Well it's that time of year again; the WWE are plopping out another "videogame" into the cultural landfill. At time of writing WWE 2K15 is already out on previous generation consoles with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions on the way and they sure have a LOT of graphics. I haven't played the game and never will; the WWE 2K games are the equivalent of taking two wrestling action figures and smashing them together in your hands. Wait no scratch that, they're more like telling your little brother how to smash the action figures together until eventually you both break down in tears from the bleakness of your own existence.
There's no doubt about it people, WWE 2K15 is god-awful, as was WWE 2K14, WWE 12 was embarrassing, wrestling games sure have sucked for a while now. This is normally the part where people start gushing with nostalgia regarding the old Nintendo 64 games or something, but to be honest I'm starting to question whether wrestling games have ever been good. But let's not get into that now.
Wrestling games often get dumped in with other sports franchises, especially with the WWE games being long established as a yearly franchise now and are also accompanied with all the stats and licensed crap you would expect from an official Madden or FIFA release. Here's where the problem with these games is rooted; "real" competitive sports are already games in themselves. Whether it's soccer, or tennis, or even something like Mixed Martial Arts or sumo wrestling, they all have set rules and the participants are attempting to win within said rules. So a videogame based on a competitive sport transfers nicely (most of them) into a competitive videogame where you take the same rules but replace the athletic participation with game mechanics. The design philosophy of both entities is identical, you have the same rules and everyone involved is still trying to win.
Professional wrestling however is it a different beast. Not to be the guy who tells kids that there's no Santa Claus, but wrestling isn't actually real and the vast majority of the fanbase understands that. So what you have is two (or more) participants pretending to have a competitive contest with a pre-determined result, but the actual goal is to work together to entertain the audience with the best match possible. This is not to say the audience doesn't care who wins or how, but wrestling uses dramatic elements from more conventional forms of storytelling to make you root for one character over another. Scripted elements and structured storytelling (when it's done right anyway) combine with the appeal of live entertainment and athleticism to create one of the most unique shows on the planet, and even though everyone knows it's "fake" it still works due to elements of realism that come from the personalities of the real-life performers. It's a lot of fun to get into when it's good, and just about as much fun to laugh at when it gets really stupid.
But here's where the contradiction of wrestling videogames comes in; at their core almost all of them are competitive multiplayer games, but they are simultaneously attempting to come off like the real thing. This has got out of control with the recent WWE games, there's an absurd amount of focus on replicating the real television show's camera angles, and in emulating specific chains of moves. Some grapple attacks actually include a sequence where your opponent counters you multiple times mid-animation with no input or control from either player. So what you end up with is basically a fighting game where both participants are trying to beat the other, but the rules and mechanics are defined by design principles that the game should emulate a staged contest where the emphasis is to entertain. A real fight (or even something cartoony like a Street Fighter fight) doesn't look anything like a wrestling match, no-one punches each other in the face for 45 minutes and keeps going on adrenaline fuelled comebacks.
Here's the worst example from a recent game that I can come up with which illustrates this point. In WWE 2K14 (and to be honest, I'm just going to go ahead and assume this is still a problem in WWE 2K15) it is possible to completely curbstomp your opponent for the entirety of the match without taking any damage, receive a finisher for the momentum, have your finisher attempt countered which now gives your opponent full momentum, then get hit by a finisher and lose because the pinfall mini game is more difficult to beat after a finishing move. The thought behind this is that:
- The climax of a wrestling match should always be exciting and involve crucial reversals.
- A wrestlers marketed and long established finishing move should always be harder to recover from.
- If a wrestler attempts his finishing move, chances are it's a part of the climax so an attempt at a finisher by the other guy shouldn't be too far behind.
The result of this is you end up with scenarios that both fail to represent a real physical contest, a scripted wrestling match and the balance of a well-designed competitive videogame. I don't think it's any coincidence that the majority of the more fondly remembered wrestling games (the Nintendo 64 ones, the early Smackdown games, WWE All Stars) hold a closer resemblance to arcade button mashers than any kind of attempt at a "simulation". Most modern wrestling games try to walk the line between simulation and competitiveness, and the result is pretty much always complete garbage.
So what can be done to improve wrestling games and if not entirely remove, but at least subdue this fundamental contradiction? I think wrestling games need to focus more on what actually makes wrestling so fun in the first place, the personalities. Now, that's not to say I think there should be Guitar Hero minigames as you bash buttons in sequence with your wrestler spewing catchphrases in a backstage interview, but something can definitely be done to encourage the player not just to win but win in the coolest way possible.
The Smackdown series of games has dabbled with this in the past; in some versions mashing the punch button or reusing the same move over and over again will cause the crowd to boo you and take away your momentum. That's the kind of mentality we need more of! Only it needs to be plastered over the entire engine, imagine if instead of trying to reverse a guy when he tries to pick you off the floor, you're encouraged to wait until he has you to your foot when you can respond with a punch to the face because it gives you more momentum. Encourage combo attacks too, if you're Daniel Bryan and you dropkick someone out of the ring, then you sure as sugar should be wanting to go for an outside dive immediately following that.
That's just more exciting I tell you! It's far more interesting than the reverse-fest farces the current games have turned into, and since wrestling matches usually feature a lot of moves it's going to require some re-education of the player to strip them of this problem. People who are still buying the WWE 2K games every year have been so mellowed out by its blandness by now I don't think they know how to feel things any more other than occasional rage.
I guess I'm referring to the same sort of drama that high level Street Fighter play has, where the excitement comes from crazy comebacks and micro stories regarding the players and the characters they pick which takes the audience on a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs. Wrestling games could easily be encouraging their players to emulate that excitement in as many matches as possible. Wow, my idea of a perfect wrestling game is one that does what professional wrestling does to real fighting to other fighting games. That wasn't even intentional, but it's not really that surprising!
Bottom line; drop the "it's just like the show!" stuff and make a real videogame already, gosh dang it.
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