But they did bring in one of my favorite wrestlers  that year which is Sting. (One of the only things I liked about WCW).

Now WWE 2K16! The worse in my opinion since 2K had taken over. I decided to by this on my PS4. I was very disappointed. The mechanics just sucked. One of them being the submission system. I was so disappointed to the point where I took it back and just bought on the PS3. Which once again was a watered down version of last years game. But I enjoyed it better to say the least. WWE 2K17 was a bit of an improvement. I couldn’t buy it on the PS3 anymore so I had to go with current generation. It was fine but nothing special though. But they made a lot of improvements including fixing the submission system, and increasing the number of wrestlers you could create. I had fun with it. I was never able to get into that MyCareer Mode. I think that mode just sucks. And that brings me to the current game WWE 2K18. It makes improvements and for the first time since one of the old SmackDown vs. Raw games you can roam around the backstage area. And you have 8 characters on the screen at once. This is the best one in a few years but not as good as 2K14 in my opinion.

One of the things I do like about the current games is the roster is deep. If you want to be a wrestler from the 80s, the New Generation, the Attitude era, the Ruthless Aggression era, hell you name it there is a wrestler from every generation in these games. Another thing I do like is the Universe Mode features. It makes up for such a shitty My Career Mode in my opinion. You can select any arena just about any championship go on and play. And they’ve added storylines to it as well. It’s pretty cool and I enjoy doing it. But I also think that the games could use improvements as well. First of all can they please bring back Mixed Tag Team Matches? I feel like these matches were very fun and the fact that you can’t do it in today’s game is pretty bad. And another thing I would like to see is a much better campaign mode. Something similar to the Road To Wrestlemania. At least with that they had voice overs from real wrestlers. And the stories were somewhat decent. Those are just a few of the things I feel that can improve these games. But the thing that I think is killing the create-a-wrestler is the inability to use your own custom music.  I know that it is probably a copyright thing but I feel the choices they give us in the game to use suck. They could at least have every theme available across all generations. I mean WWE does own it right? So it should be ok right? I feel that those are some of the missing elements in the games that could make a bit better. And another thing don’t put the game on the Nintendo Switch. If you bought WWE 2K18 on the Nintendo Switch I’m sorry. LOL!

Overall I feel that the state of WWE games are just ok. Not horrible but not spectacular at the same time. They can keep adding more wrestlers to the game but if some of the game modes continue to suck then the quality of the games that come out year after year won’t improve. So those are my thoughts on the state of WWE games. I gotta ask. Do you play WWE games? What do you think of them? Let me know in the comments below. Blogging live to you and yours! It’s your boy TWOTALL4UFOOL! Remember that TOGETHER EVERYONE ACHIEVES MORE! Thanks for reading folks. More great content to come.