WWE 2K19 is a solid step up from last year’s title. It offers a bit more in terms of content, and a deeper MyPlayer mode. I still wish they would ease up on the control scheme complication a bit, maybe shifting back to an easier control scheme that focuses on fun, rather than trying to make the wrestling experience a challenge. Wrestling is a fun sport to watch, so controlling it should be equally as fun. Definitely a solid release overall, though, so you won’t be disappointed.
I’m from back in the day when the WWE was called the WWF, you know before animals took it back. I attended Wrestlemania V as a kid, saw Trump there when he had a solid amount of hair, and played my heart out in wrestling games for years. I’m a veteran, but also a newbie to this new form of WWE. Anyway, I’ve been through the gambit of games from the WWE over the last few decades. I cut my teeth on the Wrestlemania arcade game back in the day and dived right into the WCW days on the N64. I really do enjoy wrestling for a bevy of reasons, but none more than it’s fun entertainment — both on television and in game form.
Having said that, WWE 2K19 brings some new form to an old concept and throws out some new additions to its world in hopes that they will stick. For the most part, the modes are robust, fun, and what you would expect from the series. The highlight of it all, at least in my opinion, is the career mode, MyPlayer, which can stretch out the gameplay experience quite significantly. Let’s dig right into that to start this review out.
The joy of MyPlayer, as many of you WWE fans know, is creating an outrageous personality that you can take all the way to the top. My guy, John Smallberries (a name I have used over many video games), went through an extensive visual transformation before settling into his powder-white skin and pink eyes. As with previous career modes in the WWE series, you can select every aspect of your wrestler’s attributes, including body type, wrestling type, and even finishing move. While this hasn’t honestly changed in theme over the series’ most recent releases, this is still very deep and adds some sick joy, and proper joy, to the wrestling experience.
Once made, you send your wrestler off into the wrestling world to make a name for themselves. The first stop, at least for Smallberries, was NXT. As you progress through each wrestler, you can earn XP, which can equal out to a number of progressions that can push you to the top. If you lose on the way up, you still get XP, but you never really push beyond what is in front of you. Consider this a tip of the hat to fighting games, such as the Wrestlemania game from yesteryear, and the linear progression style of the gameplay structure. If you don’t win, you lose and stay in place. It makes sense, it works, but that doesn’t mean the process is easy.
The biggest obstacles I had in MyPlayer, as well as throughout WWE in general, was the controls. The controls in the gameplay are a mixture of a Mortal Kombat-esque control scheme (getting the right button combination to perform a move — it makes sense, but not easy), quick time events (hit R2 at the right time to counter — too accurate of a demand), and sitting and waiting for your wrestler to get up. I know that the controls have been somewhat improved over the years, it’s far less frustrating, but it’s still a big obstacle sometimes, and quite frankly the sit and wait portion of the control scheme is infuriating. That is when you get knocked silly, your stamina and health are low, and you just don’t have the energy to get up. So you sit and wait until you get up. And sit. And wait. Sit-wait. There’s nothing you can do to get your player up off the ground. That’s so maddening. What happened to the day where you can just tap-tap-tap-tap a button multiple times to get up? The more damage you take, the more tapping there should be, so why can’t I do that with this game? It seems like something has been lost in translation over the years with this series, where reality has taken place over fun. Even the WCW N64 days didn’t feel like this, which is probably why we all adore that video game wrestling experience. Anyway, not to kill the game over controls, because they are bearable, and there are far more positives than negatives, but the controls have got to be improved next year. They really need it badly.
Outside of controls, and MyPlayer, which is reasonably tiered as you progress in the game, there are other fun modes to crow about in WWE 2K19.
While Showcase isn’t exactly new, I loved the way it was set up, though it is, at least in terms of gameplay, in the same vein as MyCareer. You play as Daniel Bryan, who sits and recounts on camera (the real-life version of the wrestler) about how he came up in the ranks of WWE. It’s a nicely done segment that sheds some real light on Bryan. As he tells his stories, he gets to matches, which the player gets to try out. Those matches are not easy, but with every win, more is unlocked about his story, as well as more matches unlocked. I wish more of these were done with other wrestlers, as I would probably be satisfied to sit back and watch them. I think playing their achievements and matches adds a very intimate touch to the entire Showcase concept. I really enjoyed this portion fo the game.
Other modes worth mentioning include the 2K Towers, which have multiple towers you can play through. One particular tower in this year’s release, if you couldn’t tell from the cover, is AJ Stylers Million Dollar Tower. That involves taking down 15 opponents without any health regeneration, and if you lose once, then you’re done. The Dark Souls of wrestling modes, ladies and gentlemen. It’s neat, it’s frustrating, it’s challenging. I tried this for a couple of hours before just throwing in the towel. It’s brutal folks, and if I didn’t have other things on the horizon in the review world, I would probably still be playing it. Alas, there is no rest for the reviewing wicked during this holiday season.
Beyond some new and improved items, such as the above, you still get a boatload of characters, as well as ways to play the game online and offline. New and improved caged matches, ladder matches, and other cool wrestling ways to wrestle. You also get multi-player modes (5,6,8, and Royal Rumble), and single player matches with a huge amount of wrestlers to select from, both male and female. There’s not a lot to complain about with WWE 2K19 when it comes to the amount of content it delivers, and how that content can be played out. There really isn’t too much of a good thing with this game. It is greedy and fun.
Before wrapping up, let me also add that the visuals have been improved dramatically. The models seem to have shifted from trying to accurately duplicate real world skins, and have shifted back to a mixture of arcade looking models with far better lighting and texture this time around. I’m not sure how or what they did to improve the models, maybe they updated the engine slightly, but these models look and move like their real life counterparts, while at the same time bringing some sort of unique charm to the visual experience. In short, I loved how everything looked this year.
Overall, WWE 2K19 is a solid step up from last year’s title. It offers a bit more in terms of content, and a deeper MyPlayer mode. I still wish they would ease up on the control scheme complication a bit, maybe shifting back to an easier control scheme that focuses on fun, rather than trying to make the wrestling experience a challenge. Wrestling is a fun sport to watch, so controlling it should be equally as fun. Definitely a solid release overall, though, so you won’t be disappointed.
