April 28, 2025 • 53 mins
This week on The Game Marks Podcast we are playing WWE 2K18! We also talk about the Switch 2 and midnight releases.
Please subscribe and leave a review for this podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify and follow us on all forms of social media @gamemarkspod.
Join George Feis & Johnny Clash each week as they do a #DeepDive into the good, the bad & the awesome of wrestling video games. Do your favorite games stand the test of time or are you playing them with nostalgia goggles? New episodes every other Monday!
Sponsors
Please subscribe and leave a review for this podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify and follow us on all forms of social media @gamemarkspod.
Join George Feis & Johnny Clash each week as they do a #DeepDive into the good, the bad & the awesome of wrestling video games. Do your favorite games stand the test of time or are you playing them with nostalgia goggles? New episodes every other Monday!
Sponsors
- Mad Cat Beard Care: madcatbeardcare.com GAMEMARKS for 15% off
- Merch: podxchange.shop
- Pro Wrestling Tees: prowrestlingtees.com/gamemarkspod
- Tee Public: teepublic.com/user/gamemarkspod
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Tony Chimmel, and I'd like to introduce the
hosts of the game Marks Podcast, George Feast and Johnny Clash.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to the game Marks Podcast, where each and every
week we take a deep dive into the good, the bad,
and the awesome of all things wrestling video games. I'm
the man they call Johnny Clash and.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I am George Feasts, and today we are playing WWE
two K eighteen. We also talk about the switch to
and midnight releases.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
And please subscribe and leave a five star review for
this podcast on Apple, podcast, Spotify, all forms of social media.
Game Marks Pod give us a follow. We are here,
we are ready. We are playing at WWE two K eighteen. George,
how the hell are you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I am doing good, my friend. Another episode, another game.
But we can't start this episode with out talking about
last week we played WWE smackdun Versus Raw twenty ten.
How are you feeling about that?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
You know one of my favorite WWE games almost ever,
the nostalgia Rush back with the creative story mode and
all that, and it was just something it just brings
you back. It's one of those games. It's right up
there with the day of Reckonings and the WWE Nineteens
and all that for me, So I really loved it.
What about you?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, I'm right there with you, man. It's one of
those games we even talked about it. I still can't
remember definitively, but I do feel like this might have
been the game that brought me back into wrestling, but
it's definitely for sure, the SmackDown Versus Raws, It's in
that series. One of them kind of brought me back
into wrestling. And Yeah, very very happy to go back
(02:09):
and take a trip down memory lane to play that one.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
But I have a feeling we're not going to be
saying that about two K eighteen.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
You never know.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
We'll see, we'll see you never know.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
We're going to talk about the gameplay that we did
in a little bit because I think my memory of
that game, your experience playing that game was a surprise,
I think. But let's wrap up a couple of things
before we get into this week's deep dive. We wrapped
(02:39):
up our YouTube series g MP twenty four Mania is
live on the YouTube channel YouTube dot com Slash game
Marks Pods. Be sure to go and check that out.
We wrapped up the full season, and along with that,
mister Johnny Clash has his own announcement and what is that, sir?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
All right, so we kinda agreed we're not gonna be
doing GMP twenty five full say here first, it's not
gonna happen. It's a lot of work, a lot of
time goes into it. Not only are we recording this podcast,
We're gonna have to then go and spend an extra
hour or two to record that. So sorry, but GMP
twenty five is not gonna happen. Oh what there? I
(03:21):
will be kind of taking it over on my own
YouTube channel, Johnny Clash at Johnny Clash, and it is
called clash Tube Wrestling. The first show, Monday Meltdown, will
be out on May fifth, and it'll be at seven
pm every Monday from there on out. So YouTube dot
com slash at Johnny Clash, and you can find that
(03:42):
as well as my shitty Fortnite gameplay.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
So and of course if you want more Johnny Clash,
you can go and check out Twitch dot tv slash
Johnny fn Clash.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
You know what's funny if I go into chats and
I follow and the person's like, thank you for following
Johnny e fnklash. Lot of people have been saying thanks
for following Johnny Fortnite clash. I'm like, what the fuck?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I guess it is, But it's kind of both.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
That was the point to have that new window in there,
but to say the actual word out loud was kind
of weird.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah, and I think I've ever heard someone outright refer
to the FN as Fortnite in someone's name, But ye,
I could see why. That is kind of like the other.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, like maddi FN. No one's going hello Matty Fortnite.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I'm sure. I'm sure some people have.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
But just just a funny little start here. As I'm
looking at my reflection here. Have you been watching the
Last of US Season two?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I haven't started. I think my plan is. I think
my plan is I'm going to let the season run
and then watch it all.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
That's fair, because it is. It does suck waiting a week,
But Mike, I didn't think they could blow it out
of the water more than they already have. And oh
my god, like I.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Haven't heard spoilers. I have?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Did you play the game?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, yeah, you know the spoilers. It's literally frame by
frame everything, so far.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Okay, there's some added stuff, but if they're doing the
one to one, if they're stretching things out, because apparently
it's supposed to be like three or four seasons.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Now, I have a feeling I know where it could
end and pick up next season based on the second game.
But Mike, right now, it is visually incredible, visually incredible,
and the story. Like even my wife, who doesn't really
she really care that much about season one, this last
week's episode, she was glued to the TV. Al Right,
(05:40):
it was pretty awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I'm wearing a Last of Us shirt for people listening.
That's that's what That's what made me think of that.
But yeah, are you ready to play mister Seth Rollins' game?
WW two K eighteen.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Let's do it. Let's put on those nostalgia doggles and
take the deep dive.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
Guys, if you want your beard to be soft and
smell great, then you need Mad Cat Beardcare. Their products
are all natural and made to order with vitamins and
natural oils to moisturize your skin and to help make
your beard healthy and strong.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Our exclusive scent, Play It Forever, is a blood orange
black clove and vanilla scented beard bomb or beard oil
that can make your beard have a rich but not
overpowering scent. Plus a portion from their sales go towards
finding care for stray cats, covering their medical bills, and
finding them safe places and forever homes.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
Use code game marks to save yourself fifteen percent when
you place an order over at Madcatbeardcare dot com. That's
fifteen percent off with code game marks. And remember the
mad cat makes a happy beard.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
WWE two K eighteen released October seventeenth, twenty seventeen, four
PlayStation four, Windows, Xbox one, and the Nintendo Switch, which
has a different release date of December sixth, twenty seventeen.
Developed by Yukes, published by two K, and other wrestling
games in the year of twenty seventeen. You've got WWE Champions,
(07:28):
WWE Tatmania, WWE Mayhem, and Wrestling Revolution three D now.
WWE two K eighteen is the first game in the
series to be released exclusively on eighth generation hardware and
the first to be released for the PC end consoles simultaneously.
(07:53):
So this game has no three to sixty or PS
three release.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So I want to know right now, is this still
available for purchase.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
No, they turned off a lot of the older ww
two K titles on Steam. I want to say, with
two K twenty two.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, wow, I'm only seeing twenty four and twenty five
right now. But I remember last year you could go
all the way back, like pretty far.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah. I can't remember exactly what year they did they
did it, but I remember we talked about it the
on the podcast, like, oh, they removed you know however
many years back in the area of the PC releases,
and they even tried to do some some crossovers for
them as well.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
That's crazy. Yeah. This was also the first of the
series to be released on a Nintendo platform since WWE
thirteen and no. One of the worst switch ports of
a WWE game or we anything worst than tendo port
of a game. It didn't really work properly. It was
glitchy for some reason. It's still super expensive to buy,
(09:13):
but I think this is why, Yeah, this is why
we don't get these games everywhere anymore. And they're coming
around now, and I guess with the switch tubering released,
we'll see what happens. Some of that stuff looks pretty
crazy and it probably can handle the game now. I
don't know. I don't know. It's not something I would
(09:34):
have had for a switch, especially like the old ED version.
I don't know. It's a cool concept to feel like
you have that, like having a Steam deck now and
playing two K twenty five would be awesome, but you're
playing the PC version. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Yeah, I think that there was a period of the
crossovers or the ports to other consoles not necessarily living
up to other maybe mainstay consoles, where you know, with
the you know, PlayStation two versions of games, the station.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The versions they were all pretty bad.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, well, I was gonna says, it's all those those
mixing and matchings of trying to get the game to
function on different hardware with different limitations, and in some
instances you've got some really unique scenarios, unique scenarios such
as minigames for some of the PSP ports. But then
you also got some roster changes and exclusive content there
(10:38):
as well, which is interesting. It's not I don't know
if people necessarily were going out to specifically buy those
versions because of that, but it is a slight incentive
to go then. I'm sure that for certain people that
was like a big thing.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I guess I always feel like it's hard to classify
the switch as at because it is like a main console.
It's not primarily a handheld console.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
It's both. It's it's kind of like you're walking both
both lines.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Unless you're a kid, I don't feel like you would
have one of these games on a handheld console as
your primary game. It would be the extra that you're
taking with you somewhere to play when you're away from
your console.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, it's yeah. I think that's like how we we've
talked in the past about you know, you had your
and sixty four your your PlayStation, but then you also
had your game Boy that had ping of the Ring
or whatever on it, like and you were just like,
this isn't the same experience, but I'm enjoying it because
it's a wrestling game and I have this little console
(11:46):
that I can take with me.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah. I still would love to just have that, not
play tap Mania all the time. But let's talk about
the new features here. So among the other features that
two K were promoting its enhanced graphics, but also the
return of Current Angle as a playable character, which is
awesome I get. I think two versions of him will
go over that in a little bit. It's the first
time since SmackDown Just bring It that eight wrestlers are
(12:09):
allowed to be in a match at once. Before this,
it was only six. The Royal Rumble match has been
retooled with new mechanics, new finishers, and new elimination sequences.
I feel like lately we've been hearing that a lot.
I think in SVR ten there was also a revamp
to the Royal Rumble, so that's cool that they're constantly
redoing that. And of course when we got two K
twenty two, it was revamped once again.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
This was the season the series where the carry system
was introduced, which we're still using today. It still works
pretty much the same way today too, something that confused
me for a long time, but I think I finally
have a little bit of a handle on it. So
new commentary team from Monday Night Raw you get Michael
Cole and SmackDown you get Byron Saxton and a dual
(12:52):
Brandon commentator, Corey Graves. I wish I could say that
this was something they improved on going forward, but we
pretty much get the same voice lines today, which kind
of sucks.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
I think you get like additions for like few moves
and stuff, but it's just the audio quality's gotten better,
and I'm sure that there's you know, when they go
into the booths to do these they're doing hundreds and
hundreds of reads, so there's crossover that they're still able
to use.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
I bet now I'm wondering when AI takes over and
they record a few lines and then it's just free game.
They can make anything happen without them actually being in
the booth, kind of like James Old Jones giving his
voice to Star Wars Forever, so he's forever Darth Vader.
They can make that happen.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Now when I hadn't thought about that, When.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Is AI just going to be commentary? Michael cole goes
in says the key Bond's key words, but they take
his voice and can make literally anything that happens be
said in a video game.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
I hadn't thought about that being a possibility, but that
is a very real possibility.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Very real. I don't know how cool it is as
long as you know the voice actor is still getting
paid the same amount or more. But that's that's a
whole nother comversation. The crowd sound is also improved to
feature authentic crowd chants for entrances and during a match.
We definitely noticed that during our yep our gameplay. New
(14:10):
feature includes the ability to create your own custom matches
and save them for future use in exhibition mode Universe
still online, you could still do now. And I remember
this being like mind blowing, But I also never knew
like what match to create, Like what do I want
to do that's different, that's not on here already. But
then once you get in there, you could be like, oh, okay,
(14:31):
there's a million options here and you could create oh.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah, there's It's one of those one of those situations
where you you really have to have a clear picture
in your head of the exact match you want before
you go in there. But like you said, there's so
many different options, so many different styles that you can
select to really kind of make your own, your own
special situation.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Like I can see that really big in Universe mode,
especially after like we just were talking about GMP twenty four,
there were so many things that we had to customize,
and I think it's perfect for that.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
All right, this will have to wait and see what
you ever to put together over for Clash Tube.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Ooh, we'll see, we'll see my career now allows backstage roaming,
which was last scene in SmackDown Versus Raud twenty eleven's
Road to WrestleMania mode, so that's finally coming back. Universe
mode has been improved with a new story system along
with new cut scenes, power rankings, and a goal system.
Now your game modes here. Obviously, you have your play modes,
(15:28):
which are your exhibitions. Will get into the match types
in a little bit. You could customize your player which
is under my Player, Universe creations, Community Creations, Online, my
WWE options, and store. Okay, there's a lot to unpack here.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Now.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I mentioned during the playthrough, I didn't know if I
ever played this game, and this was definitely a year
I skipped. I didn't know for sure, but early early,
early in the podcast with me and you talked about
how much loved nineteen. You said you didn't get nineteen
or maybe you got a little later because the loot
(16:05):
crates in two K eighteen turned you off. Yeah, that
wasn't something I remembered. And you know what's crazy, we
were only two years after this when we started the podcast,
so like two K twenty was the game that came
out that year, which was nuts and what a year
to start a gaming podcast when two k skips two years.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Of games, That's true.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I was so silly, But yeah, I don't remember. And
then once we got into like the menu and the
character select screen, which I loved, I didn't remember that
at all. So I think I could solidly say I
went from either sixteen or seventeen. I think I had
the Brocklesner cover, so seventeen yeah, straight to nineteen.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah. This this game I played a lot when it
came out. It was just, you know, to go through
the my player and the you know, everything that goes
along with that and try to build out something in
universe with your create addrestler. To have so many things
to develop your player, all locked behind these Luke Crates,
(17:06):
loot boxes, loot system whatever they referred to it as,
it was just it was such a vast change from
what it had been, at least in my experience, in
my memory that I was just like, oh man, this
is not how I remember this system being. But you know,
(17:28):
them wwe trying to keep up with the times. Luke Crates,
loop boxes, that lottery system however you want to refer
to it, that was the thing that was popular, so
they were just trying to keep it topical and up
to date with everything else.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
So this was the year I started playing Fortnite, So
I think that may have something to do with why
I didn't buy it, because that's where all my time
went to. But I think with the loot crates and
all that, they were really trying to be like the
NHL that maddens and all the EA games where they
include that weird system of loot. But now it's turned
(18:06):
into cards and now it's turned into I forget Hockey
Ultimate Team like that one. Now it's turned into what
the hell is the one called in two K now
my Faction?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Oh? The my Faction cards?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, it's turned into that. So I think that's where
it stems from, and that's where it goes. And it's
just so hokey and like you just don't It adds
an extra layer of annoyance to try to play the
game the way you want to play it.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah, And like I said, the loot create in the
sense of two K eighteen only affects the my player.
It doesn't really affect any other outside at least to
my memory and my knowledge of that it didn't affect
any other part of the game. It just was the
my player. So if that's not something that you particularly
(18:54):
invest a lot of time in or anything like that,
then it's just a regular old WWE game that has
the same play mechanics and experience that you remember from
years past. All right, well, how about we break down
some of these match types here in WWE two K eighteen,
because you have the standard fare of matches that you
(19:15):
would come to expect. You've got your normal, your false
count anywhere, Backstage Brawl, Extreme Rules, a ladder table, TLC hell,
and a cell steelcage, Last Man Standing, Noah holds barred submission,
iron Man Battle Royal Elimination Chamber, which was revamped both
with the new and old structure style. You have the
(19:37):
eight man tag match which is new, the eight man
Ladder Match which is new, an eight man Battle Royal,
a handicapped match with one versus two and one versus three.
You have a ten man Royal Rumble, a twenty man
Royal Rumble, a thirty man Royal Rumble, and of course
the tournaments, which is a one v one a tag
team tournament, and the Dusty Rhodes.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Classic ooh, so not much different than you're getting today,
which is crazy. Of course, you're getting the war games
and a few other additions. Now we have the ambulance
and the casket match. But this was what you were
getting for many many years, and this didn't change for
a while.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
No, it's just standard fair and it's a good spread
of match types and kind of getting a little bit
of something for everybody.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, but let's take a quick break here and we're
gonna come back. We're going to talk about my player,
universe mode and this roster here. All right, let's talk
about my player. This is something I wasn't familiar with,
but I remembered it moving forward from two K nineteen.
(20:48):
This is where you create your own superstar. You level
them up through matches and storyline progression, you pick their
fighting style, and you pretty much do your road to
glory or your career through this hub. This is where
you will take your character through the backstage hallways and
you run into different wrestlers, different managers, officials, and you
(21:11):
could really do kind of I don't want to say
whatever you want, because it's not really whatever you want,
but this is where you drive your own story.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
It's very less linear progression than you had, where it's
just like you have a match, it goes to the
next cut scene. You have a match, it goes to
the next cutscene.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
It's kind of like what we get now, which is
a simplified version of this. I like the my rise
because you will be able to just choose between like
the three or four people standing in front of you.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Not let me check this locker room, let me check
this hallway, let me see who's over here. Maybe I
miss something important, Maybe this would have gotten me VC
or something, and now I missed it. I like this,
it's just right in front of you. It's just so
much easier.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Yeah. And I always used to have like those little
easter eggs when you were walking around, Like I remember
there was like, you know, se posters for like all
the events and stuff like that, and you'd be like,
you know, they have stuff like that in all of
the games when there was any kind of backstage chegments.
But when it's you, there's a little bit of exploration.
It kind of makes it like a little bit of
(22:14):
an easter egg hunt.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
So I want to check. Actually, I mentioned that they're
actually using the real signs that go backstage now. Yeah,
I don't remember if they actually did that back then too,
so I can't really find anything right now, but that
would be cool to see. So this is actually what
I'm remembering from YouTube. I just saw this the two
(22:38):
k My Career Episode one, A new saga begins. It's
you going into NXT in the performance center talking to
Matt Bloom. I remember watching this promo video that denk
Ops posted at the time, and I was like, this
is so cool. I can't wait to play this game.
And for some reason, I just didn't do it.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I wonder. I guess, like you said, Fortnite was uh
at the.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Time hl UFC. I was playing all that. Yeah, for
some reason, I just didn't do it.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Hmmma. But then you said you came back for nineteen
with Ajane.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I loved nineteen. Yeah, nineteen was great, And I still remember,
like you know, how you visualize certain things, like I
remember my PC set up in my old room like
where it was, and I had the PlayStation going into
that into the monitor, and I remember sitting there playing
like through the NXT storyline so vividly crazy, just like
I remember my old apartment sitting there with what was
(23:34):
the beef stick or whatever it was in two K
twenty oh Ribby. Yeah, playing with Ruby on the big TV. Yeah,
Like it's crazy how you remember that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah, it's you're You're absolutely right. It's crazy how certain
video game memories stick with you, but you get the
memories of like it's not just your experience, it's the environment.
I remember I was in this room playing with this
just like you said, like in this room with this setup,
like this game.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It's wild how you remember that. I will say this
about the Luke Crates. I'm glad that they are purchased
with VC and not with actual money, So that makes
it a little better. Yeah, sure there's somewhere you can.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It does kind of. I don't know. The more I
think about it now, I think I was just I
was frustrated because it was so different, and I don't
necessarily think it's a bad thing. Like it kind of
does give you the feeling of you are a new wrestler.
You are you are it's every I like that, every
(24:44):
every episode. Now there's like a song break where for
you saying it's great. Uh. It does kind of make
you feel you're starting as a as a new wrestler,
like you're you get to kind of evolve your mood
set and it's not like you can just go in
and pick all the crazy moves. But I guess there's
(25:06):
kind of, like, you know, there's an argument to be
made from both both sides here, Like if you want
that super realistic the randomness, like you know, you don't
necessarily get to pick the crazy, powerful strong move set
where you're doing, you know, a four fifty after you know,
you know, off the top rope, it's a springboard onto
the outside, everything's a four fifty. But at the same time,
(25:31):
sometimes that's what you want. So it's I could see
an argument made for both. But at the time, I
was just like, why wrestling games should have loot creates.
I shouldn't have to have all this stuff. But I
do understand the like you can apply a logic and
a reasoning to it.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
So that's something what you were saying. How like you
start from the performance center, n XTAM work up. We've
seen that in a lot of games. A lot of
games just send you in already as a wrestler, and
that's fine too. I was seeing the new I saw
the new Madden trailer today and it's like start from
college or high school and work your way up to
the NFL, like it's the same thing every year. Like
(26:11):
that's not a selling point anymore. Do something different, like
you do the combine, you do all the fun stuff,
and now you're in the NFL, and then it's just
a regular career mode leading up to it. Now I
get it. It's a real sport. It's not wrestling. You
don't have storylines. I mean, given the draft today at
the time of recording, there is a storyline, and it's
pretty funny with someone not being drafted. But with wrestling,
(26:34):
it that's different every time, Like it doesn't have to
be like you're in the performance center, then you make
your way up and blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah. They and they've done a good job in the
past of kind of moving the storylines around enough where
there's a uniqueness. But they've done a really good job
over the past couple of years of kind of making
them unique in the sense of it's not like what
you were saying. It's not always you start from point A,
(27:03):
you go to point B, that leads you to point C.
They've done a good job in the my Rise modes
where it's there are unique scenarios where it's like, you
know the one that was a couple of years ago
where it's like your aunt was a really famous wrestler,
or the lock storyline a lock, like those are very
like those were different. It all kind of feels the same,
(27:27):
like they've done some kind of version like that in
the past, but there's always like a little twist or
a little change, or like there's this element that's different
that you're like, oh, kind of wasn't expecting you to
go that way, and that's kind of cool and different.
I feel like they've been doing a lot of that
more and more recently.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yeah. Also included is Road to Glory mode, which you
do through My Player as well, which is similar to
the one in supercart where it's an online mode where
you compete in events and you earn rewards and you
kind of just con next to your stats and boost them.
And of course Universe Mode is in here, which is
your sandbox where you could pretty much act as the
(28:05):
GM and book your own shows, manage your rivalries. You
could either take control of a wrestler or make your own,
or just do shows just for the hell of doing shows.
Now this roster it's massive. I don't want to read
it all. You don't want to read it all, easily
available on SmackDown Hotel if you want to go check
it out. But scrolling through that character select screen it
(28:29):
was awesome. I brought up the question to you, do
you like when they used to be in game renders
or do you like now where it's an actual picture
of the wrestler themselves. I'm kind of a little biased
towards having the in game renders because that's what day
Reckoning did and like all the games I liked did,
but also like in two K twenty five you have
(28:50):
Ava Moreno and all what cole cart what's his name?
Ca cole Quinn where they are renders because they're not
real people, and then you go to like the Undertaker, he's real.
It's like, it's kind of like a disconnect in the
roster page. Yeah, they were all in game.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to that either.
I actually think I think I might agree with you
on that. I think I think there is a certain
level again, I get the feeling, I get the understanding
for both where it's like you have these iconic wrestlers
where you know, maybe the game I mean that's a
(29:28):
different problem in itself, but maybe in certain iterations of
the characters, you're not necessarily capturing the likeness of the
person as well as the render maybe would do like
the I say the word render, I mean, like the
actual photography of the real wrestler. You know, it's a
real picture of the Undertaker. But I understand why you
(29:52):
might want that, but yeah, I think I personally prefer
when it's the actual in game graphics because it kind
of takes you on that whole journey, Like it sets
you up right from the get go, Like you're seeing
the match graphics, you're seeing the renders of the wrestler
in that style of the game that you're playing. It's
(30:13):
it almost kind of feels like a throwback to the
sprite iconography that they would use back in like yes
ny s and NYS days, Like you just would see
the sprite and then the sprite in most cases looks
like the wrestler that you're going to play in the match.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
This Legends roster is a massive we were saying, this
whole thing is a time warp of twenty seventeen NXT
like crazy crazy, there is two five Live. There is
Jimmy Garvins in here. He's only ever in two K
seventeen and eighteen. Those are the only games ever. Correct
(30:51):
me if I'm wrong. Somebody stings Larry's Abisco, like, what
is this game? Yes, Michael Albert, this is crazy.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Yeah, I mean you're right. The Legends roster is almost
as big as the Raw and SmackDown roster combined.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
So why Buddy Roberts is in here? I can't imagine
he was in any other games. Yeah, same seventeen and eighteen.
So for some reason in this time period they were
just like, what like Tatsumi Fujinami's in.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Here, it's Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
I think, oh, back when they did the Hall of Fame,
everybody's in there. Wild. Now, let's talk about this cover
here because I like it. It's pretty cool. This is
you know, fifteen sixteen seventeen they started going with the
same type of theme here, and uh, this time it's
Seth Rollins and his black and gold main mugging the
(31:58):
camera with the same type both background we've seen for
many years. We kind of went away from this and
now and we get more artistic style backgrounds. But this
was two K at the time, and it looks looks awesome.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yeah, the branding big and in the center. You know
that it's a wrestling game right out of the gate,
just because that WWE logo is large and prominent right
right here. You get it. And then when you flip
over to the back, got a bunch of screenshots of wrestlers,
not mad shots, which I think is interesting.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, it's all like entrances and stuff. Yeah, huh out.
Now this is what I actually wanted to check. It
has everything in here the one I bought. Like, does
this Supercard code work?
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Do we want to do a live check right now?
Deluxe edition? Got kurd angle on there? Rod van Dam
use the code below for down notable content. Well, I'm
not going to turn my PS four on right now,
so maybe we'll try that another time. I miss getting
a book with a game. All right, let's scan this
(33:10):
Supercard code. It felt weird buying a PlayStation four game
and installing it and hearing that music again, that background,
Like whatever, all right, I'm in Supercard's lock them in. Okay,
(33:32):
I haven't played this in a while, so I gotta
go through like the end.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
User and all that stuff on the paper itself, there's
nothing that says like offer expires and code expires in
the bottom. That's not all that, I'll tell you're right
from the its.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
It's making me do a tutorial though. That's not fun.
So we could move on and I could come back
to this. Let's talk about the graphics here.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Ah We we touched upon this in the playthrough on
our YouTube channel. It looks and feels exactly how you
would expect a wrestling game on PlayStation four or Xbox
to feel. I think the main difference that we said
that we've noticed maybe between current gen games in this
(34:18):
generation is maybe the textures and the polygon counts are
a little higher, maybe the hair physics are different. But
like lighting, the stages, the entrances, the lighting, it all
still feels right on par I think that this holds
up pretty well. Crowd still looks great, ring canvas and
(34:39):
textures all look good. It's just you know, as good
as it could be on the hardware.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
That's yeah, That's what we say a lot during these
there's really no where you can go from what console
you're on, what you're playing like. It's still ww game.
Until we got two K twenty, everything was on par
everything was the same. I'm going to go out and
say two K twenty was a blessing in disguise because
maybe they wouldn't have made the changes and had the
games we have now and how good they are without
(35:07):
that disaster happening.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
You know, that's a very good way of looking at it,
and hindsight, you know, I think that you're You're right.
It kind of was a blessing in disguise.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah, I think this game two K eighteen looks amazing
and at the time we were probably like, oh my god,
how does it get better than this? Two K nineteen
kind of pretty much the same look and feel. I
really felt like the NXT are and it looked sick.
It was cool to see all that once again, the
high school gym like all that. You're like, this is
(35:40):
a really good looking game. How come we go up?
We couldn't go up. We went down for some reason.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
But may for for a long time, a lot of
these games were just you're getting the updated rosters, the
updated entrances, the updated you know, the WrestleMania stages change.
If NXT stages changed. When they change raw stages, like
you're getting all those current little upgrades or updates to
make it feel a little bit more current. But as
(36:08):
what happens with most wrestling games, by the time they release,
major changes always happened, and then within a couple of
months they are outdated, just from from a content or
a stage or a design standpoint. Logos change, people's gimmicks change,
and then you know, got to go and download all
the updates from the community creeds to make it all
(36:31):
feel a little bit more current.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Yeah, the HUD was small, out of the way, little crowded,
like we remember it to be. They use that one
for a while. I mean now it's kind of it's
similar to what we have now. Nothing really changed there.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
The pin minigame is the circle where you got to
stop it in the green mark. Not my favorite, but
that's what we get. There's not much to talk about here.
I mean, if we're acting like this is our first
time playing this game, I thought it came across pretty cool.
I mean, it was my first time playing this game.
I'm talking about like the series because it is so
similar to the previous and what came after. Yeah, but
(37:10):
did you know, did you know WW two K eighteen
had the largest roster in WWE game history at the time,
with over one hundred and seventy playable characters, including the Legends,
n XT Stars, and more.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Did you know? Road to Glory, a new online mode,
lets you compete with your mind player in events sinned
with real life WWEE pay per views.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Did you know? WW two K eighteen is on eBay
from seven to twelve dollars used, fifteen dollars sealed, and
the switch version is fifty dollars. Now, the scene enough version,
which you're about to talk about, is one hundred dollars,
but if you get complete with the plaque, you get
for one hundred and fifty dollars. So that's a few
(37:59):
things unpack here. First of all, card Angle announced his DLC,
and it seems like he announced it accidentally because his
tweet at the time said I do a lot of
things prematurely, and tweeting is one of them. But it's true.
I'm official pre order bonus for two K eighteen. And yeah,
he posted the cover. It seemed like he posted it
(38:20):
and they were like, hey, you weren't supposed to do
that yet.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Maybe he did it like a day early, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
But I guess it all worked out now, the Scene
Enough version. I had the John Cena plaque somewhere. I
think I sold it on eBay, but I remember I
only bought it someone I think in the Major Pod
Facebook group. It was like it was an impulse buy
because it was there. It's only like fifteen bucks at
(38:45):
the time, and it comes with the John Cena like
the ring matt and an autograph like why wouldn't I
buy that?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Yeah, that's that's a that's a good deal.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
But you get, let's see what you get in this
Scene Enough version. You get the unique cover fifteen years
of John Cena, which is crazy where we've come to now,
an exclusive Mattel action figure featuring John Cena with his
Scene Enough T shirt, a Fanatics limited edition commemorative plaque
that's the one I was talking about with his sixteenth
(39:13):
title win at the Royal Rumble twenty seventeen, as well
as hand signed signature a limited edition supercard game Seeing
Enough card that features John Cena Batista Rovan Dam. Only
thirty thousand copies of this were available. Looks like there's
some John Cena Prince in here, some card angle prints
that come with it now, the digital or not digital,
(39:36):
I guess at the time. The Deluxe version comes with
the season pass playable versions of Batista RVD two, John
Cena's two krd angles, his One night Stand appearance and
his WrestleMania twenty six and Kurt Angle. You get the
Olympic Gold Medalist like the original debut Kurt Angle and
back when he was like world heavyweight champion. So, man,
(40:00):
pretty good stuff. I there's a chance I do still
have this John Cena plaque somewhere, but I could go
in my eBay search history and see if I sold it,
but by now it's probably gone. So but all right,
let's sit back for a minute. Let's go over these
ratings and reviews some R and R. Metacritic gives the
(40:23):
PC version of sixty four ooh ps four sixty six,
then Nintendo Switch thirty five, and the Xbox won a
sixty seven. Wait, the Nintendo Switch a thirty five out
of one hundred. Wow, that is not good. It is
not good. Destructoid a five out of ten, Game Informer
six out of ten, Game Spot five out of ten,
game Radar Plus a four out of five stars, ign
(40:45):
A seven out of ten, and the Switch a three
point eight out of ten. Oh, ign with a weird rating,
go figure Nintendo Life with the three out of ten stars,
and Nintendo World with a three out of ten. Now
even Nintendo is giving their own game a bad rating,
which is okay, you know, it's a little well odd.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
Very interesting, very very interesting radio a little a little
all over the place here.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Could also have something to do with why I didn't
buy the game. It was just bad. Maybe I knew
someone that said, yeah, don't bother.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
It's possible maybe you knew someone that got it and
was just like, hey, Either it feels to say, I
know that I had friends that would skip every year,
or skip every other year, or only buy it like
once every you know, two or three years, just because
they were like, it's the same thing, You're just getting
updated rosters, and like they're not really they would wait
to see if they were like massive changes to the game.
(41:39):
So it's it's very possible that you had spoke to
someone who maybe he had already got it, and you were
just like, eh, I just wait, I'll get you know, nineteen,
or I'll wait and see what happens.
Speaker 6 (41:49):
And.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
You know, hindsight again, maybe I wouldn't have enjoyed two
K nineteen as much. If possible, I did get this.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
It is very very possible.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Tutorial is done. Let's try the supercard code again.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
It takes me to the app store, which is kind
of annoying because I own the app. Bro. No, don't
scan Seth's face. Let's get the QR code. Mm hmm.
It just takes you to the app page. So I'm
thinking it's dead. But hey, I'll keep trying and I'll report.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
The actual code. Maybe there's like a promo code. Type
in and redeem.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Nah, it says scan now to receive one Ultimate Seth Rollins,
three Elite Superstar cards, and one limited edition two K
eighteen card back. I have to imagine it's expired at
this moment in time, many years later.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, it's only been a little bit, all right, John,
We've heard the ratings and reviews from the websites and magazines.
Are you ready to get into our reviews because it
is now time right the game?
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Look all right, Johnny clash w W two K eighteen.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Will you play it forever or future? Endeavor?
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Let me tell you something, George, I bought this game
on eBay two weeks ago. It's gonna go back on
eBay tomorrow. This is a big old future endeavor. I
have no nostalgia goggles here for this game like I
do two K nineteen, which still sits to my right.
(43:52):
Could play it forever, legit, play it forever. Uh yeah,
I don't need it. It seems like there's nothing I
would go back and play, nothing holding me in. I
would play nineteen for this roster. It's not that different.
And yeah, just a future endeavor, Just a future endeavor.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Yeah. Well, I'm gonna keep it short and sweet. I'm
right there with you. Yeah, I will say it is.
The loot crate system is not something that stands out
to me about this game anymore, because I think I've
come around to the idea that it does kind of
help to tie in that story. I don't necessarily have
(44:39):
that strong feelings about it as I did when it
first came out. But yeah, I'm right there with you.
There's nothing really that sets the game apart from previous
years the years to come after, you know, twenty two
K nineteen. Also, I think it's a really good game.
(45:00):
So yeah, I think I'm right there with you. I
think this is going to be a double future endeavor
from both of.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Us here, double fee.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
All right, well, guys, let us know what you think
about two w W two K eighteen on social media
or leave a comment at game Marks Pod. But with that, John,
are you ready to get into the soft block question?
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Let's do it all right?
Speaker 3 (45:43):
The soft lock is the second on the podcast where
one of our mega marks in our discord gives us
a question to answer a topic to debate. It is
a question of the week with a fancy name, and
this episode the question comes from Jeff and J's question.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Is we love Jeff.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Nintendo just announced pre orders start this month for the
Switch to with a delivery date of June. They're also
hyping midnight drops at Best Buy for people with pre
orders in twenty twenty five. Are midnight drops still exciting
or has that faded away? Like Black Friday shopping?
Speaker 2 (46:22):
I'm so happy Black Friday shopping faded. That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Has it faded or has it evolved?
Speaker 2 (46:28):
It evolved in a good way. It's not we're at
midnight that on Thanksgiving worrying about buying a TV from Walmart.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Yeah, it's just changed in a way that everything has
gone more digital, which then by doing that allows you
to you know, focus on not leaving holidays early, which you.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Know what, shout out to TVs. Everything else has gone up.
TVs have just been like, you know what, we're gonna
stay in our threshold.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Of all of the shoutouts that we have ever had
on shout TVs, shout out to TVs might be a
new one.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
That's that's I've never gone up for TVs.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
You're this wild shout out.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
You're the real ones televisions. But okay, this is my thought.
It's cool. I think it's gonna be for people like
our age who used to do the midnight releases and
they want to, you know, feel that rush once again.
Camp out, get the switch to first person comes out
(47:32):
like I got it, everybody cheers. Or it's gonna be
for people who heard about them, maybe the younger crowd,
and are like I want to experience this, But it's
literally gonna be them walking up to a best Buy counter,
getting their switch and walking out because game stop is
always the place to be, not best Buy.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
I don't know. I kind of think it might still
hold up for console releases, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Like that's fine.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
I don't necessarily know because you you had said that
in the past, you had done one for Halo, Call.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
Of Duty, Call of Duty, Gears of War, Gears.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
I think it. I think it still holds up for
console releases. I just yeah, I think there's like you said,
there's a generation that grew up doing them, and now
that generation has kids, so they may want to be like,
look at, look at like what I used to do,
like when I was your age, and now yeah, you
(48:25):
get to do the Well, when I was your age,
we used to have to wait outside to get in
the video game. Uh, but you know, you get to
have that experience and and and share that experience of
how our generation used to do that. But then on
the flip side, like like you said, there's also probably
a generation or part of that generation that just heard
(48:49):
about all of that, so they may be like, yeah,
I do kind of want to experience that. I'm old
enough to experience that and do that. I think I
think a case could be made that there is still
a place for it, but I don't think it's as
big as it used to be, if that.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Makes If that makes sense, I agree it should be fun.
How are you feeling about the Switch too? You thinking
picking it up?
Speaker 3 (49:13):
I love the original Switch. I thought it was a
really interesting and unique console. And yeah, kind of kind
of excited to see what they're able to do with
the Switch to. But not not going to be a
a pre order or a day one buy or anything
like that for me. What about you?
Speaker 2 (49:30):
I you know me? This this podcast has documented it
very well. I've gone back and forth on the Switch
many times. Hey, I went back and forth on this
PC many times. Now look at me sitting here with
upgraded RAM, thanks Pink. I don't have use for a
Nintendo console. I don't think I'm going to buy a
console again until my daughter's able to play one, which
(49:52):
is going to be a few years. Ok Maybe then
i'll get her even like an OLED original Switch, not
the Switch to. But we'll see, we'll see what she likes.
I mean, she could sit here, she sits here playing
Bluie on my Xbox, but she just moves him into
the wall a bunch of times until I take over
and play Keep it uppy. Yeah, I don't. I don't
see myself playing a Switch. I'd rather Steam Deck.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Okay, I'd say maybe maybe that's that's the next step
for you. Maybe you look into getting yourself your own
Steam deck.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
We got time for that. We got time for that.
I don't need it yet.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
All right, well, guys, let us know on social media
or in the comment what you think about midnight releases
and if they still have a place in twenty twenty
five and beyond. And uh yeah with that, John, would
you like to let the people know what we are
playing next episode?
Speaker 2 (50:48):
All right? We played SmackDown Versus Raw twenty ten last
week and we're closing I think we're closing the SmackDown
Versus Raw series here. Oh yeah, this is the last one.
We're playing SmackDown Versus Raw two thy eleven.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Man, oh man, that's closing out the whole SmackDown Versus
Raw series with that one.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
Damn, I can't wait the last of the justin leepers
we have to play.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
Well, guys. With that, we want to remind you that
all of our video content is available over at YouTube
dot com, slash Game Marx Pod. You can check out
our exclusive store over at pod Exchange dot Shop and
of course our store Pro Wrestling Tees dot Com, Slash
Game Marx Pod at Game Marx Pod on all forms
(51:41):
of social media, and please make sure to like, comment, subscribe,
rings that notification bell and you haven't actually rung the
bell in so long that actually threw me off. Oh man,
And there is nothing else left to do but for
Johnny Clash to do that the.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Game over Marks.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
Game Marks Podcast.
Speaker 6 (52:12):
Put them on the radar, play a rare game, Second Saturn,
no game Shark. Johnny and George work hard, and they
play hard future endeavored games and put them in the
graveyard from the deep dive to the clash in the face.
I cannot give more and ask questions of the week,
follow one Twitch. There's nothing that they won't play game
(52:32):
Marks podcast every single Monday.
Speaker 3 (53:01):
Y
This is Tony Chimmel, and I'd like to introduce the
hosts of the game Marks Podcast, George Feast and Johnny Clash.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to the game Marks Podcast, where each and every
week we take a deep dive into the good, the bad,
and the awesome of all things wrestling video games. I'm
the man they call Johnny Clash and.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I am George Feasts, and today we are playing WWE
two K eighteen. We also talk about the switch to
and midnight releases.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
And please subscribe and leave a five star review for
this podcast on Apple, podcast, Spotify, all forms of social media.
Game Marks Pod give us a follow. We are here,
we are ready. We are playing at WWE two K eighteen. George,
how the hell are you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I am doing good, my friend. Another episode, another game.
But we can't start this episode with out talking about
last week we played WWE smackdun Versus Raw twenty ten.
How are you feeling about that?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
You know one of my favorite WWE games almost ever,
the nostalgia Rush back with the creative story mode and
all that, and it was just something it just brings
you back. It's one of those games. It's right up
there with the day of Reckonings and the WWE Nineteens
and all that for me, So I really loved it.
What about you?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, I'm right there with you, man. It's one of
those games we even talked about it. I still can't
remember definitively, but I do feel like this might have
been the game that brought me back into wrestling, but
it's definitely for sure, the SmackDown Versus Raws, It's in
that series. One of them kind of brought me back
into wrestling. And Yeah, very very happy to go back
(02:09):
and take a trip down memory lane to play that one.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
But I have a feeling we're not going to be
saying that about two K eighteen.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
You never know.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
We'll see, we'll see you never know.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
We're going to talk about the gameplay that we did
in a little bit because I think my memory of
that game, your experience playing that game was a surprise,
I think. But let's wrap up a couple of things
before we get into this week's deep dive. We wrapped
(02:39):
up our YouTube series g MP twenty four Mania is
live on the YouTube channel YouTube dot com Slash game
Marks Pods. Be sure to go and check that out.
We wrapped up the full season, and along with that,
mister Johnny Clash has his own announcement and what is that, sir?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
All right, so we kinda agreed we're not gonna be
doing GMP twenty five full say here first, it's not
gonna happen. It's a lot of work, a lot of
time goes into it. Not only are we recording this podcast,
We're gonna have to then go and spend an extra
hour or two to record that. So sorry, but GMP
twenty five is not gonna happen. Oh what there? I
(03:21):
will be kind of taking it over on my own
YouTube channel, Johnny Clash at Johnny Clash, and it is
called clash Tube Wrestling. The first show, Monday Meltdown, will
be out on May fifth, and it'll be at seven
pm every Monday from there on out. So YouTube dot
com slash at Johnny Clash, and you can find that
(03:42):
as well as my shitty Fortnite gameplay.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
So and of course if you want more Johnny Clash,
you can go and check out Twitch dot tv slash
Johnny fn Clash.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
You know what's funny if I go into chats and
I follow and the person's like, thank you for following
Johnny e fnklash. Lot of people have been saying thanks
for following Johnny Fortnite clash. I'm like, what the fuck?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I guess it is, But it's kind of both.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
That was the point to have that new window in there,
but to say the actual word out loud was kind
of weird.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah, and I think I've ever heard someone outright refer
to the FN as Fortnite in someone's name, But ye,
I could see why. That is kind of like the other.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, like maddi FN. No one's going hello Matty Fortnite.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I'm sure. I'm sure some people have.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
But just just a funny little start here. As I'm
looking at my reflection here. Have you been watching the
Last of US Season two?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I haven't started. I think my plan is. I think
my plan is I'm going to let the season run
and then watch it all.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
That's fair, because it is. It does suck waiting a week,
But Mike, I didn't think they could blow it out
of the water more than they already have. And oh
my god, like I.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Haven't heard spoilers. I have?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Did you play the game?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, yeah, you know the spoilers. It's literally frame by
frame everything, so far.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Okay, there's some added stuff, but if they're doing the
one to one, if they're stretching things out, because apparently
it's supposed to be like three or four seasons.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Now, I have a feeling I know where it could
end and pick up next season based on the second game.
But Mike, right now, it is visually incredible, visually incredible,
and the story. Like even my wife, who doesn't really
she really care that much about season one, this last
week's episode, she was glued to the TV. Al Right,
(05:40):
it was pretty awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I'm wearing a Last of Us shirt for people listening.
That's that's what That's what made me think of that.
But yeah, are you ready to play mister Seth Rollins' game?
WW two K eighteen.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Let's do it. Let's put on those nostalgia doggles and
take the deep dive.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
Guys, if you want your beard to be soft and
smell great, then you need Mad Cat Beardcare. Their products
are all natural and made to order with vitamins and
natural oils to moisturize your skin and to help make
your beard healthy and strong.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Our exclusive scent, Play It Forever, is a blood orange
black clove and vanilla scented beard bomb or beard oil
that can make your beard have a rich but not
overpowering scent. Plus a portion from their sales go towards
finding care for stray cats, covering their medical bills, and
finding them safe places and forever homes.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
Use code game marks to save yourself fifteen percent when
you place an order over at Madcatbeardcare dot com. That's
fifteen percent off with code game marks. And remember the
mad cat makes a happy beard.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
WWE two K eighteen released October seventeenth, twenty seventeen, four
PlayStation four, Windows, Xbox one, and the Nintendo Switch, which
has a different release date of December sixth, twenty seventeen.
Developed by Yukes, published by two K, and other wrestling
games in the year of twenty seventeen. You've got WWE Champions,
(07:28):
WWE Tatmania, WWE Mayhem, and Wrestling Revolution three D now.
WWE two K eighteen is the first game in the
series to be released exclusively on eighth generation hardware and
the first to be released for the PC end consoles simultaneously.
(07:53):
So this game has no three to sixty or PS
three release.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So I want to know right now, is this still
available for purchase.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
No, they turned off a lot of the older ww
two K titles on Steam. I want to say, with
two K twenty two.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, wow, I'm only seeing twenty four and twenty five
right now. But I remember last year you could go
all the way back, like pretty far.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah. I can't remember exactly what year they did they
did it, but I remember we talked about it the
on the podcast, like, oh, they removed you know however
many years back in the area of the PC releases,
and they even tried to do some some crossovers for
them as well.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
That's crazy. Yeah. This was also the first of the
series to be released on a Nintendo platform since WWE
thirteen and no. One of the worst switch ports of
a WWE game or we anything worst than tendo port
of a game. It didn't really work properly. It was
glitchy for some reason. It's still super expensive to buy,
(09:13):
but I think this is why, Yeah, this is why
we don't get these games everywhere anymore. And they're coming
around now, and I guess with the switch tubering released,
we'll see what happens. Some of that stuff looks pretty
crazy and it probably can handle the game now. I
don't know. I don't know. It's not something I would
(09:34):
have had for a switch, especially like the old ED version.
I don't know. It's a cool concept to feel like
you have that, like having a Steam deck now and
playing two K twenty five would be awesome, but you're
playing the PC version. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Yeah, I think that there was a period of the
crossovers or the ports to other consoles not necessarily living
up to other maybe mainstay consoles, where you know, with
the you know, PlayStation two versions of games, the station.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The versions they were all pretty bad.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, well, I was gonna says, it's all those those
mixing and matchings of trying to get the game to
function on different hardware with different limitations, and in some
instances you've got some really unique scenarios, unique scenarios such
as minigames for some of the PSP ports. But then
you also got some roster changes and exclusive content there
(10:38):
as well, which is interesting. It's not I don't know
if people necessarily were going out to specifically buy those
versions because of that, but it is a slight incentive
to go then. I'm sure that for certain people that
was like a big thing.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I guess I always feel like it's hard to classify
the switch as at because it is like a main console.
It's not primarily a handheld console.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
It's both. It's it's kind of like you're walking both
both lines.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Unless you're a kid, I don't feel like you would
have one of these games on a handheld console as
your primary game. It would be the extra that you're
taking with you somewhere to play when you're away from
your console.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, it's yeah. I think that's like how we we've
talked in the past about you know, you had your
and sixty four your your PlayStation, but then you also
had your game Boy that had ping of the Ring
or whatever on it, like and you were just like,
this isn't the same experience, but I'm enjoying it because
it's a wrestling game and I have this little console
(11:46):
that I can take with me.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah. I still would love to just have that, not
play tap Mania all the time. But let's talk about
the new features here. So among the other features that
two K were promoting its enhanced graphics, but also the
return of Current Angle as a playable character, which is
awesome I get. I think two versions of him will
go over that in a little bit. It's the first
time since SmackDown Just bring It that eight wrestlers are
(12:09):
allowed to be in a match at once. Before this,
it was only six. The Royal Rumble match has been
retooled with new mechanics, new finishers, and new elimination sequences.
I feel like lately we've been hearing that a lot.
I think in SVR ten there was also a revamp
to the Royal Rumble, so that's cool that they're constantly
redoing that. And of course when we got two K
twenty two, it was revamped once again.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
This was the season the series where the carry system
was introduced, which we're still using today. It still works
pretty much the same way today too, something that confused
me for a long time, but I think I finally
have a little bit of a handle on it. So
new commentary team from Monday Night Raw you get Michael
Cole and SmackDown you get Byron Saxton and a dual
(12:52):
Brandon commentator, Corey Graves. I wish I could say that
this was something they improved on going forward, but we
pretty much get the same voice lines today, which kind
of sucks.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
I think you get like additions for like few moves
and stuff, but it's just the audio quality's gotten better,
and I'm sure that there's you know, when they go
into the booths to do these they're doing hundreds and
hundreds of reads, so there's crossover that they're still able
to use.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
I bet now I'm wondering when AI takes over and
they record a few lines and then it's just free game.
They can make anything happen without them actually being in
the booth, kind of like James Old Jones giving his
voice to Star Wars Forever, so he's forever Darth Vader.
They can make that happen.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Now when I hadn't thought about that, When.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Is AI just going to be commentary? Michael cole goes
in says the key Bond's key words, but they take
his voice and can make literally anything that happens be
said in a video game.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
I hadn't thought about that being a possibility, but that
is a very real possibility.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Very real. I don't know how cool it is as
long as you know the voice actor is still getting
paid the same amount or more. But that's that's a
whole nother comversation. The crowd sound is also improved to
feature authentic crowd chants for entrances and during a match.
We definitely noticed that during our yep our gameplay. New
(14:10):
feature includes the ability to create your own custom matches
and save them for future use in exhibition mode Universe
still online, you could still do now. And I remember
this being like mind blowing, But I also never knew
like what match to create, Like what do I want
to do that's different, that's not on here already. But
then once you get in there, you could be like, oh, okay,
(14:31):
there's a million options here and you could create oh.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah, there's It's one of those one of those situations
where you you really have to have a clear picture
in your head of the exact match you want before
you go in there. But like you said, there's so
many different options, so many different styles that you can
select to really kind of make your own, your own
special situation.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Like I can see that really big in Universe mode,
especially after like we just were talking about GMP twenty four,
there were so many things that we had to customize,
and I think it's perfect for that.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
All right, this will have to wait and see what
you ever to put together over for Clash Tube.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Ooh, we'll see, we'll see my career now allows backstage roaming,
which was last scene in SmackDown Versus Raud twenty eleven's
Road to WrestleMania mode, so that's finally coming back. Universe
mode has been improved with a new story system along
with new cut scenes, power rankings, and a goal system.
Now your game modes here. Obviously, you have your play modes,
(15:28):
which are your exhibitions. Will get into the match types
in a little bit. You could customize your player which
is under my Player, Universe creations, Community Creations, Online, my
WWE options, and store. Okay, there's a lot to unpack here.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Now.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I mentioned during the playthrough, I didn't know if I
ever played this game, and this was definitely a year
I skipped. I didn't know for sure, but early early,
early in the podcast with me and you talked about
how much loved nineteen. You said you didn't get nineteen
or maybe you got a little later because the loot
(16:05):
crates in two K eighteen turned you off. Yeah, that
wasn't something I remembered. And you know what's crazy, we
were only two years after this when we started the podcast,
so like two K twenty was the game that came
out that year, which was nuts and what a year
to start a gaming podcast when two k skips two years.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Of games, That's true.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I was so silly, But yeah, I don't remember. And
then once we got into like the menu and the
character select screen, which I loved, I didn't remember that
at all. So I think I could solidly say I
went from either sixteen or seventeen. I think I had
the Brocklesner cover, so seventeen yeah, straight to nineteen.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah. This this game I played a lot when it
came out. It was just, you know, to go through
the my player and the you know, everything that goes
along with that and try to build out something in
universe with your create addrestler. To have so many things
to develop your player, all locked behind these Luke Crates,
(17:06):
loot boxes, loot system whatever they referred to it as,
it was just it was such a vast change from
what it had been, at least in my experience, in
my memory that I was just like, oh man, this
is not how I remember this system being. But you know,
(17:28):
them wwe trying to keep up with the times. Luke Crates,
loop boxes, that lottery system however you want to refer
to it, that was the thing that was popular, so
they were just trying to keep it topical and up
to date with everything else.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
So this was the year I started playing Fortnite, So
I think that may have something to do with why
I didn't buy it, because that's where all my time
went to. But I think with the loot crates and
all that, they were really trying to be like the
NHL that maddens and all the EA games where they
include that weird system of loot. But now it's turned
(18:06):
into cards and now it's turned into I forget Hockey
Ultimate Team like that one. Now it's turned into what
the hell is the one called in two K now
my Faction?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Oh? The my Faction cards?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, it's turned into that. So I think that's where
it stems from, and that's where it goes. And it's
just so hokey and like you just don't It adds
an extra layer of annoyance to try to play the
game the way you want to play it.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah, And like I said, the loot create in the
sense of two K eighteen only affects the my player.
It doesn't really affect any other outside at least to
my memory and my knowledge of that it didn't affect
any other part of the game. It just was the
my player. So if that's not something that you particularly
(18:54):
invest a lot of time in or anything like that,
then it's just a regular old WWE game that has
the same play mechanics and experience that you remember from
years past. All right, well, how about we break down
some of these match types here in WWE two K eighteen,
because you have the standard fare of matches that you
(19:15):
would come to expect. You've got your normal, your false
count anywhere, Backstage Brawl, Extreme Rules, a ladder table, TLC hell,
and a cell steelcage, Last Man Standing, Noah holds barred submission,
iron Man Battle Royal Elimination Chamber, which was revamped both
with the new and old structure style. You have the
(19:37):
eight man tag match which is new, the eight man
Ladder Match which is new, an eight man Battle Royal,
a handicapped match with one versus two and one versus three.
You have a ten man Royal Rumble, a twenty man
Royal Rumble, a thirty man Royal Rumble, and of course
the tournaments, which is a one v one a tag
team tournament, and the Dusty Rhodes.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Classic ooh, so not much different than you're getting today,
which is crazy. Of course, you're getting the war games
and a few other additions. Now we have the ambulance
and the casket match. But this was what you were
getting for many many years, and this didn't change for
a while.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
No, it's just standard fair and it's a good spread
of match types and kind of getting a little bit
of something for everybody.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, but let's take a quick break here and we're
gonna come back. We're going to talk about my player,
universe mode and this roster here. All right, let's talk
about my player. This is something I wasn't familiar with,
but I remembered it moving forward from two K nineteen.
(20:48):
This is where you create your own superstar. You level
them up through matches and storyline progression, you pick their
fighting style, and you pretty much do your road to
glory or your career through this hub. This is where
you will take your character through the backstage hallways and
you run into different wrestlers, different managers, officials, and you
(21:11):
could really do kind of I don't want to say
whatever you want, because it's not really whatever you want,
but this is where you drive your own story.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
It's very less linear progression than you had, where it's
just like you have a match, it goes to the
next cut scene. You have a match, it goes to
the next cutscene.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
It's kind of like what we get now, which is
a simplified version of this. I like the my rise
because you will be able to just choose between like
the three or four people standing in front of you.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Not let me check this locker room, let me check
this hallway, let me see who's over here. Maybe I
miss something important, Maybe this would have gotten me VC
or something, and now I missed it. I like this,
it's just right in front of you. It's just so
much easier.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Yeah. And I always used to have like those little
easter eggs when you were walking around, Like I remember
there was like, you know, se posters for like all
the events and stuff like that, and you'd be like,
you know, they have stuff like that in all of
the games when there was any kind of backstage chegments.
But when it's you, there's a little bit of exploration.
It kind of makes it like a little bit of
(22:14):
an easter egg hunt.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
So I want to check. Actually, I mentioned that they're
actually using the real signs that go backstage now. Yeah,
I don't remember if they actually did that back then too,
so I can't really find anything right now, but that
would be cool to see. So this is actually what
I'm remembering from YouTube. I just saw this the two
(22:38):
k My Career Episode one, A new saga begins. It's
you going into NXT in the performance center talking to
Matt Bloom. I remember watching this promo video that denk
Ops posted at the time, and I was like, this
is so cool. I can't wait to play this game.
And for some reason, I just didn't do it.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I wonder. I guess, like you said, Fortnite was uh
at the.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Time hl UFC. I was playing all that. Yeah, for
some reason, I just didn't do it.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Hmmma. But then you said you came back for nineteen
with Ajane.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I loved nineteen. Yeah, nineteen was great, And I still remember,
like you know, how you visualize certain things, like I
remember my PC set up in my old room like
where it was, and I had the PlayStation going into
that into the monitor, and I remember sitting there playing
like through the NXT storyline so vividly crazy, just like
I remember my old apartment sitting there with what was
(23:34):
the beef stick or whatever it was in two K
twenty oh Ribby. Yeah, playing with Ruby on the big TV. Yeah,
Like it's crazy how you remember that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah, it's you're You're absolutely right. It's crazy how certain
video game memories stick with you, but you get the
memories of like it's not just your experience, it's the environment.
I remember I was in this room playing with this
just like you said, like in this room with this setup,
like this game.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It's wild how you remember that. I will say this
about the Luke Crates. I'm glad that they are purchased
with VC and not with actual money, So that makes
it a little better. Yeah, sure there's somewhere you can.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It does kind of. I don't know. The more I
think about it now, I think I was just I
was frustrated because it was so different, and I don't
necessarily think it's a bad thing. Like it kind of
does give you the feeling of you are a new wrestler.
You are you are it's every I like that, every
(24:44):
every episode. Now there's like a song break where for
you saying it's great. Uh. It does kind of make
you feel you're starting as a as a new wrestler,
like you're you get to kind of evolve your mood
set and it's not like you can just go in
and pick all the crazy moves. But I guess there's
(25:06):
kind of, like, you know, there's an argument to be
made from both both sides here, Like if you want
that super realistic the randomness, like you know, you don't
necessarily get to pick the crazy, powerful strong move set
where you're doing, you know, a four fifty after you know,
you know, off the top rope, it's a springboard onto
the outside, everything's a four fifty. But at the same time,
(25:31):
sometimes that's what you want. So it's I could see
an argument made for both. But at the time, I
was just like, why wrestling games should have loot creates.
I shouldn't have to have all this stuff. But I
do understand the like you can apply a logic and
a reasoning to it.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
So that's something what you were saying. How like you
start from the performance center, n XTAM work up. We've
seen that in a lot of games. A lot of
games just send you in already as a wrestler, and
that's fine too. I was seeing the new I saw
the new Madden trailer today and it's like start from
college or high school and work your way up to
the NFL, like it's the same thing every year. Like
(26:11):
that's not a selling point anymore. Do something different, like
you do the combine, you do all the fun stuff,
and now you're in the NFL, and then it's just
a regular career mode leading up to it. Now I
get it. It's a real sport. It's not wrestling. You
don't have storylines. I mean, given the draft today at
the time of recording, there is a storyline, and it's
pretty funny with someone not being drafted. But with wrestling,
(26:34):
it that's different every time, Like it doesn't have to
be like you're in the performance center, then you make
your way up and blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah. They and they've done a good job in the
past of kind of moving the storylines around enough where
there's a uniqueness. But they've done a really good job
over the past couple of years of kind of making
them unique in the sense of it's not like what
you were saying. It's not always you start from point A,
(27:03):
you go to point B, that leads you to point C.
They've done a good job in the my Rise modes
where it's there are unique scenarios where it's like, you
know the one that was a couple of years ago
where it's like your aunt was a really famous wrestler,
or the lock storyline a lock, like those are very
like those were different. It all kind of feels the same,
(27:27):
like they've done some kind of version like that in
the past, but there's always like a little twist or
a little change, or like there's this element that's different
that you're like, oh, kind of wasn't expecting you to
go that way, and that's kind of cool and different.
I feel like they've been doing a lot of that
more and more recently.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yeah. Also included is Road to Glory mode, which you
do through My Player as well, which is similar to
the one in supercart where it's an online mode where
you compete in events and you earn rewards and you
kind of just con next to your stats and boost them.
And of course Universe Mode is in here, which is
your sandbox where you could pretty much act as the
(28:05):
GM and book your own shows, manage your rivalries. You
could either take control of a wrestler or make your own,
or just do shows just for the hell of doing shows.
Now this roster it's massive. I don't want to read
it all. You don't want to read it all, easily
available on SmackDown Hotel if you want to go check
it out. But scrolling through that character select screen it
(28:29):
was awesome. I brought up the question to you, do
you like when they used to be in game renders
or do you like now where it's an actual picture
of the wrestler themselves. I'm kind of a little biased
towards having the in game renders because that's what day
Reckoning did and like all the games I liked did,
but also like in two K twenty five you have
(28:50):
Ava Moreno and all what cole cart what's his name?
Ca cole Quinn where they are renders because they're not
real people, and then you go to like the Undertaker, he's real.
It's like, it's kind of like a disconnect in the
roster page. Yeah, they were all in game.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to that either.
I actually think I think I might agree with you
on that. I think I think there is a certain
level again, I get the feeling, I get the understanding
for both where it's like you have these iconic wrestlers
where you know, maybe the game I mean that's a
(29:28):
different problem in itself, but maybe in certain iterations of
the characters, you're not necessarily capturing the likeness of the
person as well as the render maybe would do like
the I say the word render, I mean, like the
actual photography of the real wrestler. You know, it's a
real picture of the Undertaker. But I understand why you
(29:52):
might want that, but yeah, I think I personally prefer
when it's the actual in game graphics because it kind
of takes you on that whole journey, Like it sets
you up right from the get go, Like you're seeing
the match graphics, you're seeing the renders of the wrestler
in that style of the game that you're playing. It's
(30:13):
it almost kind of feels like a throwback to the
sprite iconography that they would use back in like yes
ny s and NYS days, Like you just would see
the sprite and then the sprite in most cases looks
like the wrestler that you're going to play in the match.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
This Legends roster is a massive we were saying, this
whole thing is a time warp of twenty seventeen NXT
like crazy crazy, there is two five Live. There is
Jimmy Garvins in here. He's only ever in two K
seventeen and eighteen. Those are the only games ever. Correct
(30:51):
me if I'm wrong. Somebody stings Larry's Abisco, like, what
is this game? Yes, Michael Albert, this is crazy.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Yeah, I mean you're right. The Legends roster is almost
as big as the Raw and SmackDown roster combined.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
So why Buddy Roberts is in here? I can't imagine
he was in any other games. Yeah, same seventeen and eighteen.
So for some reason in this time period they were
just like, what like Tatsumi Fujinami's in.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Here, it's Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
I think, oh, back when they did the Hall of Fame,
everybody's in there. Wild. Now, let's talk about this cover
here because I like it. It's pretty cool. This is
you know, fifteen sixteen seventeen they started going with the
same type of theme here, and uh, this time it's
Seth Rollins and his black and gold main mugging the
(31:58):
camera with the same type both background we've seen for
many years. We kind of went away from this and
now and we get more artistic style backgrounds. But this
was two K at the time, and it looks looks awesome.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yeah, the branding big and in the center. You know
that it's a wrestling game right out of the gate,
just because that WWE logo is large and prominent right
right here. You get it. And then when you flip
over to the back, got a bunch of screenshots of wrestlers,
not mad shots, which I think is interesting.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, it's all like entrances and stuff. Yeah, huh out.
Now this is what I actually wanted to check. It
has everything in here the one I bought. Like, does
this Supercard code work?
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Do we want to do a live check right now?
Deluxe edition? Got kurd angle on there? Rod van Dam
use the code below for down notable content. Well, I'm
not going to turn my PS four on right now,
so maybe we'll try that another time. I miss getting
a book with a game. All right, let's scan this
(33:10):
Supercard code. It felt weird buying a PlayStation four game
and installing it and hearing that music again, that background,
Like whatever, all right, I'm in Supercard's lock them in. Okay,
(33:32):
I haven't played this in a while, so I gotta
go through like the end.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
User and all that stuff on the paper itself, there's
nothing that says like offer expires and code expires in
the bottom. That's not all that, I'll tell you're right
from the its.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
It's making me do a tutorial though. That's not fun.
So we could move on and I could come back
to this. Let's talk about the graphics here.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Ah We we touched upon this in the playthrough on
our YouTube channel. It looks and feels exactly how you
would expect a wrestling game on PlayStation four or Xbox
to feel. I think the main difference that we said
that we've noticed maybe between current gen games in this
(34:18):
generation is maybe the textures and the polygon counts are
a little higher, maybe the hair physics are different. But
like lighting, the stages, the entrances, the lighting, it all
still feels right on par I think that this holds
up pretty well. Crowd still looks great, ring canvas and
(34:39):
textures all look good. It's just you know, as good
as it could be on the hardware.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
That's yeah, That's what we say a lot during these
there's really no where you can go from what console
you're on, what you're playing like. It's still ww game.
Until we got two K twenty, everything was on par
everything was the same. I'm going to go out and
say two K twenty was a blessing in disguise because
maybe they wouldn't have made the changes and had the
games we have now and how good they are without
(35:07):
that disaster happening.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
You know, that's a very good way of looking at it,
and hindsight, you know, I think that you're You're right.
It kind of was a blessing in disguise.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah, I think this game two K eighteen looks amazing
and at the time we were probably like, oh my god,
how does it get better than this? Two K nineteen
kind of pretty much the same look and feel. I
really felt like the NXT are and it looked sick.
It was cool to see all that once again, the
high school gym like all that. You're like, this is
(35:40):
a really good looking game. How come we go up?
We couldn't go up. We went down for some reason.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
But may for for a long time, a lot of
these games were just you're getting the updated rosters, the
updated entrances, the updated you know, the WrestleMania stages change.
If NXT stages changed. When they change raw stages, like
you're getting all those current little upgrades or updates to
make it feel a little bit more current. But as
(36:08):
what happens with most wrestling games, by the time they release,
major changes always happened, and then within a couple of
months they are outdated, just from from a content or
a stage or a design standpoint. Logos change, people's gimmicks change,
and then you know, got to go and download all
the updates from the community creeds to make it all
(36:31):
feel a little bit more current.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Yeah, the HUD was small, out of the way, little crowded,
like we remember it to be. They use that one
for a while. I mean now it's kind of it's
similar to what we have now. Nothing really changed there.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
The pin minigame is the circle where you got to
stop it in the green mark. Not my favorite, but
that's what we get. There's not much to talk about here.
I mean, if we're acting like this is our first
time playing this game, I thought it came across pretty cool.
I mean, it was my first time playing this game.
I'm talking about like the series because it is so
similar to the previous and what came after. Yeah, but
(37:10):
did you know, did you know WW two K eighteen
had the largest roster in WWE game history at the time,
with over one hundred and seventy playable characters, including the Legends,
n XT Stars, and more.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Did you know? Road to Glory, a new online mode,
lets you compete with your mind player in events sinned
with real life WWEE pay per views.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Did you know? WW two K eighteen is on eBay
from seven to twelve dollars used, fifteen dollars sealed, and
the switch version is fifty dollars. Now, the scene enough version,
which you're about to talk about, is one hundred dollars,
but if you get complete with the plaque, you get
for one hundred and fifty dollars. So that's a few
(37:59):
things unpack here. First of all, card Angle announced his DLC,
and it seems like he announced it accidentally because his
tweet at the time said I do a lot of
things prematurely, and tweeting is one of them. But it's true.
I'm official pre order bonus for two K eighteen. And yeah,
he posted the cover. It seemed like he posted it
(38:20):
and they were like, hey, you weren't supposed to do
that yet.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Maybe he did it like a day early, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
But I guess it all worked out now, the Scene
Enough version. I had the John Cena plaque somewhere. I
think I sold it on eBay, but I remember I
only bought it someone I think in the Major Pod
Facebook group. It was like it was an impulse buy
because it was there. It's only like fifteen bucks at
(38:45):
the time, and it comes with the John Cena like
the ring matt and an autograph like why wouldn't I
buy that?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Yeah, that's that's a that's a good deal.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
But you get, let's see what you get in this
Scene Enough version. You get the unique cover fifteen years
of John Cena, which is crazy where we've come to now,
an exclusive Mattel action figure featuring John Cena with his
Scene Enough T shirt, a Fanatics limited edition commemorative plaque
that's the one I was talking about with his sixteenth
(39:13):
title win at the Royal Rumble twenty seventeen, as well
as hand signed signature a limited edition supercard game Seeing
Enough card that features John Cena Batista Rovan Dam. Only
thirty thousand copies of this were available. Looks like there's
some John Cena Prince in here, some card angle prints
that come with it now, the digital or not digital,
(39:36):
I guess at the time. The Deluxe version comes with
the season pass playable versions of Batista RVD two, John
Cena's two krd angles, his One night Stand appearance and
his WrestleMania twenty six and Kurt Angle. You get the
Olympic Gold Medalist like the original debut Kurt Angle and
back when he was like world heavyweight champion. So, man,
(40:00):
pretty good stuff. I there's a chance I do still
have this John Cena plaque somewhere, but I could go
in my eBay search history and see if I sold it,
but by now it's probably gone. So but all right,
let's sit back for a minute. Let's go over these
ratings and reviews some R and R. Metacritic gives the
(40:23):
PC version of sixty four ooh ps four sixty six,
then Nintendo Switch thirty five, and the Xbox won a
sixty seven. Wait, the Nintendo Switch a thirty five out
of one hundred. Wow, that is not good. It is
not good. Destructoid a five out of ten, Game Informer
six out of ten, Game Spot five out of ten,
game Radar Plus a four out of five stars, ign
(40:45):
A seven out of ten, and the Switch a three
point eight out of ten. Oh, ign with a weird rating,
go figure Nintendo Life with the three out of ten stars,
and Nintendo World with a three out of ten. Now
even Nintendo is giving their own game a bad rating,
which is okay, you know, it's a little well odd.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
Very interesting, very very interesting radio a little a little
all over the place here.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Could also have something to do with why I didn't
buy the game. It was just bad. Maybe I knew
someone that said, yeah, don't bother.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
It's possible maybe you knew someone that got it and
was just like, hey, Either it feels to say, I
know that I had friends that would skip every year,
or skip every other year, or only buy it like
once every you know, two or three years, just because
they were like, it's the same thing, You're just getting
updated rosters, and like they're not really they would wait
to see if they were like massive changes to the game.
(41:39):
So it's it's very possible that you had spoke to
someone who maybe he had already got it, and you were
just like, eh, I just wait, I'll get you know, nineteen,
or I'll wait and see what happens.
Speaker 6 (41:49):
And.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
You know, hindsight again, maybe I wouldn't have enjoyed two
K nineteen as much. If possible, I did get this.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
It is very very possible.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Tutorial is done. Let's try the supercard code again.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
It takes me to the app store, which is kind
of annoying because I own the app. Bro. No, don't
scan Seth's face. Let's get the QR code. Mm hmm.
It just takes you to the app page. So I'm
thinking it's dead. But hey, I'll keep trying and I'll report.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
The actual code. Maybe there's like a promo code. Type
in and redeem.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Nah, it says scan now to receive one Ultimate Seth Rollins,
three Elite Superstar cards, and one limited edition two K
eighteen card back. I have to imagine it's expired at
this moment in time, many years later.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, it's only been a little bit, all right, John,
We've heard the ratings and reviews from the websites and magazines.
Are you ready to get into our reviews because it
is now time right the game?
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Look all right, Johnny clash w W two K eighteen.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Will you play it forever or future? Endeavor?
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Let me tell you something, George, I bought this game
on eBay two weeks ago. It's gonna go back on
eBay tomorrow. This is a big old future endeavor. I
have no nostalgia goggles here for this game like I
do two K nineteen, which still sits to my right.
(43:52):
Could play it forever, legit, play it forever. Uh yeah,
I don't need it. It seems like there's nothing I
would go back and play, nothing holding me in. I
would play nineteen for this roster. It's not that different.
And yeah, just a future endeavor, Just a future endeavor.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Yeah. Well, I'm gonna keep it short and sweet. I'm
right there with you. Yeah, I will say it is.
The loot crate system is not something that stands out
to me about this game anymore, because I think I've
come around to the idea that it does kind of
help to tie in that story. I don't necessarily have
(44:39):
that strong feelings about it as I did when it
first came out. But yeah, I'm right there with you.
There's nothing really that sets the game apart from previous
years the years to come after, you know, twenty two
K nineteen. Also, I think it's a really good game.
(45:00):
So yeah, I think I'm right there with you. I
think this is going to be a double future endeavor
from both of.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Us here, double fee.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
All right, well, guys, let us know what you think
about two w W two K eighteen on social media
or leave a comment at game Marks Pod. But with that, John,
are you ready to get into the soft block question?
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Let's do it all right?
Speaker 3 (45:43):
The soft lock is the second on the podcast where
one of our mega marks in our discord gives us
a question to answer a topic to debate. It is
a question of the week with a fancy name, and
this episode the question comes from Jeff and J's question.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Is we love Jeff.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Nintendo just announced pre orders start this month for the
Switch to with a delivery date of June. They're also
hyping midnight drops at Best Buy for people with pre
orders in twenty twenty five. Are midnight drops still exciting
or has that faded away? Like Black Friday shopping?
Speaker 2 (46:22):
I'm so happy Black Friday shopping faded. That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Has it faded or has it evolved?
Speaker 2 (46:28):
It evolved in a good way. It's not we're at
midnight that on Thanksgiving worrying about buying a TV from Walmart.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Yeah, it's just changed in a way that everything has
gone more digital, which then by doing that allows you
to you know, focus on not leaving holidays early, which you.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Know what, shout out to TVs. Everything else has gone up.
TVs have just been like, you know what, we're gonna
stay in our threshold.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Of all of the shoutouts that we have ever had
on shout TVs, shout out to TVs might be a
new one.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
That's that's I've never gone up for TVs.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
You're this wild shout out.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
You're the real ones televisions. But okay, this is my thought.
It's cool. I think it's gonna be for people like
our age who used to do the midnight releases and
they want to, you know, feel that rush once again.
Camp out, get the switch to first person comes out
(47:32):
like I got it, everybody cheers. Or it's gonna be
for people who heard about them, maybe the younger crowd,
and are like I want to experience this, But it's
literally gonna be them walking up to a best Buy counter,
getting their switch and walking out because game stop is
always the place to be, not best Buy.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
I don't know. I kind of think it might still
hold up for console releases, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Like that's fine.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
I don't necessarily know because you you had said that
in the past, you had done one for Halo, Call.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
Of Duty, Call of Duty, Gears of War, Gears.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
I think it. I think it still holds up for
console releases. I just yeah, I think there's like you said,
there's a generation that grew up doing them, and now
that generation has kids, so they may want to be like,
look at, look at like what I used to do,
like when I was your age, and now yeah, you
(48:25):
get to do the Well, when I was your age,
we used to have to wait outside to get in
the video game. Uh, but you know, you get to
have that experience and and and share that experience of
how our generation used to do that. But then on
the flip side, like like you said, there's also probably
a generation or part of that generation that just heard
(48:49):
about all of that, so they may be like, yeah,
I do kind of want to experience that. I'm old
enough to experience that and do that. I think I
think a case could be made that there is still
a place for it, but I don't think it's as
big as it used to be, if that.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Makes If that makes sense, I agree it should be fun.
How are you feeling about the Switch too? You thinking
picking it up?
Speaker 3 (49:13):
I love the original Switch. I thought it was a
really interesting and unique console. And yeah, kind of kind
of excited to see what they're able to do with
the Switch to. But not not going to be a
a pre order or a day one buy or anything
like that for me. What about you?
Speaker 2 (49:30):
I you know me? This this podcast has documented it
very well. I've gone back and forth on the Switch
many times. Hey, I went back and forth on this
PC many times. Now look at me sitting here with
upgraded RAM, thanks Pink. I don't have use for a
Nintendo console. I don't think I'm going to buy a
console again until my daughter's able to play one, which
(49:52):
is going to be a few years. Ok Maybe then
i'll get her even like an OLED original Switch, not
the Switch to. But we'll see, we'll see what she likes.
I mean, she could sit here, she sits here playing
Bluie on my Xbox, but she just moves him into
the wall a bunch of times until I take over
and play Keep it uppy. Yeah, I don't. I don't
see myself playing a Switch. I'd rather Steam Deck.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Okay, I'd say maybe maybe that's that's the next step
for you. Maybe you look into getting yourself your own
Steam deck.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
We got time for that. We got time for that.
I don't need it yet.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
All right, well, guys, let us know on social media
or in the comment what you think about midnight releases
and if they still have a place in twenty twenty
five and beyond. And uh yeah with that, John, would
you like to let the people know what we are
playing next episode?
Speaker 2 (50:48):
All right? We played SmackDown Versus Raw twenty ten last
week and we're closing I think we're closing the SmackDown
Versus Raw series here. Oh yeah, this is the last one.
We're playing SmackDown Versus Raw two thy eleven.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Man, oh man, that's closing out the whole SmackDown Versus
Raw series with that one.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
Damn, I can't wait the last of the justin leepers
we have to play.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
Well, guys. With that, we want to remind you that
all of our video content is available over at YouTube
dot com, slash Game Marx Pod. You can check out
our exclusive store over at pod Exchange dot Shop and
of course our store Pro Wrestling Tees dot Com, Slash
Game Marx Pod at Game Marx Pod on all forms
(51:41):
of social media, and please make sure to like, comment, subscribe,
rings that notification bell and you haven't actually rung the
bell in so long that actually threw me off. Oh man,
And there is nothing else left to do but for
Johnny Clash to do that the.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Game over Marks.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
Game Marks Podcast.
Speaker 6 (52:12):
Put them on the radar, play a rare game, Second Saturn,
no game Shark. Johnny and George work hard, and they
play hard future endeavored games and put them in the
graveyard from the deep dive to the clash in the face.
I cannot give more and ask questions of the week,
follow one Twitch. There's nothing that they won't play game
(52:32):
Marks podcast every single Monday.
Speaker 3 (53:01):
Y
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!