WWE 2k17 Review

It’s time to come back to an old favourite, I have not watched wrestling in a couple of years and also skipped a few years of release as it got a bit stale.

In the past year or so though more of the old big names are back and they seem to be finding a story again, so has it brought back the old love for wrestling?

As per every year there are various editions available and you can select the editions below to find out what characters and other wonders are included.

The roster this year is huge, and the stats below speak for themselves

The WWE 2K17 Roster includes:

• 136 Unique Playable Characters On Disc
• 149 Playable Characters on Disc including 13 Alt. Versions of Superstars
• 156 Unique Playable Characters including DLC
• 169 Playable Characters including DLC and Alt. Versions of Superstars
• 25 Playable Women including DLC

Each of these stats is a record for a WWE title so go big or go home, and it seems they have.

Here is a link to a Google sheet with all the characters I could find from a few sources and checking the WWE 2K17 site

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rl6MF0DtbPLqusfGLjrtlx85W4ylK0S8955TwegS-8M/edit?usp=sharing

Game modes on offer this year offer a huge potential for weeks and weeks of gameplay, Not only do you get all the standard quick match modes like single, fatal 4 way and a personal favourite is the Royal Rumble but where most of your time will be spent in the Career and Universe.

Creation is nearly endless, you can do so much to make this your WWE.

Superstars, moves, entrances, championships, shows, arenas, videos and victories, what more could you want, you can literally create your own show. And the detail and customisation is extremely impressive. At one point I had to double check that the face I was adjusting was real or not. You can be either create realistic people and sets or if you like a bit of weirdism, you can morph faces and body parts (i’ll say no more). One of my favourite parts of this though is the downloads and uploads, Some extremely creative and wonderful (thank you, you know who you are) have created all the missing characters and some amazing alternate characters. One of my favourite being Batman, yeah you can finally find out if the Rock can beat Batman, or if John Cena is stronger than The Hulk. Oh I’ll be grabbing a new character each day to have some fun with them.

Don’t forget though you also have the My WWE, adjust the details of the WWE superstars to suit your impressions of what they should be, perhaps you want to see John Cena as an egotistical, treacherous coward yet desperate superstar? You choose, the level of customisation is truly amazing and I have to admit a bit overwhelming, I had put over an hour into making my character to realise I had barely scratched the surface so saved, moved on and got into the career mode.

But not before I went into the music jukebox and customised the soundtrack to all my favourite entrance tracks. I removed the generic Puff Daddy toot (sorry Diddy fans) and went straight for the authentic intro music as my background sounds.

I was tempted by some of the other options but thought that as time goes on I’ll look into game balancing, the manual (seriously there is one) and other elements.

Career is HUGE! It all starts off at the NXT training facility where you learn the ropes (pun intended) and discover the level of detail you will be going into during your career, not just the matches but the PR elements, vs battles, Heyman guy challenge (not unlocked til later in the career) Authority status, rankings allies, rivals, and even your own shirt sales. Change your shirt every now and again though, not just for hygiene reasons but popularity, keep your designs fresh and your sales will go up gaining you more of the in game credit VC. With VC you can but attributes, traits, attire etc. I spent my first allocation on my character’s attributes initially to help me win a little more as I was struggling with the reversals.

And here is where it all went wrong for me.

I now remember why I didn’t enjoy the earlier WWE releases, I just could not get to grips with the reversal system speed and found myself on more than a few occasions getting pummeled by not grasping it quick enough.

I persevered and eventually won my first match phew there was still hope for me yet.

A few fights passed and I won some lost some but although I was enjoying the game itself and learning how to master reversals, grapples and which buttons/directions do what I got more and more frustrated with the intermittent nature of the buttons and movement.

One of my ongoing issues was the slow tedious button pressing. Now they have done things to combat this, with the Submissions, stamina drains, pin falls etc they all require a slightly different kind of combination of skill with the RS in order to escape. But it didn’t feel controlled, more luck/erratic movement might win the day (please help me if there is a pattern here as I couldn’t find it)

Your career moves fast though with tag team events, singles matches and rivalries growing and relationships forming as shows pass.

Full crowd interaction, impressive commentary although eventually repetitive no stone has been left unturned in order to make your career feel involved and most importantly progressive.

Oh and some awkward positions

SUMMARY

In essence this is a fantastic game with immense creative detail on offer, deep career mode with endless possibilities depending on your style and choices. Visually by far the best WWE game to date and with the WWE great music is never far behind. However for me the same old control and movement issues lie there still. Better perhaps but not evolved enough to draw the WWE back into my life, I’m tapping out!