Hello. You all know me from the Tales from the Hotel series. I’m sorry there’s been nothing new, now a whole lot has been going on as it’s been winter, and a lot of our rooms are closed for renovations before the Spring rush. I do have to say though, that you Canadians, except those in Quebec, are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. It’s always a pleasure to have Canadians, except Quebecers , in our hotel! I do have a couple of things that have happened, but nothing crazy fun. So in the meantime, have this early review of WWE2k24!

Ok to start, I was not given this game free, I paid out the ass for it. Therefore this review will pull no punches. Second, this review was written several weeks ago during early release. Due to circumstances, it wasn’t able to be put out until recently. This review was for PC, with the new updated PS5 at the bottom.

Third of all, FUCK YOU STEAM. Most of us couldn’t get the game unless we went on some roundabout way of getting the damn thing to download, and some couldn’t get in for 12 hours. It was horrible, I don’t know what Steam was thinking, they fucked this launch up, and I was livid. I think Steam owes people a partial refund for this honestly. We know they won’t, cheap bastards, but still, we should have gotten one for their screw-up. Moving on.

Gameplay:

To start with, let’s talk about the gameplay itself. When you can get in, but we’ll get to that in a bit. The gameplay is fun and mostly really well done. There’s a lot less “Chest bumping” like the last one, where it seemed every few rope runs were met with that dreaded chest bump when you didn’t pull a move off in time. It seems to have gotten a lot better in 2k24 as I haven’t encountered it once so far, I have seen it on streams but nowhere near as often.

Modes:

I haven’t played all the modes yet, but single-player is pretty fun. GM mode is the same as last year, just with some more options this year. You get WCW, NXT, ECW, Smackdown, and Raw. I think NXT 2.0 as well. I can’t be bothered to attempt to boot the game up to check. The new matches are pretty entertaining, and the ability to switch from button mash to button hold. For me, that was a fantastic switch. I haven’t played casket or gauntlet yet, but the ambulance match was fun.

Backstage:

You can also fight in the backstage area and throw someone in the ambulance, essentially turning it into another Ambulance match. There’s a new elevator as well that you can go up and down from the upper tier. Other than that, I haven’t seen much of a difference. The backstage does seem more polished than 2k23 was though. The cars now actually dent, which I don’t remember before. I read that the vending machines were interactive as well, but I haven’t made a match last that long yet. I tend to beat the hell out of them before that. Oops.

One v One:

This mode is identical to last season, really nothing has changed, except the ref is targetable now, and attackable without running around trying to hit them by “Accident”. I even threw one out of the ring!

Tag Team, 1v2, trio, etc:

This is where some issues start to show. The ref count is slow, in all modes. You pin them, and there’s a One to Two-second pause before the ref begins his count, and this is an issue. In a tag match, or any other match, timing is critical. When your opponent is down, and you jump on them, you expect that ONE TWO THREE right away. But nope. Its ref gets in position, counts One, Two in his head, and then slaps the mat for the count. Inexcusable. The game lags in spots badly as well, and I know it’s not my computer because I have a workhorse I built specifically for gaming.

MyRise

This is where the issues pop up. The ref count being slow is killing a fatal 4 way I need to win, I can’t get everyone down and then pin, because by the time the ref gets off his or her ass and starts to count, the stun is up, or someone is getting back in the ring already. It’s inexcusable. To me, this is “game breaking”. The inability of the ref to count correctly is terrible. You need that immediate ref cadence, not a 1, 2, oh wait, 1 2 3. Otherwise so far the story has been fun, up until this point.

That’s about all I’ve done so far, besides making a title belt, and a CAW. Nothing too major. So let’s move on to the flaws.

Another issue is the ref count, we covered up there. The constant crashes. Man, the crashes. I can’t play very long before a random ass crash. Earlier it kept telling me I was banned, even though I did nothing online at that point. Later it let me back in and worked fine, no thanks to 2k. I’ve heard the online play is atrocious right now, with the game crashing out if you attempt to Irish whip someone. Blink? Crash. Sneeze? Crash. It’s pretty bad right now. There have been complaints about the lack of CAWS and stuff too. Get over it. The game has been out for 2 days and unplayable for half that time.

Overall, I’ll be giving it a 4/10 right now. This crap should have been fixed, this isn’t early access like Nightingale, which has a ton of bugs but is in early access. This is a full release, and I paid out the rear for it and expected a polished release, not a WWE2k20 re-release. I should have kept 2k23 installed, honestly. I’ll update this once I’ve played more.

PS5 update:

So far so good. This game has carried on with no issues aside from one minor crash. It’s so smooth, it’s like a different game. Except for the shitty ref count. “……………………………………………………………….1, 2, 3!” More like “1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3”. The crash could have been anything though, maybe not even the game, as it hard-locked my entire system. After a reboot, and about 40 hours later, I’ve yet to experience another crash. Seeing a lot of new Community Creations being ported over from WWE2k23 is a nice thing to see as well. I’ve nearly rebuilt my roster finally, but I do have one minor annoyance. It’s been in all the games, not just this one.

When you go to create a wrestler, first you go into the CAW suite itself. Then you go to the moves suite. Then from there to create an entrance/victory. This should all be in one area, and not 4 separate areas as it is right now. That’s highly annoying, and a huge time sink. It’s 2024 guys, the hardware can handle it all in one area.

Other than that, I’d give the PS5 version a solid 8, I’m docking 2 points for the 2 seconds it takes a ref to start counting, because that annoys me so much, and makes a triple threat, fatal four way, tag, etc, into an absolute nightmare. Overall, if you plan to get this game, get it on the PS5, and don’t bother with the PC version, because it’s absolute trash. PS5 is the way to go.