When it comes to a wrestling game, there are a lot of unique modes and customizations available to you. But without solid in-ring action, it doesn't matter. As for this title, its gameplay has seen a slight improvement. While at this stage many fans want a new engine, WWE 2K16 delivers an merely improved version of the previous year's gameplay.The game itself takes a slower and more realistic approach; the moves, reversals, chain wrestling, and several other small details have this title as close to a WWE match as possible. For the diehard WWE fans, this is great. However, a lot of restrictions that make this different from a typical fighting game might have the casual fan disinterested. I appreciate the attention to detail, but I've grown tired of playing the same gameplay every year. It makes the replay ability limited. Should the Yuke's development team get phased out, one can hope 2K will change this up and make things fresh.
WWE 2K16 offers plenty of modes and options this year as opposed to the previous year. I wish I could give them credit for this. But they were just modes that were in older titles and should never have been taken out! Thus no truly "new" modes have come out, but some favorites have returned. You can once again create championships, arenas, and shows. Giving credit where it's due, all these modes have been improved significantly. Creating a superstar is definitely an improvement upon last year's game as well, but not by a huge margin. Overall, the community of creators will be much happier this year, and hopefully this is a step in the right direction.
A mode that made its debut last year was My Career Mode, which returns this year and has gone through several changes. Instead of feeling as though you're grinding through pointless matches, you can dictate your custom superstar's story throughout your career. Choosing lines of dialogue from several options in interviews will change your personality and relationships. You're given options to assault other wrestlers and choose your stance on the Authority stable that rules WWE. You can even pick which title you want to rank in as you fight to be number one contender. If some of the voice acting wasn't so terrible, I believe I could lose myself in this mode. But Rene Young's alien face and terrible dialogue are terrible, much like several other scenes in this mode. A for effort, B- in execution, but they're getting there.
I'll make this brief: WWE Universe mode is pretty much the same thing as last year. It adds some of the personality traits introduced in My Career mode, but overall you're playing the same thing. You can choose participants to rival each other and play throughout their matches on shows you can customize. It's also kind of buggy at times, which can be a letdown. But that's nothing new.
This year's cover art was of Stone Cold Steve Austin. In this year's 2K Showcase, we follow the career of Austin, playing through matches and moments in which he participated. Each match begins with a video package explaining the background behind the conflict. Overall the game does a decent reenactment of Austin's career, but the mode doesn't take too long to complete, and much like previous showcase modes, it has zero replay ability. It would be nice to see next year's game focus on a more in-depth My Career mode rather than giving us another history lesson.
WWE 2K16 is by no means a bad game, but it's the game we should have gotten last year. WWE 2K15 proved to be a disappointment, and 2K16 has added an inkling of hope, but one thing really irritates me: several small bugs plague this game. It obviously suffers from a lack of beta testing and care and reproduces several glitches that already existed in previous titles, ranging from graphical issues to modes not working right. It's getting tiresome. To be blunt, I'm getting sick of your shit, WWE.
If you've been growing tired of the series' repetitiveness, then you might want to give WWE 2K16 a miss. Otherwise WWE 2K16 offers solid gameplay, lots of customization, and overall a decent wrestling game that'll give you a couple of months of fun. I give it a 6.5/10, a little above average, but nothing special.
So do you agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments section below!
Kaboom.
0 comments: