Last game you DIDN'T finish and your thoughts

Surely the battery would have run down - was your Switch plugged in somewhere?

Yep, I always sit at the back seat of the coach where there are the most plug sockets

That's a bad sitting.

WWE 2K18 [PS4]

I took a gamble on the latest WWE game after not playing any of the games since the last PS2 game (Smackdown vs. Raw 2010?). It's a whopping 55GB, which I'm not sure all that space is really necessary as the game feels half-finished. The graphics are distinctly last-gen, the gameplay is really slow and grappling is not as satisfying as either the N64 or PS2 games. But the thing that made me trade this game in after a few days of owning it is the horrid loading times. Move forward, talk to a guy (with some of the laziest writing I've seen in a game) - LOADING - move forward at NXT backstage bit, talk to a guy - find the guy you need to to talk to, LOADING - match with QTE prompts for pins and submissions. Even the soundtrack only seems to have 5 songs. Everything feels half-finished.

3/10

Aye that sounds about right & even though I always preferred the N64 wrestling games at least the ps2 smackdown games were fun to play.

That's not great to hear, I know the games are more sport then sport entertainment but the loading times, ost etc should be good.

I absolutely detest what 2K have done to the WWE games. They're so sterile and dour, they're the complete opposite of what I think most people would want for their entertainment. They're not getting better, and the developers don't seem to be listening to their critics. The last legitimately fun WWE game was All Stars, back in 2011!

They only copied the bases left by the old devs, the first 2K WWE wasn't even by them but the old team. I would say vote with your wallet like what's happening with Star Wars but we seem to be the minority as the WWE games seem to sell well.

The issue is 2 things: 1. Yuke's are still on board with the dev process which means continuously building on top of that old creaking engine & all the best team members of the older WWE games have likely left long ago.

2. They will never give them more than a year to produce the game they really want to make.

I really wish they'd move to a more arcade like experience than trying to make it into a simulation style sports game. You can play the UFC games for that - wrestling should be over the top. Where's the mad elbow drops from a helicopter in Times Square?

WWE literally features a hillbilly sorcerer who communes with spirits, an undead man and two completely separate demons. Why do they think we want a serious sports simulation?

I don't know but I prefer NXT as it's more about the wrestling. They need to find a happy medium but like I said the games sell, so unless they stop selling then they won't change.

Not sure I fully agree with that one, plenty yearly franchises like CoD, Assassins creed etc changed their development process to give them more time on making a better quality of game. The CoD approach of multiple teams having a 2-3 year cycle would do a lot to improve the series in my opinion.

Sure but I'm comparing to FIFA, NHL, NFL, NBA Live, NBA 2K, PES, MLB etc which all seem be the same team every year and not a lot changes each year.

I can't say for the others but this years PES was actually worked on for 3 years & it shows because it is a night & day difference from the 2017 game.

The others have big leaps occasionally as well but on average it's similar year and year out.

The_Jaster wrote:

Not sure I fully agree with that one, plenty yearly franchises like CoD, Assassins creed etc changed their development process to give them more time on making a better quality of game. The CoD approach of multiple teams having a 2-3 year cycle would do a lot to improve the series in my opinion.

If they did this, it would also allow them to mix it up a little. The current team could do a serious sports sim every three years, another team could do an overbown bit of fun every year and a third team could do maybe something a little more story-driven, or something less kayfabe where you work matches. Imagine that . . .

Drunkalilly wrote:

The_Jaster wrote:

Not sure I fully agree with that one, plenty yearly franchises like CoD, Assassins creed etc changed their development process to give them more time on making a better quality of game. The CoD approach of multiple teams having a 2-3 year cycle would do a lot to improve the series in my opinion.

If they did this, it would also allow them to mix it up a little. The current team could do a serious sports sim every three years, another team could do an overbown bit of fun every year and a third team could do maybe something a little more story-driven, or something less kayfabe where you work matches. Imagine that . . .

They've started bringing elements of that into the 2K games already as they'll grade you out of five stars based on how good your match is and the Authority also ask you to lose to certain wrestlers, although that's presented more as you taking a dive rather than being booked to lose.

I was thinking ages ago whilst playing FM17, why there aren't more management games and a wrestling one would be great.

I'm pretty sure there is a wrestling management game, which does exactly what we're talking about. I remember hearing about it on podcasts a while back.

Yep, it's called Total Extreme Wrestling. The base game comes with a load of made up wrestlers, but cleverly the developer allowed for fans to make their own database of wrestlers so you can easily download a real-world pack and try and build your own wrestling company.

I might have to look into that

It's alright, but requires a fair bit of work to set up to be interesting - you know you're only interested in playing with real wrestling companies - and I remember it running like molasses as it had to calculate so many different changes every turn. That was on an older version though, so the new edition might be a bit better in that area.

I remember playing EWR back in the mid-2000s and that was really fun. Essentially text-based Football Manager, but for booking wrestling events. I hear TEW is better so may have to dabble in this - ideally if there's a mobile version.

This little plinky plonker came with my nice new (non-faulty) PS4. I Say Nice and new, there's a big old GT logo slapped on the top, but it doesn't look too bad. There's a slit through the touch pad on the special edition controller too, so you can actually see what player you are without turning the pad around.

Anyhow, the only reason I have a GT special edition PS4 and GT Sport is that this was the cheapest new PS4 on offer a few months back at Game - and I just couldn't sit on that massive voucher I had from trading in my old (dodgy, and less memory-y) PS4, far too terrified I'd misplace it and lose all that credit! Therefore, I went in with limited expectations, after picking up the my first ever special edition console that celebrated a franchise I couldn't care less about, but those expectations were met for the most part.

It's a very pretty, race them cars, those many, many, oh so many, cars game. They all feel quite different, there's a good sense of speed, and there's a nice variety of tracks (although a few more wouldn't have gone a miss). It also amuses me that this super realistic game has damage off by default, allowing you to use other cars (or barriers) as brakes if you can't be arsed to play "properly."

The biggest problem with GT Sport is that it lacks a soul. Everything feels fairly processional. The Ai isn't much of a risk taker (although it is occasionally oblivious to you), and beyond a (quite hefty) selection of (mostly mundane) challenges there's not really any single player here beyond setting up time trials or single races. That might've been enough for me if I could afford to sit on this as my only realistic race-em-up but I'd rather have the money to play something else.

I think this is predominantly meant to be about its online modes but I don't really have any desire to take this for a spin against other people, especially since the ranked mode requires that you watch a 4 minute, be nice to other players, video, in addition to signing up to their website. That's probably great for stopping the odd knobber from playing to ruin someone's day, but equally I don't want to play against people who take this thing seriously.


7/10