Rasslin' Video Games

[Casey]

I’m fairly sure you’d be buying nothing today.

[Cliff Hanger]

Thanks. The initial solicitation made it sound like the arena was the only thing waiting for later, but I'm glad to get to wait on it.

 

Finally beat the fantasy Showcase rumble; knowing that I only needed 10 eliminations made it a lot less stressful. I used McIntyre--I had pretty good luck with Steamboat at first, but dudes who have a standing strike or running move as a Finisher have a HUGE advantage, and guys whose Finishers are all top rope, springboard, or submissions are screwed.

 

Now that I've used him, I'm really bummed that Shammy didn't get a Dragon Sleeper for his standing submission; the feud with Owen and Severn where they were all using it wasn't exactly good but I have fond memories of it, and it has more personality than a guillotine.

[Casey]

These free agent cards as rewards in the Tower mode of MyFaction are bullshit. Roman was one, given out as an apology FOR THE GAME DELETING YOUR DATA. Dakota Kai was the reward for Week 1. Karrion Kross is the Week 5 reward.

I had enough MFP to buy a Heat pack. What did I get? A bronze card that’s a CAW - which is another thing, for such low ratings those characters are WAY more tough than actual wrestlers. The triple threat in the first part of the Proving Ground? Bullshit. The little cruiserweight Kombucha was picking up OMOS for moves. I used Montez Ford to unlock Omos today and he was knocking me down on running attacks due to weight detection. Insane.

I like MyFaction as a replacement of 2K19’s Tower mode, but goddamn it’s pretty skummy sometimes.

I’m trying to evolve Bea to a Ruby card right now but there’s not even a lot of women’s matches, which is why I’m doing runs of Faction Wars. Which is much better this year due to the new tag rules. I’m in the middle of a run right now and had enough points saved up to unlock a Ruby card Charlotte which was nice.

[odessasteps]

I watched Creed tinker with his CAW for 45 minutes today while I was playing Midnight Suns. 

[Raziel]

There's a whole lot I *don't* like about MyRise or Showcase mode.  I do like Universe Mode though.  

[Ramo2653]

On 3/13/2024 at 6:40 PM, Cliff Hanger said:

Winning the fantasy Rumble in Showcase gets you a bunch of Ruby and sapphire cards, other than that it's just Rise that has Faction card rewards (and those are all the fictional rivals from this year and prior years). As for the boss cards in Faction War, once you've beaten the 4v4 at the end of a stage those cards unlock in the Faction Wars shop, and can be bought permanently with the unique points from that mode (not MFP). Emerald are 3k, Sapphire 4 and Ruby 5. I've got enough to get a Ruby but am waiting to see how the run I'm in the middle of shakes out before I buy something that may not end up what I want.

 

Did the five bonus chars from the 40 Years pack unlock at launch or are they coming with the WM40 arena after Mania? Now that I've gotten all the Showcase stuff that buying that version unlocks I'm tempted to spring the extra $20 next paycheck but don't want to if I'm buying nothing today.

Are you referring to the Cody, Dusty, Pharaoh, and 2017 Rhea and Bianca cards? I don't really use Rhea and Bianca too much now since I picked up better cards but the Cody and Dusty are still in my lineup. Since I run strikers usually Pharaoh doesn't really work for my lineups, but it's a good manager card to have. Nice to have but not a necessity. I'll have to do a few more Faction War runs to get more points. 

On 3/14/2024 at 8:00 PM, Casey said:

These free agent cards as rewards in the Tower mode of MyFaction are bullshit. Roman was one, given out as an apology FOR THE GAME DELETING YOUR DATA. Dakota Kai was the reward for Week 1. Karrion Kross is the Week 5 reward.

I had enough MFP to buy a Heat pack. What did I get? A bronze card that’s a CAW - which is another thing, for such low ratings those characters are WAY more tough than actual wrestlers. The triple threat in the first part of the Proving Ground? Bullshit. The little cruiserweight Kombucha was picking up OMOS for moves. I used Montez Ford to unlock Omos today and he was knocking me down on running attacks due to weight detection. Insane.

I like MyFaction as a replacement of 2K19’s Tower mode, but goddamn it’s pretty skummy sometimes.

I’m trying to evolve Bea to a Ruby card right now but there’s not even a lot of women’s matches, which is why I’m doing runs of Faction Wars. Which is much better this year due to the new tag rules. I’m in the middle of a run right now and had enough points saved up to unlock a Ruby card Charlotte which was nice.

How did you get a Roman? I didn't have a data deletion issue was it automatic or something?

I just kept replaying some of the easier proving grounds matches to evolve Blair and Waller.

And don't get me started on those CAWs in the first run. Silence is comically overpowered especially if you're trying to play on legendary to get the additional medal for more rewards.

[Casey]

1 hour ago, Ramo2653 said:

Are you referring to the Cody, Dusty, Pharaoh, and 2017 Rhea and Bianca cards? I don't really use Rhea and Bianca too much now since I picked up better cards but the Cody and Dusty are still in my lineup. Since I run strikers usually Pharaoh doesn't really work for my lineups, but it's a good manager card to have. Nice to have but not a necessity. I'll have to do a few more Faction War runs to get more points. 

How did you get a Roman? I didn't have a data deletion issue was it automatic or something?

I just kept replaying some of the easier proving grounds matches to evolve Blair and Waller.

And don't get me started on those CAWs in the first run. Silence is comically overpowered especially if you're trying to play on legendary to get the additional medal for more rewards.

HEADOFTHETABLE is the locker code for the free agent Roman. I saw it on Reddit.

[CSC]

Really enjoyed the hour and forty five minutes that I was able to play of WWE 2k24 on my PC - then every subsequent time I tried to turned on the game it would crash loading the save data.  Tried local, cloud, running it with admin permission and nothing worked. 

Oh well - at least I was under Steams 2 hours limit for a refund.  Maybe I'll try again in a few months when it's on sale and they've hopefully worked out whatever bug this was.  

Edited March 16 by CSC

[SirSmUgly]

Everyone says it so often it's cliche, but nothing really has recaptured the pacing, cadence, and meaty weight of movies like AKI's WCW and WWF games.

I had to go get a new HDMI/USB combo cord to get the N64 to work on my modern television, but it was worth it. These games still feel incredible to play. So did Def Jam Vendetta and Fight For New York. AKI just had insane fighting/wrestling game talent. 

I'm not sure any stateside wrestling game has made me feel like I can break down an opponent through targeting like the AKIs. I'm glad that I didn't settle for emulating them on my PC this time around and busted out the carts. 

[Ramo2653]

I think Fight Forever kinda got the collision stuff down from the old AKI games, but yeah I know what you mean. FirePro is similar in that sense that big moves feel like big moves. 2K is kinda close but with the visible meters you pretty much know where you stand with taking down an opponent or if you're cooked.

Going back to 2K, I did the live event triple threat with Auska and Bianca to get the Sapphire Charlotte card and in my first attempt, the most WWE thing happened, Auska tossed Bianca out of the ring, I attack Auska and hit my finisher on her, BIanca gets back in the ring, hits a move on me which puts me in stun status, tosses me out of the ring and she hit her finisher on Auska and I can't get up in time to break up the pin. So I guess the gameplay is pretty realistic. 

[SirSmUgly]

I do love some FirePro feel, yeah. 

I've started a quest to (re-)build my N64 collection. I don't need everything - I don't like OoT enough to spend a lot of money on a physical copy - but I am going to get all the wrestling games that got stateside releases.

And I've never played WCW Backstage Blast, but as someone who is writing about late-stage WCW, I am looking forward to hating it.

On another note, this No Mercy mod looks insane. The mod community in general has done some great work with No Mercy, but this is especially impressive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOMAog5eotw

[Craig H]

I really wish I could find a really good guide for emulating No Mercy with these mods. There doesn't seem to be a comprehensive, step-by-step process for everything you need to download, where to download it from, and then what you need to do. I remember trying to emulate it a few years ago and it was just a mess. I couldn't get it working and didn't know what I was doing.

[Ramo2653]

Same with the No Mercy Mods. I kinda got the TNA vs. ROH mod from back in the day working but nothing past that. I have a mod downloaded that I couldn't figure out so it's just sitting on my PC. Insert old man yelling at cloud pic.

[Cliff Hanger]

Man, Backstage Brawl. (Shudder) Mayhem wasn't what I'd call a good game but it felt like it could have been one if the studio had taken time to study other games in the genre and knuckled down. And so of course they gave us...that.

 

Women's 2k24 Rise story got a good deal more serious for a while, then very silly again when I was given a branch and chose to "go Hollywood." I will say that it's still probably better booking than anything done with the NXT women's title picture since like two weeks after Lyra beat Becky.

[Cliff Hanger]

So, 2 things.

 

1) thank God for the "END RIVALRY" button in Universe mode. In 2k23 I was still doing an NXT match against Wes Lee every week even after beating Roman.

 

2) for the third year in a row, I've tried to start GM mode, gotten choice paralysis, and bailed during the draft. Is there a guide (preferably text, but I will hold my nose and watch a video) that will help me ease into it and maybe see why people love it?

[odessasteps]

2 hours ago, Cliff Hanger said:

So, 2 things.

 

1) thank God for the "END RIVALRY" button in Universe mode. In 2k23 I was still doing an NXT match against Wes Lee every week even after beating Roman.

 

2) for the third year in a row, I've tried to start GM mode, gotten choice paralysis, and bailed during the draft. Is there a guide (preferably text, but I will hold my nose and watch a video) that will help me ease into it and maybe see why people love it?

Well, you do have hundreds of episodes of UUDD of GM mode from games gone by, including last year. 

[dragonzombie]

It was WCW Backstage Assault. I picked WWF No Mercy over that game. Over the years, I obtained 3 or more copies of WWF No Mercy.

[Technico Support]

Oh man I remember being psyched to buy WCW Nitro for the PS1 back in the day.  It was so long ago I think I bought it at KB Toys.  What an absolute pile of shit.  We were so convinced that DDP was a hidden character that we put the CD in a computer and tried to dig around; there was no way WCW's hottest new star wasn't in the game, right?  What an absolute disappointment that game was.

[Death From Above]

Backstage Assault is incredible for just how difficult it is to overstate how bad it really was. Looked like shit, full of shit design ideas, controls that calling shit would be generous to, it really was the complete package. A hall of fame bad video game.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

1 hour ago, Technico Support said:

Oh man I remember being psyched to buy WCW Nitro for the PS1 back in the day.  It was so long ago I think I bought it at KB Toys.  What an absolute pile of shit.  We were so convinced that DDP was a hidden character that we put the CD in a computer and tried to dig around; there was no way WCW's hottest new star wasn't in the game, right?  What an absolute disappointment that game was.

DDP is definitely in Nitro. Do you mean WCW vs. the World? He's not in that.

[dragonzombie]

There was also WCW/nWo Thunder on the PS1, which was an upgrade from Nitro. Both games had mixed reviews, but they sold good.

Also, Nitro ports for PC and the N64, with an updated roster from Thunder. The battle royal from Thunder was added to the Nitro N64 game. 

They were all guilty pleasures for normies when they came out. 

[NikoBaltimore]

I spent tons of time staying the night at a friend's house while we tried to figure out how to do more than punch and kick on Nitro.  When we pulled off a suplex it was like we won the title with how excited we were.  Then I somehow got it on PC and while noticeably faster it was still a shit game.  Despite that I still have fond memories and might one day try Nitro again for giggles.

EDIT:  Just saw the guide and forgot how complicated some of the moves were to do.  Yeah, fuck that I'm good.

Edited March 22 by NikoBaltimore

[No Point Stance]

IIRC it was WWF Warzone that started that (thankfully short-lived) period of wrestling games using stupidly complicated Mortal Kombat-style input. Dreadful times.

[Technico Support]

13 hours ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

DDP is definitely in Nitro. Do you mean WCW vs. the World? He's not in that.

You are exactly right!  Old man brain strikes again.

[RazorbladeKiss87]

We were a PlayStation house so I had Warzone, Attitude and Thunder while my cousin had World Tour and No Mercy. I somehow talked myself into believing Attitude was a good game. I was a delusional child.