The Wrasslin' Game Thread: YUKE'S 'AEW FIGHT FOREVER' LOOKS SOLID!!

Might as well get us a catch all wrestling game thread going for all the news, vids, and whatnot...like cool edits/caws you might've made or stumbled upon.

So yeah...

NEWS!

Fire Pro Wrestling World released their second Stardom DLC pack this week featuring 11 superstars complete with new edit parts, themes, and moves... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lug2QW-5ug

Also, Retromania (the next notable wrestling game release) is looking like it'll be dropping this summer (July?). Jeff Cobb was recently added to the roster, and there is pre-order news up including a collectors edition box with manual and stickers (who doesn't like stickers?). For all the latest on the game and who will be filling out those last two roster spots, check out their website... https://www.retromaniawrestling.com

VIDS!

I posted this in the main thread awhile back, but here's 616Entertainment's full length version of the great history of WCW games series he did last year, it's a pretty fun watch... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYyOmUVhmc0

Looking for obscure/forgotten wrestling gems? Check out two of the most interesting Super Famicon releases that should've made their way over to the States along with Fire Pro...

Jikkyou Power Pro Wrestling '96: Max Voltage... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2oYWm26LFo

Gekitou Burning Pro Wrestling (poor man's Fire Pro)... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypDwrSNk6O0

There's also the great Zen-Nippon (All Japan) series which landed over here as Natsume Championship Wrestling, unfortunately the Japanese versions of those games aren't very English friendly.

Best of the bunch though, as far as non Fire Pro 2D releases go, I was extremely impressed with the updated home console version of Champion Wrestler for the Playstation. Shit's great and I'm surprised I hadn't heard of it until recently...

Oh, and here's a handy list of arcade wrestling games released back in the day. Sooner or later I'm gonna try each and every one of them out...

WHATNOT!

Love Fire Pro? Are you aware of the awesome laid back community over at the Critical Club? This is the place you'll wanna visit for all the latest news, creations, tips, and general discussion for arguably the greatest wrestling game series of all-time... https://criticalclub.com/

THIS ORANGE CASSIDY HORSESHIT IS KILLING FIRE PRO WRESTLING!!1!

;)

Sweet mod!

https://twitter.com/jamesrah/status/1235047173051408390

So on top of 2K21, the Yukes project, Retromania Wrestling, and AEW's upcoming game all in the pipeline, a new challenger has entered the ring! Virtual Basement, developer of ARK, is getting in on the wrasslin' bidness and are currently at work on a next-gen game featuring ROH and Impact talent...

Heads up, the parts craft dlc is now available for those that purchased the deluxe version of FPW or the season pass ($30 if you haven't). This thing is gonna be pretty cool, offering an even greater amount of custom content for fans, especially on the PS4 side given there's no mods.

EDIT: If you're not down with photoshop...beware, it's a pretty complicated process.

You have to upload the part you want to modify to your account and set it to private, download the image, and open it in an editor of your choosing where you modify every angle (if need be), then upload the modded image back to firepro-w.com (on private), test it out, and if it's ok...then you can publish it.

Some nice face textures already uploaded...

Nakamura (with hair)...

https://firepro-w.com/item/detail/88491

Orton...

https://firepro-w.com/item/detail/88155

Avenger's f-ton of belts...

https://firepro-w.com/user/profile/TheAvenger?title=&order=trend&type=Parts&texture=Waist&category=Layer

@shiftygism: So is the thing with this parts DLC basically "pay us 30$ so that we can allow you to make more content for our game"?

@dizzyhippos: Kinda...if you're not keen on how how often the digital deluxe goes on sale. Like I think it was only $27.99 awhile back and includes everything but the Entrance Craft (which should've been), the two charity packs ($6), and the Stardom sets which are $20 each. You just gotta get in at the right time. That extra stuff though, is absurdly priced and hasn't got a deep discount thus far.

The upcoming Moves Craft DLC will supposedly be free for everyone.

RUMOR...according to a former WWE Games dev, 2K21 has been cancelled. Though with what's been going on with the pandemic, did anyone think it was gonna drop this year anyway? He also says a "different kind" of WWE game, not developed by Visual Concepts will be released this year...

So I messed around with the parts craft editor...

Also, some folks have been using 2K19 & 20's fully rotational character model viewer to grab head screencaps and then porting them into Fire Pro...

WWE2K21 officially cancelled, new game announcement on Monday?

https://www.polygon.com/2020/4/23/21229764/wwe-2k21-canceled-2k-games-visual-concepts

Telltale's Adventures in the WWE Universe.

I wonder if they are just dropping the 2k part and "re-launching" the series as a new thing.

You don't get on a conference call and tell investors you are cancelling the game and announcing something else to announce the game is still the same under a different name.

Best case it's some kind of arcadey wrestling game but I'd bet its some F2P kind of bullshit.

@stephen_von_cloud: Sadly I wouldn't be shocked, I bet supercard lowkey made them a butt ton of money.

Weren't yukes not working on 2K20 because they were making a fresh new wrestling game. Which I assume is what will be announced.

I'm hoping it's a management sim. Like the old Smackdown Vs raw games but really in depth.

@nutta27: yeah apparently they are still working on it but it isn't WWE related at all.

I don't hate it, like most folks seem to be on the tweeter, but I gotta keep my expectations in check because I really...and I mean REALLY fucking love All-Stars, and if this doesn't play like that then what's the point? That game was an arcade brawler on the surface, but in reality it had far more depth than nearly any other wrestling game ever released with its different classes and various movesets within each. You can't just slap cartoony graphics on universally vanilla gameplay and treat it like the spiritual successor to that classic. Fingers crossed though.

This is absolutely a phone game that will maybe get ported to consoles. Amazingly yet again, the female models look absolute trash compared to the male ones.

@jesus_phish: Nah, this is being developed by the NBA Playgrounds team (Saber Interactive) which (still) doesn't leave me with much hope it'll have a lot of depth. Crazy thing is they probably could've made a legit All-Stars 2 as that WWE Champions mobile game uses character models that look straight out of the first one.

It looks terribly ugly (why not just make it look like all stars, jesus h) but I do like an arcade wrestler.

If Playgrounds is the same quality relative to NBA Jam or Street this wrestling game is to All Stars, yeah you shouldn't have high expectations lol.

The Playground games are okay. I really wanted to like them because I miss arcade basketball games too.

I wish I liked arcade baseball because other than Super Mega Baseball there's nothing quality out there right now really.

Was discussing a bit on discord.

I am not that opposed to the weird action figure look. Some of it is a bit creepy but, whatever. What I find more off putting is how the animation in the glamor shots don't even have good animation. That Kitana style head throw on Becky fully rotates on her hair for crying out loud

But also, from a development standpoint this has to be an all hands on deck crunchfest. Even if we assume it was from when Yukes got shitcanned that would MAYBE be a two year cycle? And considering they have released 2k games for years it is probably closer to one. So... holy shit?

Aside from that: Can folk who are more aware of the models weigh in on if these are the yukes/2k ones with a bit of scaling and deformation? Rock looks familiar (and I would have assumed they would do a Brahma Bull for a wrestling game) and I can't tell if distorted Becky is a face cap or the god awful CAW face from her cover game.

@gundato: Rock's got the old bull tattoo, his new one may not be approved yet for gaming/merch use.

I am glad WWE 2K21 is cancelled. I downloaded WWE 2K20 since it was free on Games with Gold for weekend play and it looked like the same as 2K18 even worse. WWE Battlegrounds looks like WWE Mayhem so I don't know to feel about it since it was a phone game.

There's now NINE wrestling games in development (that we know of)....that's pretty cool, even if one is card based.

I wasn't aware Chikara was getting a console release, really looking forward to playing that one.

Here's more on what Virtual Basement is planning with their next-gen title which will be an ongoing service...

Our first look at FPW's much anticipated move creation editor...

https://www.facebook.com/groups/7440237863/permalink/10157355660247864/

Also apparently WWE has teamed up with SNK for a mobile game version of King of Fighters...

Ohhh Retro, tell me everything you know...

The biggest game trailer of the week!

@shiftygism:You're right: that's a good-ass trailer!

Fire Pro World's Move Craft dropped, and boy is it ever complicated.

Thankfully Spike Chunsoft put up a twenty-one part tutorial on YouTube...

I recently revisited smackdown here comes the pain and man that game is still engaging, to me it stands out among the best wrestling games. https://www.gameive.com/why-you-should-revisit-smackdown-here-comes-the-pain/

@shiftygism: From what I remember of Fire Pro on the Dreamcast and the move hacking that was done in that, the people who really wanted this feature will probably be super happy with the fact it's that highly detailed, instead of them having to hack together parts of different move animations to make the F5 and so on.

@dazzhardy: Oh yeah, it's much easier than that...it's just...much like that logo editor in Returns, not the most inviting layout for those who are eager to make stuff...but then again, it's like that with a lot of creation based games. Dreams, Disney Infinity, Little Big Planet, all of which let you set up a whole host of complex stuff, but it really takes awhile to get the hang of the tricks and tools of the craft, assuming you even have the patience...which is kind of a recurring problem for many.

So the full roster has been announced for WWE Battlegrounds, and sadly the trend of no appearance of Hacksaw Jim Duggan continues...

Post launch roster additions come in the form of free updates, which is nice. I've liked what I've seen of the game so far, it doesn't look anywhere near as deep as WWE All Stars, but I might just pick it up. Retromania comes first though (as far as my interest goes) as it should be nearing release around the same time if all goes well. Really love that Retrosoft has been giving us two updates a week on YouTube regarding the status of their work. Hope the game does well for them, looks great so far.

I kinda expected WWE Battlegrounds to lean more towards being an all-star roster, but it looks like it's primarily just focused on current talent.

I also agree that Retromania is the more interesting upcoming wrestling game.

@chaser324: Yeah, they do have a fair bit of legends though. Not as many as I would like, but hopefully the creation suite is robust enough to create some of those who are missing. Modern fans are kinda put off hardly any NXT stars being included. Maybe that's a way they could get some paid dlc in there if the game is successful. I'm really surprised at the amount of free content they have planned however, we used to have to pay $30-40 extra for all that. Hope that's a sign things will improve next year with 2K22.

Also, speaking of which HEADS UP 2K19 PLAYERS, 2K just announced (well, two days ago) that match making and community creation servers will remain up until the release of 2K22, they were originally set to shut down late next month.

@shiftygism: ......why is only Luke Gallows on this list and not Caral Anderson as well also Jake Roberts is a surprise since he is full AEW

Big fan of wrestling games but also being especially cautious.

To many of them prove to be waste of time and glitchy buggy mess.

@uppercaseccc: Karl Anderson is on the list. It's not spelled Caral.

I can't get over how hideous the Battlegrounds art style is. It's just incredibly ugly and the game is going to have to get great reviews before I'll even consider buying something that looks so bad. I dislike SD style graphics for most things but for a wrestling game it just makes all the action look lame and totally lack impact. I have no idea why they thought this was a good idea except that it's their NBA game style so I guess they don't know how to make games any other way.

If you're going to make a wrestling game with cartoony graphics then the All-Stars style is so much better.

I really don't know why they didn't make a sequel (or spiritual successor) to All-Stars instead. People still talk about that game almost 10 years later, it still plays great, you could still do all the goofy stuff they seem to want to like stage hazards etc...

The only thing I can think of is that it would be really hard to have a cast this large because it's more expensive to make and animate good character models, and balancing all the fighters would be more difficult.

I'd rather have a game that looks and plays well than one that has crappy versions of Doink and The Boogeyman in it.

As excited as we all are to play as Nia Jax and injure all the other female wrestlers, this could be a more appealing game with a tighter cast and a better look.

Has anyone done a proper deep dive on battlegrounds yet?

I remember watching the reveal trailer and the positioning of Charlotte's (?) hands while she threw Becky (?) looked a LOT like it was just the same animations that have been in every single wrestling game since Smackdown. Combine that with the weird distortion and it looked almost like someone just turned on big head mode with the 2k roster and used the existing animations.

Which would explain why the roster is basically a modern 2k game rather than the "legends" oriented stuff they do when they have to hand roll new models.

@uppercaseccc: As bigsocrates pointed out, Karl's in there. :)

Regarding Jake though, I imagine he still had time on his WWE Legends deal...and depending on how long it lasts, it may prevent him from appearing in an AEW game.

@bigsocrates: Beyond some of the gals looking like Team America: World Police characters, I actually really like the models, they remind me of the Hasbro toyline from the early 90's a bit. I was a big fan of the look of NBA Playgrounds also. I will agree however this particular artstyle doesn't really have the same larger than life oomph you'd want from a game like this and had with All Stars. None the less, I dig it.

@gundato: No one I've seen has got their hands on it beyond a promotional clip with a few of WWE Superstars, so we really don't know how the matches go or how long they'll last.

Virtual Basement has announced the name of their next gen indie focused wrestling title and a portion of its roster, including a surprise and well deserved appearance of Cryme Tyme...

So I've said before I dig the action figure-ish artstyle for Battlegrounds, but like any WWE game under the 2K banner some models look closer to their real-life counterparts than others and the dlc roster which just leaked is no exception. Some folks like look incredible (Alundra, Booker, Earthquake, and Ruby for instance), while others like Sami Zayn...holy shit.

Below I've pulled some of the worst from BrokenFunBash's rundown video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3TUC_9DyAk

(Also, here's who were cut from the game... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJUnbcHeOrU )

It's insane, in the year 2020 they could screw some of these people up so bad like Bret Hart for instance who had a near perfect model back in Smackdown vs. Raw 2006 on the PS2 and looks nothing like himself here. Same goes for Perfect, Chyna, and Sheamus. What's up with Flair's hair? Perfect didn't wear dark blue. Is Goldberg really that tiny? In the video Gran Metalik...who follows him, is twice as big! Seriously, I hope Jeff does another one of his model critique videos when they're all released, there's no excuse for this crap...