Monthly Archives: July 2023

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Improving AEW: Fight Forever

Growing up as a child of the 80/90s it was hard to not love some good ol fashion wrestling. For myself it was WWF, then WCW, then a little bit more WWF/WWE but I eventually grew out of love with wrestling. But a few years back something caught my interest and brought me back in love with it again, All Elite Wrestling or AEW. while I didn’t watch from the very beginning, I became a weekly viewer and fan during the pandemic years. Watching the incredible quality of wrestling from the shear in ring entertainment aspect got its hooks in me good. Then came the announcement in May of 2022, of their first videogame, AEW: Fight Forever.

Having personally got back into the WWE2K games as well a couple years back and having grown up with the essential Nintendo64 era wrestling games, I was excited to see that AEW: Fight Forever was intended to be a spiritual successor to the N64 era games. These were endless fun with arcade style over the top action and in many ways it carries the torch of those older games. In terms of fun factor, Fight Forever is brilliant arcade style fun, it is fast paced and over the top in many, many ways. Definitely sets itself apart from the well established WWE2K series, and there is certainly room for both titles and styles. But if AEW: Fight Forever wants to become the staple that 2K is, there are certain improvements that should be considered.

Below are suggestions I feel would improve the Fight Forever experience and help ensure they can keep this game going as well as their brand in general. And whether or not the fine hardworking people at YUKE’S and THQ Nordic take my input or not, they really should get out there with a solid road map for the title in the next month or so. Perhaps lining it up with the expected August update that will bring the Stadium Stampede, battle royale mode, to the game and have some solid additions by years end to show they are intending on supporting and improving the game moving forward.

Expand Max Character Count: With the announcement of the Stadium Stampede battle royale mode being added to the game, it shows that the game can have more action on screen than currently allowed, however that mode is not confined to the ring and ring area as the regular game modes are. This would likely be a very challenging change, and it is likely capped at four characters at once for a reason, but there is certainly some great additions that could come to the title if more were possible. Imagine what would be possible with maybe six or even say ten wrestlers able to be in a match together, not just how much better it would make current modes like the Casino Battle Royale, but perhaps…

More Match Types: Under the assumption that upping the max character count is possible in regular in ring game modes (The Stadium Stampede mode has been shown off and obviously has a much higher max), how great would adding the AEW World Trios Titles into the mix, or having three or four-way tag matches. Another obvious addition, Blood & Guts, having just come off this year’s epic match with the Golden Elite vs Blackpool Combat Club. How insane would the gameplay be with two rings inside a massive cage and two five wrestler factions going at it, pure chaos in the best way possible.

More Arenas And Locations: Both in terms of more arenas, but anyone who is a fan of AEW knows they are no stranger to fighting in the crowd, the stands, the concession area, etc. Adding more areas throughout an arena seems like an obvious addition, again some assets are already there with what the Stadium Stampede trailer shows. And in terms of more arenas, how is there no Daily’s Place!? This small, intimate arena is where AEW blossomed into the unique brand it is and started to thrive.

More Alternate Attire: While there are some alternate attires in game for some wrestlers, there should be multiple attire for most if not all the wrestlers in the game. And these can even be items that need to be purchased in the in game store with earned currency, you earn plenty of it and it would be a great thing to work towards. Furthermore the current way to adjust the attire is not very simple, should be as basic as select wrestler->select attire, then play.

Vastly Improved Creation Options: Even beyond the roster, which will be covered a little later, the creation content options by far the most underwhelming part of AEW: Fight Forever. The game gives a small base quantity of customizations for create a wrestler and even for create an arena, then has a bit more available for purchase in the in-game store. However it is very minimal, and doesn’t have much in the way of customization within the options outside of an assortment of items having custom color options. And the game offers no community options as have been standard in the WWE2K titles for a long while. Expecting that community download/upload options in their first title isn’t too fair, but expecting a much wider array of clothing, accessories, etc. is very fair. Hopefully this is something that gets expanded on regularly with updates, adding new outfits and accessories.

Official Minigame Party Mode: The minigames are the most unique option in the game, make this a full on mode beyond what it is now. Think Mario Party style knockoff even, go All Out…The game has a fair number of minigames available to unlock within the game, but only starts with the initial three games. There are also a few announced already as part of the DLC/Season Pass, but there is certainly room for a lot more and again, more of an expanded unique party mode featuring the minigames.

Overhaul Season Pass and DLC Pricing: One of the most glaring issues with the game as of release was the roster, despite having a solid number of overall talent, over fifty wrestlers initially, it felt very outdated and puzzling. For instance why is Jeff Hardy included in the game, yet Matt Hardy who has been with AEW longer was a pre-order bonus or $5 DLC add-on. Then there’s the announced DLC having wrestlers like FTR, Keith Lee, The Bunny, etc as when most have been staples of the brand for a long time. At the other end of the spectrum, why in the world is Cody Rhodes in this game still or why is Aubrey Edwards (nothing against Aubrey, she’s great!) a playable character when so many actual wrestlers are missing?

When you think of the various wrestlers that have been around for a year or more that are absent and not even mentioned as the season pass DLC, it’s puzzling. You would hope for a massive Ring of Honor DLC pack bringing in Athena or the Gates of Agony along with the various championship belts from that promotion. Or perhaps just having more recent AEW wrestlers like Skye Blue or Willow Nightingale or even more obviously relevant the two biggest wrestlers in the women’s division in Toni Storm and Jamie Hayter. And ultimate pie in the sky dream DLC, New Japan Pro-Wrestling Pack. Bringing the biggest stars through the digital forbidden door, giving everyone the chance to reenact the likely match of the Year Will Ospreay vs Kenny Omega in Fight Forever.

The current DLC/Season Pass is seemingly very high priced especially considering the content in there compared to the game and the game’s $59.99 price tag rather than the now standard $69.99. Having a $29.99 price for a very minimal selection of additional content, is not a great value. The season pass appears to add six wrestlers and four minigames, that’s all, and certainly a bad value compared to the overall game’s offering at $59.99 of over fifty wrestlers and fifteen minigames. Here is what is currently available and announced for DLC:

Available Now

Matt Hardy pack ($4.99) giving users access to what was the preorder bonus, two versions of Matt Hardy

Season Pass ($29.99) which will include the following three packs

FTR: Revival Pack ($11.99) with the duo and two extra minigames

Upcoming

Limitless Bunny Bundle ($11.99 presumably) with Keith Lee, The Bunny, and two extra minigames

Hookhausen Very Handsome, Very Evil Pack ($11.99 presumably) with HOOK and Danhausen

Add More Campaign Content: While the WWE2K campaign/career mode seems to go on endlessly with not a real clear direction and a lot of repetition from my experience, the Fight Forever campaign is rather condensed by comparison. It has a nice setup and takes the player through four chapters and plays well along with having multiple branches depending on successes and failures in matches throughout the campaign. And part of what it lacks, can actually be something that helps to ease the addition of more story chapters, there are almost exclusively text based story with very, very limited VO. Hopefully they are able to add more chapters beyond the initial four that are there now, something like a Forbidden Door PPV chapter if there is an eventual NJPW add-on.

Make Stadium Stampede Fully F2P: Now this may be the plan already, and if it was already announced as being the case, my bad…

But make Stadium Stampede a full free game for even people who don’t own AEW: Fight Forever, much like what Call Of Duty does with Warzone. Allow people to download basically the full Fight Forever title and have access to just this mode, while blocking access to the regular/base game. This would hopefully add to the player base for the mode and more importantly be a lane for new users to adopt the full title over time.

There you have it! What Gamewrote would do to improve AEW: Fight Forever. With that all said, I can’t stress this enough, the game is a blast to play already. These changes are more longevity based and I would urge them to make continued changes to this game for a couple years rather than try for an annual release like 2K does. The base game is great and is ripe for more content add campaign chapters, add modes, add wrestlers, add content creation, add to this wonderfully unique game. I will also state that I have only played this game solo to this point, I have not tried the online modes, nor have I played any couch coop/competitive. And I can only imagine the fun my friends and I would have had in our younger days playing this game together.

OH! And make the character indicator a default setting from the start, damn near impossible to know who you are targeting without that on…

Comment here and please follow @GameWrote on Twitter and Instagram to interact more with me.

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Do Live Service Better PlayStation

PlayStation finally unveiled some of their live service titles during their PlayStation Showcase on May 24, 2023, and from what it looks like they are objectively making some more bad decisions. This is based off very little shown on these titles and based off the speculation of what these titles will possibly or likely be when released. While the games do look to have some diversity, all of them seem to be shooters in some shape or form. Not only is this an overcrowded genre in the live service games field, this genre already has its established marquee titles, think Fortnite, Apex, Overwatch, etc. making it a very hard genre to really gain traction in.

The titles that were announced/featured during the Showcase were the debut title from Haven Studios Fairgame$, Firewalk Studios Concord, Arrowhead Studios Helldivers 2, and Bungies Marathon. Fairgame$ appears to be a team based competitive heist game, seemingly comparable to the Payday series. Concord, didn’t show much, just a space themed teaser trailer for the game. Helldivers 2 is the most known property shown off in this showcase with it being a sequel, however it appears to be changing to a third person shooter from the original title’s top down view. And lastly Marathon, which is a rebirth of an older property from Bungie.

Now obviously there is a huge risk doing a Live Service titles vs. a standalone or traditional title, there is no shortage of Free To Play titles out there between mobile and console already. Live Service titles also need a long-term plan and a buy-in from the developers, producers, publishers, etc. to set out and stick with a road map but also be able to adapt to the players as quickly as possible or more accurately quicker than possible. Games in the live service realm need to also have enough intrigue to get enough players to buy in to the title, but balance the titles to be worth playing for those who don’t want to spend money. But what also is needed is to be able to uniquely differentiate your title or in this instance titles from what is out there and available already.

Going heavy in the field of Live Service shooters again seems to be a great miscalculation, there are multiple behemoths already in that genre. PlayStation would be wise to reach back into their back catalog and revive/reimagine something like PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale or ModNation Racers as a Live Service model. Personally as a massive ModNation Racers fan back in the day, that would be the first choice, for those unaware of what ModNation Racers is/was…

Modnation Racers, released in 2010, was likely the best non Mario Kart cart racing game to ever exist, it had great controls, tracks, character, and such an exceptional track creator option. Developed by United Front Games and PlayStation’s San Diego Studio was inspired by the Little Big Planet play.create.share idea of games with solid user generated options/content. The game had such success that there was even a sequel made for the PlayStation Vita as well in 2012’s Modnation Racers: Road Trip, which brought largely the same great content to the handheld console. Dusting off this franchise and launching it as a free Live Service franchise would be a far better idea than developing multiple titles within the greater shooter based genre. Presenting ModPlayStation Racers!

ModPlayStation Racers would bring the same amazing gameplay and unique style of the ModNation Racers franchise while upping it to the graphical standards of the PlayStation 5 console generation. Update/recreate various tracks from ModNation Racers and ModNation Racers: Road Trip, even take a few of the highest rated community created tracks for the base version and initial season. Have a decent selection of available carts and racers from the start as well, with a limited selection of mods from the start for both, and full access to the track editor in terms of strictly creating tracks.

Expanding the game from there and the base version would have seasons/season passes that include various unlockable items in addition there would be rotating shop items such as unique themed carts or characters. The items would be various things for the carts and racers, both cosmetic and various colors that can be unlocked, track editor items such as decorations that tie in with whatever the current season’s theme would be. By having these type of items as what is unlockable and/or available for purchase it keeps it in the Fortnite realm of having your items be cosmetic based rather than other titles where there is a need to rebalance the game whenever there is new content brought in.

Each season would utilize the incredible depth of PlayStation properties, Uncharted, Infamous, Resistance, Killzone, Horizon, Gran Turismo, Syphon Filter, Twisted Metal, just to name a few. With each new season focusing on a property from the immense gaming catalog PlayStation has amassed over the decades. Having characters from the the featured season as unlockable racers in the uniquely adorable ModNation style, unlockable carts either customizations themed to each season or specific vehicles from a property, and track editor decorations as well. In addition to the carts, characters, and themes each season would bring at least one, maybe two unique courses based on that season’s property.

One season you will be be racing against Navarro in and out of the Amazon rainforest in an homage to Uncharted, next season you find yourself rolling through the Helghan capital of Pyrrhus City from Killzone. And what makes this even more amazing is that not only had you unlocked Aloy from a previous season, but you just bought the shop exclusive kart inspired by Sweet Tooth’s glorious ice cream truck from Twisted Metal. Hopefully over time there would be the possibility to crossover to other properties again the best example would be Fortnite having seemingly partnered with every corner of pop culture, but should that work out there is enough first party properties to last many seasons over years if handled right.

In addition to the purchase of the seasonal pass users would be able to earn currency from finishing races, winning races, competing in and winning various timed challenges. There would be weekly featured community tracks and challenges as well for the ability to earn additional currency. As briefly mentioned before have a daily or weekly shop list with either exclusive or previous season’s characters, carts, themes, etc. that players can utilize their earned currency on. And for those who are still hankering for some same console multiplayer with friends and family there would be splitscreen racing, but without the ability to earn the currency. Just some good old fashion gaming among family and friends, getting practice and gaining expertise on the various tracks.

Time will obviously tell what becomes of the various Live Service Titles from PlayStation, but I certainly have a fair level of skepticism. There seems to be better or more unique options for PlayStation to pull from, or even if they are hell bent on staying with the shooter genre…why not dust off SOCOM. There seem to be no lack of odd decisions from PlayStation lately, the VR2 headset was a bad use of resources and will never reasonably compete with comparable Oculus headsets, the seemingly great mishandling of the upcoming (hopefully) Factions multiplayer from the TLOU2, the powers that be at PlayStation seem to not have their fingers on the pulse of gamers as of late. But like most people, I’ll stay optimistic, but damn I would love to see a bold move like what was outlined above in ModPlayStation Racers.

What do you all think? What are you hoping these announced Live Service titles end up becoming? What older PlayStation property would you want reimagined as a Live Service title?

Comment here and please follow @GameWrote on Twitter and Instagram to interact more with me.