WWE 2K Series

[PaulyBFromDa303]

OMG. Me, of all people, starting a topic on the boards. Boy am I in for a treat. There's been a lot of talk about franchises with hit and miss games. Sonic of course being one of them. There are many good examples of franchises with hit-and-miss games. And other franchises that should have never happened. Who here has heard of Croc? That Teletubby like alligator from the old PlayStation? What was that about? It's no doubt that people can be really upset about such franchises, but they do have their opinions for a reason. For me a good example would be WWE 2K games. 

So WWE made a lot of games in the past. No Mercy for the N64 was always one of the best. I grew up with the SmackDown series for the PS1. Back then these games were easy to understand, actually entertaining, and fair. It was really hard to be cheap in these games. The Easter eggs were also pretty amazing, you can play as Fred fucking Durst in one of the N64 games. Yes, that Fred Durst. Limp Bizkit Fred Durst. I do also remember how fun the create a character mode was. I once created Knuckles the Echidna and made him the most powerful in the game. It used to be awesome. 

It wouldn't be until the new consoles from 2008 came out that things started going downhill. Somehow they felt the need to add more and more controls year after year, and more complicated story modes and create a character modes. Nowadays it takes 24 hours to create the perfect character on one of these games. The worst part about it besides all the control changes, would be the actual gameplay itself. The blocking accuracy went way down, successful strikes or grapple ratios went way down, and online play is just a nightmare as it feels like you're constantly fighting a 10 year old kid who doesn't know how to play, but then YOU feel 10 because you don't know everything either. It really took the fun out of the entire series and it just got worse and worse in the past decade. On WWE 2K17 it feels like it takes forever just to get past the NXT part, if that's even possible.

All I want to know is what happened? This isn't even really a fighting game anymore. You might as well call it WWE presents Rapefest 2K17. There's no point to it anymore except as a collectors item to see how WWE superstars look in video game graphics, which are still interesting but it's lost all its legitimacy as something i would call successful. It's nothing that will go away anytime soon, much like NFL NBA or FIFA games, simply because it's just a small portion of an even bigger entity. All we can do is hope at this point that things will improve in the Years coming, but I got to say I've lost a lot of faith.

Now it's your turn to express. Are you a fan of this franchise and if so what are your thoughts? What can they do to improve? What should they not change? What is your favorite aspect of these?

[TCB]

Didn't expect to see this.

Currently, I'm not. I mis the more arcade-y mechanics with blends of realism that SD:HctP and the SDvsRaw series provided.

Granted, there are some things I do like from the current era of titles that 2K (formerly THQ) implimented, like the crazy Creation Suite. But I heard that Universe Mode has it's glaring faults, which makes me appreciate GM Mode more. Plus with no Story Designer since 2K14 that took out a lot of the more creative aspects behind creating your own in game show content.

[PaulyBFromDa303]

That is true about the storylines.  They had some really cool ones back then, one of my favorites being the Day of Reckoning series because of all the twists. Who expected Jericho to betray you in the long run? I was captivated. And the matches were challenging (until i realized i could set my opponent on the table and just jump on him, lot easier than attempting a slam). But again,  the controls were easier then too.

What IS cool about current create modes is all the details but the fact that there's so many kinda makes it feel like I'm taking some sort of long survey. Gets old quick. And sometimes it just feels repetitive, like I'm choosing the same  exact things over and over again. I mean, in the end, it kinda turns out badass. But was it worth it? Hard to say