WWE 2K15 – Playing through MyCAREER

The WWE and its roster has had its fair share of performance-enhancement scandals in the past, but with 2K15, the company can safely embrace the latest claims: namely, that the long-in-decline series has seen a big upgrade to visuals and a refinement to game mechanics, rather than a juicing of the talent’s testosterone.

While perusing the changes coming to the next-gen version of 2K15, it’s clear that the addition of Visual Concepts to the team has helped make great strides to the game’s presentation. The team behind the best and most visually arresting sports game on new-gen, NBA 2K, has brought its engine across to WWE, and all of its performance-capture nous, too. The vast majority of the roster has been face-capped, including every facial expression of strain and glee you see on a pay-per-view. During the presentation it was noted that the team even went out to certain wrestler’s homes in the middle of the desert to get their faces in the game.

The only issue this brings is it becomes immediately obvious which wrestlers are a little camera shy. My first MyCAREER match was against Brock Lesnar, who walked into the arena looking like a fat baby of YouTube fame, pouting like Charlie just bit his finger. But Lesnar is most definitely in the minority when it comes to facial detail.

While wrestler’s faces look incredibly detailed, the bodies are more akin to plastic action figures. Athletes wearing jackets and hoodies or Lycra’d up to the nines look more realistic than their bare-chested counterparts, as many will have seen with some of the pre-release screens, where Goldust looks better than he has for the past two decades.

While the visuals have been given a significant boost, the sound hasn’t, and it is immediately noticeable. Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler and Michael Cole were brought in to commentate on in-game matches, rather than cut and paste lines from tapings, according to the pre-game presentation, but it still feels disjointed and forced. When Lesnar came and kicked the snot out of me following a match, it took a full five seconds for either commentator to acknowledge “it’s Brock Lesnar!”, and I’m sure you all read that in your head with more vigour than ‘The King’ did.

Equally, the crowd can be inconsistent. During a match, they can drive you to put on a better performance. In MyCAREER, your progression up the ranks isn’t judged on how you dominate your opponent or how many wins you get, but rather on whether or not you put on a show and entertain the crowd. It’s easy to know whether or not they’re entertained because they react to the in-ring action. Swings in momentum, death-defying acrobatics and close-count pins will be met with the crowd leaping to their feet and rapturous applause.

However, there are other times when, expecting a deafening sound as a favourite face or most-hated of heels walks to the ring, it is in fact the silence which is deafening. There’s nothing from the crowd to get the adrenaline pumping, no screams to match the wrestler’s entrance. EA Sports did a great job of capturing the feel of a crowd in FIFA 15, and likewise Visual Concepts does so in the NBA series as a team takes the lead or a game reaches its climax, so it’s a shame the same level of enthusiasm wasn’t consistently present in this build.

2K has attempted to bring a narrative to MyCAREER, with consistent plot points throughout your path, again tinged with that seen from Visual Concept’s NBA ventures. You can only play MyCAREER as a created wrestler, the reason being is that you start in the amateurs, working on the mats with WWE Trainer Bill DeMott before appearing on NXT, the WWE’s programme for up and comers. This part of the game acts as a tutorial, and we got to spend some time learning the basics of the new mechanics (while experiencing some of DeMott’s ‘tough love’, which equates to endless verbal abuse hurled from ringside).

It’s a nice way to not only get to grips with the game but also the basic flow of matches, especially with the new chain wrestling mechanic, a basic rock-paper-scissors encounter designed to replicate the early part of a match where wrestlers engage in tie-ups and minor punches and slams before expanding to some more significant moves.

The only issue with integrating the tutorial into the career is it can risk outstaying its welcome. I know that, with the full game, I’ll be looking to create a Rey Mysterio character and a Big Show-esque behemoth, and am not looking forward to playing through the enforced tutorial sections twice over. Hopefully this part of the career isn’t too long.

As you gain notoriety, you’ll begin to gain a social media fanbase and interact with other wrestlers. How you choose to interact with others determines whether you are face or heel, but this can change throughout. You will also become involved in storylines which will create cutscenes pre and post-matches, as well as affect the type of bouts you’re involved in. Following a one-on-one victory, Daniel Bryan came storming to the ring, but not before climbing the turnbuckle to engage the crowd in his iconic “YES! YES! YES!” chant.

In turn he then stood in front of me, and I had the choice to either shake Bryan’s hand or slap him in the face (you can guess which one is the good guy move) ahead of our contest at the next PPV. I went with the respectful handshake, though I didn’t expect the too-close-for-comfort staredown which followed.

Bryan then tweeted me about his upcoming match, a ‘warm-up’ for our title fight which saw him take on a top contender. Again, I was offered the choice of response: the good response was to be the hero, and say my next match would be a handicap fight against a tag team, while the heel move was to face off against WWE fodder. I’m a little rusty, so took the easy option, beating Xavier Woods to a pulp.

The flow of matches feels great in WWE 2K15. I got the chance to play as both a high-flyer and a dominant big man (both were created wrestlers), each playing entirely different. The big guy lumbered around the ring like a giant smelling the blood of an Englishman, landing kicks to the face and dragging opponents to their feet with brute force. The Lucha Libre-clad wrestler, meanwhile, bounced off the ropes and flew around to the point where I often forgot where I was going.

Countering moves is still very tricky, but that’s a good thing: you want to feel like you earned that drastic swing of momentum, turned a corner and got your opponent on the backfoot after taking a battering for five minutes. Being rewarded for putting on an entertaining show for the crowd often means you’ve been in a better fight. Rather than breeze through matches to get to the title, you’re more likely to spend time in each match and vary up your moves, as better performances means greater Virtual Currency rewards, which can be used to unlock even more moves or training camps with legendary wrestlers.

Unlike NBA 2K15, all VC is unlocked in-game and cannot be purchased with microtransactions, meaning players can’t buy themselves a Hall of Famer.

WWE 2K15 was most certainly a pleasant surprise. More than just a new lick of paint, matches were thoroughly entertaining and thoughts immediately centred on local co-op. Jumping in with my friends and smashing ladders, tables and chairs across skulls became immediately appealing. MyCAREER certainly adds depth to the series, and with the new 2K Showcase allowing you to follow the storylines of some of the greatest rivalries in WWE history (including a personal favourite of Shawn Michaels vs Triple H), there’s certainly a lot to dive into.

It certainly feels like the ageing old-gen has been pushed aside to give the PS4 and Xbox One version the limelight, and you can’t help but get excited, if in spite of some of the issues of the past carrying over.