The Buscher

I started Young over Matt Moore with Brees on bye week. I figured it would blow up in my face no matter who I played, as it normally does. Hopefully this means Young sucks.

Not like it matters anyway. AP got carted off with an ankle injury. My season is probably over anyway.

Spoiler regarding a Universe storyline:

That vid of Brock returning is something that happens in every game. The game will book Triple H/Miz as the first match on Raw and Brock will beat the shit out of everybody afterwards. Cole goes on about how he just got word that he had been re-signed.

No word on if it still happens if you change the participants of the first match.

If the leagues had to unify rules, I would say drop the DH. I hate it. It takes away so much of the strategy and you're left with bench players who might get to play in 2 games a month, as opposed to the NL when your entire 25 man roster gets utilized on a regular basis.

Unfortunately it will never happen, as the union will protect the DH since it allows aging sluggers who can't field a chance to prolong their careers. So I'm hoping they stay separate. I'd probably get bored of baseball if the Mets and everybody else had to use a DH.

That should just about seal up the division for the Patriots.

Apparently today's stream showed that the draft takes place on the Friday show as well. So that's 6 draft pick matches, which is pretty much in line with how many they have real life. Nice.

Macho Man

No, I'm pretty sure you still have the same options as last year when you edit participants...play, watch, or sim. It's just that if you want to actually play or watch, you gotta go back the menu each time like last year - nullifying the match flow feature.

I too will probably sim past MITB now that I can pick 6 people to be in it that I wouldn't mind winning. Universe would take an eternity if you couldn't sim.

It's been on IGN and various other boards - some people have advanced copies, including a guy on YouTube who has been posting full matches. Plus some Best Buy locations have the game set up to be played in full in-store.

The title belt and legend things I already anticipated - but the Match Flow thing is kinda upsetting. I find it hard to believe it never occurred to them that most people adjust the cards. Almost seems like it's the annual feature that they purposely don't go all-out with on the first go around so that they'd have an easy fix for WWE13. It also seems like the Raw and SD tag titles, for whatever reason, cannot be placed on anybody outside of Universe. So the workaround you have to do is make sure you give those belts to your Unified tag champs, as they will then only enter with the Unified tag belts. Once I download some CAWs I might just bring back the separate tag belts because my tag division was booming last year with 5 or more teams to a show.

Mind, a week before release is the same time last year when we found out that we couldn't make any alterations to tag matches or MITB - so I'll take these minor annoyances over something major like that any day of the week.

In some unfortunate (although certainly not major) news, the Match Flow feature for WWE Universe only works if you use the card the game generates. If you want to edit any match, you have to play the match right then and there as was the case last year. Also reading that if you do that, it'll show the show-opening pyro before each match. I can see this whole thing being fixed for next year. On the plus side, it sounds like the game does a nice job of logically booking to follow storylines - so sticking with the card given to you might actually happen regularly.

Like last year, no titles can be vacated (gotta put them on people not on the Raw or SD rosters if you don't want to see the belts) and the game will still insert legends/non-Raw or SD people into storylines at times.

One last thing - the Royal Rumble match at the PPV in Universe is stuck at 30 entrants. You can edit who is in, but not the number of participants. As somebody who does a lot of CPU simming, Rumble included, I'm happy about that. There's a video on YouTube of a 40 man Rumble and it took nearly an hour to complete.

After Week 5 I said that the Packers had a very real shot at going 19-0. As each week passes I feel better about that claim. Rodgers could suffer a season ending injury in practice tomorrow and still win the MVP by a wide margin.

They should still win the division - but they're probably going to be one-and-done in the playoffs. Teams are just going to stack up against the run.

The draft Raw only features two draft matches. So yeah either 2 to Raw or Smackdown, or 1 for each. As for unlockables all that has been said so far is Goldust and all the legends. I have no intentions of unlocking anybody though.

Watching the video again it seems like it's actually 3 draft matches - with the first match on the card being strictly a Raw brand match, presumably to continue storylines that may be ongoing.

8 days left. Can't wait.

Do we know yet which wrestlers will be locked from the start? Because if regular roster members are locked again I may get Fan Axxess just to be able to start my Universe mode and have everyone I'm going to use.

I imagine it'll be similar to last year with many of the legends locked and a few random midcarders locked as well. Somebody on another board pointed out that Goldust was the only person on the current roster not listed on the Universe screen - so it could just be that he was the only one yet to be unlocked when the vid was shot.

They also pointed out that on the Tag Team screen, Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel had Nexus armbands on. Cool to see them included as alts, I figured the same would be true for Barrett, Punk, and the New Nexus guys. It'll be a nice thing to have for storyline purposes.

Universe mode looks sweet this year. I'm hoping that the WWE Draft event is done in an even and fair manner.

The video made it sound like it really is a totally random pick that generates after the match - the screen of the roster cycling through is probably the game's way of running a code to pick somebody to move. In theory you're just as likely to see John Cena get drafted as you are Husky Harris. But since it's only a 4 match show, I'll probably do my own Supplemental Draft to move a couple extra people to freshen things up each year.

The cutscene of Brock randomly showing up is a bit of a red flag...hopefully legends making shocking returns isn't a common occurence.

Yeah, that video just reinforces why I'm looking forward to this so much. Everybody is scrambling to get their personal days in before the end of the year at work...but nobody took the 23rd. Looks like I'll be in store for a 5 day weekend of food, football, and WWE12.

How McQueary didn't lose his job either is beyond me. Even if he were overly religious or something preventing him from physically attacking Sandusky, the least he could have done was screamed at him to make him stop. To run away from it all just makes him a worthless human being and a coward. I just don't see how can be on the sidelines on Saturday.

Riots have been breaking out all throughout State College. This certainly isn't what Joe Pa would have wanted. Fucking morons.

They just showed a clip from an interview with Sandusky from 1999. Everytime he talked about doing camps for kids and how much he loved dealing with them he would shut his eyes or look away from the camera. Disturbing and despicable.

Elite Eli is the fucking man. Cannot stop smiling right now. Just feeling pure joy after a win like that.

Ahmad Bradshaw, Hakeem Nicks, and David Baas did not travel with the team and are officially out against the Patriots.

Baas is easily the biggest loss of the bunch. Losing Bradshaw hurts, but the Giants' run game has been nonexistant anyway. The loss of Nicks would be a bigger deal if my grandmother couldn't catch deep balls against the Patriots secondary.

Beat writers from pretty much every team rumored to be in the hunt for Reyes have said they highly doubt their respective teams will pony up the money and years he'll want. Leaves me mildly optimistic that he'll wind up returning to the Mets for 5 years and around $95-100 million, possibly with an option based on games played.

I realize that the Mets aren't going to contend in 2012 whether Reyes is there or not...but dammit, he's the most fun player I've ever seen in a Mets uniform. Games are worth watching just to see him lace triples and steal bases.

Yeah. They aren't huge deals by any means, but I'm a bit bummed about the lack of match increase. Also the 3 brand rumor is false, you still only have 2 brands with titles with the Thursday show having less matches and being a "shared" show. You can always do a workaround of course by manually editing the matches. Since we can freely swap out belts, you can give your 3rd brand a title anyway and just make sure that the champ doesn't appear on Raw or SD. You'd also have to do a workaround for the draft.

You can't delete titles entirely, only replace them. I don't know for sure on this but I'd be willing to bet that you can only replace the Tag/Divas belts with similar ones that work for both brands. So if you wanted to do, say, WWE vs. WCW vs. ECW

WWE Title

WCW Title

US Title becomes the ECW Title (editing it so the champ doesn't appear on Raw or whatever)

IC Title becomes whatever you want (I'd probably treat it as a floating secondary belt ala the Tag/Divas belts)

1 MITB isn't too big of a deal to me, just because I'll probably be watching the matches a ton and those MITBs always take an eternity. No mention still on if you can change the participants and have the stipulation hold, but I don't see why you wouldn't be able to.

I'm also cool with it starting in January just because I love booking the Mania buildup and it'll give me a chance to check out the draft sooner rather than later.

Last year, I actually tried to unlock people regularly until it got cumbersome at which point I used my Fan Axxess unlock code. I might use that code right out of the box this year (assuming it's still an option). Not to take away from the challenge of unlocking people - but I'm just SO eager to start my Universe game. A million ideas floating around.

Miscellaneous news on Universe 2.0 from GamingRing:

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Titles can be defended on any show.

Storylines make sense now and blend together better.

DRAFT!!!!! And it looks just like it does on TV, with the wrestler faces flipping through until one is picked. Even has the same music.

Everything just feels tighter, no more inferno matches for 8 straight PPV's.

Tag teams/stables stay together, some may still split up, but not anything like it was last year.

EVERYTHING can be edited. We'll get to that here in a few

I love Universe mode personally, feel in complete control of 3 shows.... (yes 3).

Superstars...

BUT

I did say everything is editable. So, you can make that show, whatever you want. Name it whatever you want (Same with Raw/Smackdown).

For instance, I made Nitro on Monday, complete with logo, arena, belts. Then made TNA Impact on Thursday (didn't have logo or arena, but those will obviously be created by the community probably in a matter of days after reelase). Then I put Raw on Friday night. You can then remove entire shows from the draft and for titles. So only wrestlers on TNA can complete for whatever titles you set for that show, no cross over unless you let it. When you set up the show, you name it, set the belts for it, etc.

Or you can have all 3 shows open and compete on other shows here and there.

Unfortunately the title rankings still isn't editable, so you can't just put Cody Rhodes as the #1 contender for every belt But you can give him a title shot whenever you want and for whatever show you want.

So as you can see, the ideas here are pretty much endless. Want an all ECW show? Sure! Want an all Legends show? Sure! Want Raw/Smackdown/Superstars as it is now, SURE!. Want John Cena and Randy Orton to be stuck together on GLOW on Friday nights? Go ahead.

Yes, it's that cool!

you can turn on/turn off anyone you want to be involved in the mode. So if you download 50 CAW's and only want to use them in your universe, go ahead.

You can edit titles for what they are set for. So if you want the WCW belt to be the TNA title, you can do that. Can't edit the actual title. Sorry.

There can be 3 World Titles, one for each show. There are 23 belts in the game to choose from and use.

I don't know all 23 belts in the game, only a few that were shown to me.

They are unlockable, but if you buy Fan Axxess, they are all unlocked from the start like last year.

Feuds: The same as last year in a way, just more natural than it was. Didn't feel as disjointed to me.

Rankings: I still saw some goofyness, not as bad as last year, but there was some. It's an easier fix now allowing title defenses on any show.

One big thing that I and others expressed we wanted back was a title history. So hoping that is in next year.

I didn't really experiment with heels vs heels to see what would happen. I know I kept a faction together for 5 months without anyone turning, until one guy did, and he was immediately a face and feuded with the faction leader. So at least it all made sense.

Commentary still sucks...it is what it is. Besides Cole being a heel, talking about Cole Miners, and praising all things Miz, it's not very good. LOL

Matches were 5 a show, up 1 from last year. Superstars only had 3/4 I believe. So whatever show you make on Thursday will have less matches.

Did not see new cutscenes that I noticed, but they were better placed than a guy sitting front row randomly every show.

Still in wrestling gear, reason is that the character models are caked on, so can't just add clothing options. That's why the Nexus armband last year couldn't be moved or adjusted for Wade Barrett and others. It was actually a part of him.

1. If I take the World Title off Smackdown, what happens on their show? Do I have to replace it with something? You can replace Smackdown's title with whatever belt you want.

2. If I assign them one of the other belts, say the WCW championship, will they have rankings for that belt or are rankings still only for WWE, World, US, Intercontinental and Tag belts? Ranking are set for each show's titles.

3. Can you split the tag belts like they used to be and have two separate sets of rankings? Did not mess with tag belts, sorry

4. Is there still just one announce team? Yes, just Cole/Lawler

5. I saw one of the achievements has something to do with getting 75% momentum in Universe with a caw... how does that work... is this like the popularity thing in GM mode? God I hope not. I'll let the IGN review explain that better, I didn't mess with actually doing too many matches myself in Universe, did mostly simming through it and played out things like the Rumble, MitB, and the Draft night (winner gets the draft pick).

6. Can you still give a caw any ratings you wish... we don't have to build them up through pointless grinding do we? Yes

7. Do you still see like the World champion competing for the US belt? Possible, but not as bad. The ratings are still not perfect.

Pretty sure PPV's had 6 or 7 matches, can't remember, it's more than a regular show.

Cannot move the date unfortuantely, Always a Monday, Thursday, Friday show.

There's a global setting, so if you change Monday to Nitro, it'll always stay that way until you change it back.

Can't edit PPV's.

Draft occurs after Mania.

I'll try to clarify this.. So Raw has the WWE Title and USA Title. ROH (Thursday show) has Random belt and Random Belt. Smackdown has World title and IC Title. Each show will have their own rankings for their own titles. Then you can lock down each show so only the participants on that show can compete for those titles.

Draft: All the matches occur on Raw. And no, it's completely random. You can obviously move them back. I didn't try if I cut Smackdown off from the draft what would happen, but my Thursday show was cut off and none of their wrestlers were involved. So each match was a Raw (nitro) guy vs. Smackdown (raw) guy. Winner got the draft pick for their show.

All 3 shows still on one PPV?: Unfortunately, it is. Since out of the box it recognizes that it's WWE. But you have the editing power to make it 3 different brands that don't intersect except for PPV's. You can obviously change all the matches though. It's a limitation I know they are looking to change, but not sure if it'll be ever given the green light by WWE. They don't have multiple PPV's a month so why would their game to accommodate other fed's. So the dev's basically found a way around the limitation. It works well.

Arenas: Every PPV, Raw, Smackdown, Superstars, NXT, Nitro, Clash of the Champions and Starrcade.

Editing matches on PPVs: Yes, you can edit each match. If you want Raw only PPV January, then a Smackdown one in February, and then a ROH one in March, you can do that. Just have to edit before the show.

Special Shows: Draft is the only special show. There is a Tribute to the Troops though.

Sounds like an interesting twist, looking forward to playing it. Still far more concerned about Universe mode, though. I could rent the game and complete RtWM in short order, but Universe having longevity to it this year is the key for me.

As it turns out, Universe details aren't coming out until tomorrow.

What a tragedy. RIP Dan Wheldon.