Some of Nakamura’s moves have been in past games, but the Kinshasa knee strike now looks perfect and actually feels organic as opposed to the canned and rather awkward animation used for it in the past. His snap axe kick and bow and arrow punch combo are in as well. Nakamura’s moveset is spot-on and even his inverted exploder looks perfect. Nakamura and AJ Styles were the two wrestlers I played as the most and they are done well here. For someone whose act is so heavy on body language, it’s something that can hurt him if gotten wrong – but it was replicated well. AJ Styles match, it struck me just how picture-perfect they nailed Nakamura’s mannerisms. Counter animations are a bit smoother and transitions between moves look slightly more organic now as well.
2K17 features the same basic setup, but now gives you better reversal windows and a larger, colorful icon for certain reversal situations.
That allowed matches to feel more like what you would see on TV and less like a back and forth series of moves that eventually led to a winner.
It prevents the logical break of having created wrestlers clash visually with the in-game models for the versus screens.Ģk16’s match flow was outstanding and its more realistic pacing brought things back to where 2K14 was, but with better reversal variety. Small touches, like the spotlight in the crowd and the use of in-game character models for the versus screens help. The punches and headbutts used are stiff, while the uppercuts can occasionally look a bit weird. You can also fight in the stands with a limited punch and headbutt moveset, which although feels like a rough draft of things to come, does nail the presentation perfectly with a spotlight being the only thing on the action. 2K17 features a similar area, but no balcony dives - but with a litany of weapons available to attack your enemies with. Raw 2007 allowed you to fight in an area near the crowd and even dive off a makeshift balcony. Shut Your Mouth had it officially and that was in 2002 while SmackDown vs.
Right now, what I was able to try out was impressive, but it will be impossible to get a handle on how much actual variety there is here until spending some time with the full game.įighting around ringside has been expanded in recent years - but hasn’t allowed for brawling in the crowd in many years. If you just focus on having a good match that happens to have a few crazy moments backstage, then it won’t be an issue. In theory, there’s a lot to do - but much of it is surface-level and that’s something I can see getting a bit old if you just want to have matches where you do crazy things. Weapon selection is robust and you can do a few things into various props around the area. One thing that has never been done until now with backstage brawling is being able to knock an enemy from one area to another with a strike - something I did with Brock in my first match, sending Orton sailing out of the locker room and into the hallway. You get your full ringside-specific moveset with modifications made to suit the environment a little better. The last games with this mode have limited your moveset, which isn’t the case here. It is back to being its own unique mode, but does retain some earlier SmackDown game elements because you can go area to area - but you can’t go backstage from the ringside area and loading time is a thing of the past. The biggest addition to 2K17 is backstage brawling. With 2K16 bringing back much of what made 2K14 work, and speeding up the pace from the misstep that was 2K15, 2K17 has been a game we’ve wanted to check out for quite some time. 2016 has been a transformative year for WWE with its roster gaining a level of depth that hasn’t been seen in quite some time. Since the moment it was announced, WWE 2K17 has been something wrestling fans have been anticipating.