Bare with me.

But 2K Games have released a new trailer that present the MyCareer mode this year, and one thing is immediately noticable:
It's all voiced.

It looks like an actual story, instead of a "Traditional Sports Game" series of matches with no other direction than "i need belt. i must get belt. belt is good"

Adam Paccitti from Cultaholics also made a special episode of their series "GRADED" to recount some first hand accounts of their experience. Take with a grain of salt, Cutlaholic was invited to play it, and there's a full disclosure there in the first few seconds. I think most of the grades given are more realistically a couple grades back each, but what do you think?

Looks like it could actually be good? That's kinda crazy. But I do gotta wonder why are Cesaro and Sheamus Triple H's lackeys? Don't think they've ever been authority figures in my memory.

@cubidog: Could very well just be a totally original story line that has nothing to do with any current or former canon. Guess we'll.. have to.. play to.. find out (i say.. reluctantly)

On the whole the game likely won't sell anyone who is already firmly in camp "Sim wrestling games are bad" but the improvements to things like audio and presentation (seriously, the ring sounds real good) as well as some quality of life changes makes this seem like a pretty damn good step forward for fans of the games. Career mode does look like a fun time but it also still has the 2K18 problem of locking moves and attire options behind loot packs. It doesn't look like there's a way to buy in game currency with real money but it's still kind of a bummer that not only do you have to use in game currency (which you grind for slowly) to unlock characters and belts and arenas and such (unless you buy the Accelerator) but the acquisition is a slog and there are two types of loot box tiers.

But I mean....it has Big Head mode and that's a fun goof.

I'll admit, that trailer has me interested.

I'm still not going to pay $60 to find out if it's good, but I'll be curious to see what others say and might actually pick it up on sale if the feedback is positive.

Well fuck.... the first career mode in 10 years or so that looks fun to play

It looks dumb, which is good. Last year’s mode was painful to play. Backstage being Mass Effect’s Citadel was a terrible decision.

If this is cut scenes, decisions only where there’s an impact, and a focus on gameplay, great.

Also, the towers stuff seems cool, as does (what I interpret as) being able to call for a run-in, interference, or other wrestling moment.

This year seems promising, but I’ve dug the past several, despite some warts.

I'll say that they made a good trailer at least. I refuse to believe it will be good before it's out.

Never played these games, but good to see they are going into the whole batshit scifi wrestling stuff instead of the "this is just a storyline and everybody is friends" reality stuff lol.

but don't people who dislike these games dislike them because of the gameplay?

@oursin_360: They've been really terrible overall packages since 2k16, and not great since 2k14.

As far as gameplay goes, there's a lot of folks that don't care for the simulation approach 2K has taken the series, while others love it as it offers the ability to pull off a somewhat realistic match flow if you get the sliders/options/difficulty just right and are in the mindset of being willing to tell a story in the ring and not just run around spamming running moves and strikes with sole intent of winning. Winning's cool, but if the match itself wasn't fun to play or watch, what's the point?

The core in-ring gameplay is sound and super rewarding if you go about things the correct way, it along with the always fantastic creation suite is why many of us keep coming back when we probably shouldn't have the last two years.

@shiftygism: I mostly hate the licensed side of things and shoehorning in stuff that’s not great for the sake of getting it in there. I’m curious how much better the game would handle if more resources were spent on playability each year, and less on makig everyone match what’s on TV.

If it’s not a huge opportunity cost to put in table matches, whatever, but I don’t find them enjoyable at all.

Something like the career mode (especially 2k18’s embarrassment), however, seems like it could have been a resource suck.

I do like the games, but they strike me as software where the license is a blessing (sales) and a curse (quality).

@nutter: Yeah there are certain things they have to stick to keeping in line with the product that unfortunately hinders the players, my biggest gripe being the lack of alternate camera angles. What's the point in creating an arena if you never get a good look at the stage beyond entrances which I bet a lot of folks shut off after a few weeks.

Something not-WWE restrictive though, the impact of moves. Fire Pro World has a super satisfying bounce to the mat each time you slam someone, in the 2K games most of the impact is stupidly relayed through a camera shake. It's super annoying and should've been addressed by now.

@shiftygism: I haven’t picked-up on the camera shake in lieu of mat physics, I’ll keep an eye out.

I do love that Fire Pro basically has a sell button, I just wish there was animation to go with it. I also love how systematic it is with light, medium, and heavy attacks having different chances of not being reversed AND different reactions (opponent down briefly, extended, or briefly with a standing stun).

Landing a critical is goofy in a way I love. I criticaled the out (?) man, the guy not tagged in, in a match. He lay there in the ring looking like he just fell from a plane for the next 15 minutes. It was amazing.

The whole thing is bittersweet to me. I know I'm minority but I enjoy the simulation approach. When things get too arcade-like it tends to turn me off. But too much simulation has simply made it boring. Compounded by the issue that 2k's production values up to 2k18 has taken away any emotional connection anything has. I play these games for the Career / Story mode. 2k16 while being ridiculously easy to climb to the top was still fun, and got me back to being hooked on wwe games. Then came along 2k17 and became a voiceless soul sucking micro-incremental slog up the ladders, and then 2k18 for some reason decided to take it a step further with the just plain horrible backstage segments. An emphasis on a hub world and still no voices? who made that call? what is this, a Playstation 1 era JPRG?

Hearing from Adam Pacitti that 2k has sped the game up and took the slider from "ARC -----*- SIM" over to "ARC ----*-- SIM" makes me giddy for faster paces matches and slightly more impact, if at least superfluous.

The microsecond I could recognisably hear a voice in this trailer that wasn't commentary, the moment my interest shot by 10,000%. While I hope I can choose from a voice bank for my CAW, I'm just so happy to hear voices again that I don't mind if I can't this year.

@dudeglove: Some of the trailer stuff touches on that, whether it was just a dream or not.

I’ve love to see a deadly serious take on 80s WWF wrestling in a story mode. All the “from parts unknown” stuff. Half of this trailer looks like that sort of thing, though I kinda suspect that the trailer isn’t indicitive of the overall story. I’d assume they took the most visually interesting stuff and slapped it in there.

10 hour ghost problems campaign woo

I watched the first thirty five minutes of career DenkOps posted on YouTube, pretty good stuff, a little too much in the way of cutscenes, but it's really well done compared to the fully fledged story modes of the past, they finally got some decent sound direction. Now if they could just improve that terrible sounding crowd next year...

I have a concern though, all of this preview footage was running on Xbox1X's....how does it perform on base PS4's? Is the slowdown fixed? I can't help but be a little skeptical.

@shiftygism: I can tell you that 2k18 ran poorly with too many characters on screen on Xbox One.

Xbox One X could have 8 men and all sorts of extra geometry like a cell and it ran silky smooth.

...backstage career stuff still ran like crap...