WWE 2K19

[Gabriel]

I'm still setting up my universe, but I'm almost ready to get it started. I'm rolling with RAW, SmackDown, 205 Live and NXT as separate brands. In the middle of adjusting the superstars now to remove existing enemies and make sure they are on the proper show. Boy, do I love the divisions now though. You can clearly define who you want to be in the hunt for what championships, which should in theory put to rest the weirder times that Heath Slater, who had done nothing in eight game months, walked into an episode of RAW and started a rivalry with the Universal Champion. That happened to me last year, and it was annoying. Glad to see that's gone.

I just need to finish adjusting the superstars for RAW and SmackDown now, and while I'm doing that, I'm creating some arenas/shows for 205 Live PPV events. I'm going to have RAW and SmackDown share the standard 12 WWE events, and give 205 Live and NXT a PPV event every second month. As my rosters get larger through CAW additions, I may have to expand the PPV calendar a bit, but we'll see. I already downloaded a Takeover show for Toronto and London, bringing the NXT events up to 6. I found a decent looking show for 205 called Surge in the community creations, but that was it for 205 themed PPV events, so I'll be making my own. Nothing special, just quickly done with the most effort being in making the lights and ropes purple.

Also had to have a laugh that the Buddy Murphy CAW I grabbed was listed as a Light Heavyweight, despite the fact that the creator made a big point of people grabbing him for their cruiserweight division, and an even bigger point of naming the CAW as "CRUISER CHAMP MURPHY"

[Molly]

On 30/10/2018 at 11:54, Gabriel said:

Heath Slater walked into an episode of RAW and started a rivalry with the Universal Champion. it was annoying.

That's pretty much the opposite of annoying. It should happen irl.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

That feature was in past games wasn't it. Or at the very least you could adjust what championships people were contenders for. 

[apsham]

This time it's more clearly defined I'm pretty sure - it's for sure a step up over what it was in the past.

[Gabriel]

56 minutes ago, MCDr. Frank N. Furter said:

That feature was in past games wasn't it. Or at the very least you could adjust what championships people were contenders for. 

In past games, you could adjust the rankings, but it was basically "I don't want these guys competing for the IC Title because they should be in the Universal Title hunt... so I'll rank them well below the guys I want competing for the IC belt."

This year, you literally get to assign people to divisions. If you don't want them contending for a title, you just remove them from the list of contenders... and the rankings list is made up only of the people you've chosen as contenders for those titles.

So you get more clearly defined boundaries that keep your game from doing things that upset the balance of what you're trying to accomplish. At the same time though, it's all very easily customized, so if you want to move someone from a Tag contender to the IC belt, or any other combination, all you have to do is remove them from the rankings for the title you want to move them on from, and into the rankings for the belt that you want them focused on. I imagine this would also help to keep rivalries more balanced and in tune with what the player wants from their game. I haven't seen it yet, because I just started the first show in my Universe, but I can't imagine that Heath Slater will end up in a rivalry with a Universal Title contender or the Champion, if he's listed in the Tag Team rankings only.

 

EDIT: Also, the Titans pack should be dropping soon. They're revealing gameplay of all the stars included today, and the first character pack dropped in November of last year. So we'll be able to add Bobby Lashley, EC3 and The War Raiders to our games very soon.

I was thinking earlier about DLC and wondering why 2K doesn't do more of it. I'm sure there are a bunch of us who would pay to have full WCW/ECW calendars available for Universe. All the major events and TV shows... maybe work out more legends contracts and have worker packs for the companies... work with other companies to do the same in the future.

Like, they could keep the base game as a current day roster and offer up your legends as optional add-ons designed to fully take advantage of the Universe game mode.

Edited October 31, 2018 by Gabriel

[Adam]

Yeah, that was in last year wasn't it? I'm sure I was able to take certain people out of title rankings.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

Yeah, that was definitely in past games. But you had to go into each superstar's profile and edit what titles they could contend for. 

[BuddyAwesome]

Playing the Daniel Bryan story now, I forgot how epic his matches and moment at WrestleManoa XXX was. In my match with Triple H it was a war, but ended with him completely bloodied and it led to such an awesome visual of a battered HHH stalking Bryan and during the comebacks seeing Daniel beating up a bloody Triple H. Really made it even better.

[Bigal]

GAME has this on sale for £24.99. Worth getting?

[Maxx]

Yeah, lots of places have it for $30 for Black Friday, worth the purchase?  The roster alone makes me say yes.

[Owen]

I'd say so. It's a lot like 2K18 but with roster improvements (and some questionable removals), new features and generally just a better game all-round. A lot of QoL improvements as well, can't think of them off the top of my head, but it's fun and there are a lot of guys on the roster that are fun to play as.

[Gabriel]

Universe mode doesn't seem to be as broken as it was last year. Last year, I got about a month in and was having all kinds of issues that other people also were mentioning. This year, I haven't run into anything crazy. In fact, the weirdest thing I've noticed so far is that the main events of my weekly shows rarely feature main event guys. It happens often that my biggest names on a show will end up in the 2nd or 3rd matches while the main event for an NXT show is something like Angelo Dawkins Vs Oney Lorcan.

The roster is pretty solid, and the community creations have been good. There's the Daniel Bryan Showcase for people who like that mode, and the Career mode is a ton of fun. Granted, I didn't complete it because Universe is the bread and butter of why I play these games, but what I did play was great.

I guess another complain I might have is the same as with any other sports title. I play Franchise type modes almost exclusively. I hate online play, and the other modes don't draw me in as much because I love the business side of things and want to be able to control things a bit more. So I play Universe here... I play Franchise in MLB and NHL... and those modes, because they aren't online, don't typically get a lot of love. Universe had some nice upgrades this year, but there's still so much more that can be done with it.

It's a definite buy if you're a fan of the series and can get it on the cheap. Universe is better than last year. Career is the best its been in a long time. The showcase mode is, there.

[Owen]

So I was just playing with the new DLC, doing a tables match between Lashley and EC3 in exhibition. EC3 attacked Lashley during my entrance, so that was cool, and then Hanson ran out later, giving me a look at the rest of the DLC that wasn't even counting on happening! 

[BuddyAwesome]

Was having a lot of fun with the story until having to win a 3 on 1 handicap match against Sheamus, Cesaro, and Samoa Joe...

[HunkyPants]

Brought the Hardcore Championship back to Monday Night Raw and Elias reigned supreme for 2 months until I had a brutal, 4 star No Holds Barred with Baron Corbin who is now holding the gold.

On Smackdown!, Almas was crowned the newly re-instated European Champion and is currently locked in a feud with Tye Dillenger, heading for a blow off match at Summerslam.

First ever WWE 2K game and I am LOVING Universe Mode. I love how a seemingly basic match on Raw between Nia Jax and Sasha Banks can end up being a 15 minute, amazing rated match that has me on the edge of my seat.

 

The highlight is the Cruiserweight Division - it's so much fun and have recently put Mysterio & Balor in, along with some excellent Murphy & Neville CAWS. Oh, and Lars Sullivan upset Black and became NXT Champion on my first show!!

[Gabriel]

My only real issue with Universe this year is that it seems to have no variety to the rivalries that occur early on in the game. Everything seems to start up piping hot, with one side attacking the other before their matches almost constantly. I've started to see a bit more of a difference into month 2, with being able to take a potential rivalry that is in green and start it. I'm hoping that I start to get some new cut scenes and see different types of interactions.

I have found it quite funny also, how the News section doesn't seem to correspond to what actually went down. I had an Iron Man Match between two guys going on, the one guy's rival showed up to distract him, but I still won the match as him anyways... head to the news to check on what's up, and it says that my guy lost his match because of his rival.

I've said it for a few years now, but I think that Universe would work a little bit better if they had a load of pre-set stories to choose from when a rivalry starts up, that you would then assign to the rivalry. Obviously, I don't want that to set in stone who wins and loses, so each of those stories should have branching paths based off of what happens when you get to certain spots in the story... but I definitely think it would be a better system, and believe that it would help us as players to set things in motion that we might want to see happen, as well as help us to make sure that our characters are acting accordingly to how we want them to.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

First WWE game I've bought in about 15 years. Played a few matches as Becky then edited her so she walks to the ring in a leather jacket and "The Man" t-shirt.

 

Then downloaded loads of female wrestlers til my 20 downloads for the day ran out (Toni Storm, Brookside, Viper, Nina Samuels, Rhia Ripley, Mercedes etc).

 

Now creating my own.

 

One day I MAY actually play the game properly. Gameplay is actually pretty good.

Also, it was £22 at Tesco.

[IDOL]

Got this for under $30 on Black Friday and just got a chance to play a few matches. 

I downloaded a decent Eli Drake CAW and used him against Lars Sullivan at Takeover. Sullivan absolutely mauled me from the opening bell, and I managed to get lucky and hit a stored signature move outside the ring and beat the ten count to get the cheap win. Thought that was quite realistic 😆

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Maybe I'm just terrible at the game but twice now it's taken me ages to progress in story mode - the BCW carpark show and the dodgy cage match which I'm still stuck on. I batter him for ages but I'm always just one reversal away from him taking control and me missing every inch-perfect reversal requirement.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

Your guy starts with pretty terrible stats. You can build him up in other modes (Tower or Online Play) so that you're reversal window is a bit bigger.