An Ultimate Revelation for WWE 2K14 | WWE 2K14 Pc Game Free Download Full Version
Genre: Fighting | Size: 0.00 GB
Description:
Growing up, the Ultimate Warrior was one of the first wrestlers I ever
gravitated toward. I came in to the WWF's '80s boom a bit late, so by
the time I was watching with any regularity, the Warrior had already
arrived on the scene and begun ascending toward the federation's upper
echelon. I loved the character for his insane, nonsensical promos, which
often sounded more like the threatening ramblings of a genuine
psychopath than a wrestling promo. In the ring, he was fast, absurdly
powerful, and wildly unconventional. For a hyperactive 10-year-old kid,
he was basically the best thing.
Flash forward 21
years, and I'm standing in a hotel conference room in New York City,
watching a demonstration of WWE 2K14, the latest game in what used to be
THQ's long-standing wrestling game franchise, and the first under the
banner of new publisher 2K Games. Before the demo, we were told that the
Warrior would be making an appearance both in the game--a first for
this particular lineage of games--and in the room. The Warrior's history
since that period between the '80s and early '90s is a murky and often
troubled one, marked largely by spats with WWE and WCW management, as
well as some controversial comments out of the ring. I didn't really
know what to expect when presented with the man I briefly idolized as a
kid, who was now in his early 50s and long removed from any interest in
the wrestling industry. When he did finally make his way into the room
to say a few scattered words thanking the developers--as well as us
writers for "doing what we do"--I was confronted with both a decidedly
less imposing image of a man neither as large nor as threatening as the
screaming, wild-haired creature portrayed in the video game, and the
still-intimidating presence of a man who may have been the most intense
personality I've ever found myself sitting across from for any length of
time.
If I'm harping on the Warrior aspect of 2K's
first showing of WWE 2K14, that's because he was by far the most central
element of the presentation. The demo we were allowed to have hands-on
time with featured only a couple of match types and seven wrestlers
(which also included Stone Cold Steve Austin, "Macho Man" Randy Savage,
and the game's cover athlete, the Rock). Longtime series head Cory
Ledesma walked us through some of the new mechanics and tweaks featured
in 2K14. Among them, animations have been changed to make character
movement look decidedly less robotic when walking and running; the OMG!
moments--finisher-type environmental moves that debuted last year--have
been expanded upon to add several more, including a few
character-specific ones, such as Ryback performing the Shell Shocked on
two opponents at the same time; lifting finishers have been added for a
variety of different wrestlers, meaning you can now toss opponents into
the air and land an Attitude Adjustment, or Rock Bottom, or Sweet Chin
Music with even more fanciness; and reversals, which could often devolve
into long strings of repeated grapple moves in last year's game, have
been fixed to allow for better in-game pacing.
Those
changes are all good ones, by the way, especially the reversals. Now
when reversing a move, you have the option to go into another grapple
position, as you could before, or just hit a quick move like an arm drag
or Russian leg sweep. "Real" WWE matches don't tend to get bogged down
with people switching positions constantly, and this new system allows
for a quicker pace more befitting of the televised product. Strikes have
also been sped up, making them more difficult to reverse effectively.
If anything, they were maybe a bit too fast in the early build I got to
play, but not unbearably so.
But while each of those
changes does something to noticeably build off last year's game--which
was the best in the series in quite some time--none of what was shown
yesterday offered up an all-encompassing, immediately exciting talking
point like WWE 13's Attitude Era tributes. Granted, 2K's team is a ways
away from showing off everything the game has to offer, and many more
wrestlers and modes have yet to debut. Plus, you have to consider the
turmoil the developers and producers of the game went through earlier
this year, as the license (and related employment) was handed between
their bankrupt former publisher and their new home at 2K. For their
part, both Ledesma and senior game designer Bryan Williams seemed pretty
excited about where they ended up. Both remarked that really none of
what was planned for 2K14 prior to the changeover had to be adjusted to
changed. "I was technically 'out of work' for like a week," said
Williams. "It slowed things, but once we were back on the horse, and
built that momentum back up that we had before the work stoppage, it's
been full-go ever since."
That's certainly encouraging
news for fans who worried the changeover might have negatively impacted
the positive momentum the series has enjoyed in the last couple of
installments. And in playing 2K14, it's safe to say that those who
enjoyed last year's gameplay will like the changes made here. But again,
the demo was scant in features, and in absence of a big, marquee
feature to show, the load was put on the debut of the Warrior. The WWE
games have featured plenty of classic wrestlers before, but outside of
an appearance in WWE All-Stars, Warrior has never been in anything
modern. So of course 2K would want to trumpet the man's arrival, even if
by doing so, they left themselves in the awkward position of having
video game writers try to ask questions of a man who neither cares much
for video games (he very quickly noted in his brief speech that he'd
never played a single one), nor seemed particularly interested in
talking about wrestling. My attempt to interview him (which you can
listen to here) resulted in 10 minutes of rambling, occasionally
wistful, and periodically hostile answers that lived up to the man's
post-'90s reputation.
It was a strange juxtaposition,
playing the fully formed character in the game, then proceeding to talk
to the man who embodied him, who couldn't have seemed more removed from
that persona he actively referred to as a "character" and "intellectual
property." Most wrestlers, even later in life, like to continue playing
up their in-ring personalities and previous feuds as if they were still
ongoing. By contrast, Ultimate Warrior, despite having legally changed
his name to Warrior some years back, seemed to treat his wrestling years
with a mixture of mild fondness and moderate exasperation. When I asked
him about career highlights, he began rattling off names of guys who
had treated him well during his time in the business (Andre the Giant,
"Ravishing" Rick Rude, and the Undertaker, among them) and touched on a
few moments like his championship win against Hulk Hogan, before just
kind of trailing off. He came off like a man who pursued pro wrestling
as an interesting challenge, but refused to let it be the defining
element of his life.
So, you know, maybe he's not the
best ambassador for sports entertainment, nor the video games based on
them. Still, I enjoyed playing as Warrior in WWE 2K14, because I enjoy
playing these games in general. What little we were shown of 2K14 looked
like a natural extension of what WWE 13 offered, and in seeing the
tasseled, neon-colored Warrior return to the ring in digital form, I
definitely found myself feeling nostalgic for the days when I watched
him pummel Hogan, and send Randy Savage packing in a career-ending match
at Wrestlemania VII. It's a strong realization of Wrestlemania VI-era
Warrior, even if his hair might seem a bit more hilariously huge than
was ever accurate (or humanly possible). I made the mistake of briefly
joking about that during our interview, to which Warrior replied, "Are
you playing a game for the f*****g hair?" before telling me not to
nitpick like an Internet commenter.
As much as these
games may be about the modern WWE product, they're also effective
nostalgia delivery systems, and WWE 2K14's roster is shaping up to be as
good a nostalgia machine as any of the other recent sequels in the
series. The representatives at 2K seemed certain that more on the game
would be revealed around SummerSlam, which arrives on pay-per-view next
month. I expect we'll hear more then about whatever 2K14's next story
mode and other assorted features will entail.
Until
then, rest comfortably in the knowledge that 2K is evidently treating
the developers of WWE 2K14 well, and the work that was put into the game
prior to the THQ changeover was not lost. 2K is treating this like a
fully formed sequel, and not a transition year marred by inter-publisher
dealings. We haven't seen much yet, but what I did see at least gives
me some hope that that's the truth.
As for the Warrior?
When I got up to exit my interview with him, he turned to me and very
excitedly exclaimed, "Make sure you put it in your write-up that to get
me, they gotta do the preorder. All right?" This, after 10 minutes of
mostly evading or half-answering what questions I had. This was the
thing he was energized to talk about. Though I realize this was probably
the one point he was told to emphasize by 2K's media team, as I walked
out of the room, all I could see in my head was Warrior, in full
regalia, standing in the middle of the ring, hissing the words "Preorder
me, warriors!" into a microphone. At that moment, I think a little
Warrior-sized chunk of my childhood finally died. Maybe it's for the
best.
Release Date: 10/29/2013
ESRB: RP
Name: WWE 2K14
Genre: Fighting
Platform: PC
2 Players
Developer: Yukes
Publisher: 2K Sports
Download Links Coming Soon......
