#EGX2014 Hands-On Preview: WWE 2K15
The WWE 2K15 demo has on show at EGX, marking its debut on the new generation consoles. While the demo wasn’t available for the PS3 or Xbox 360, it was on show with all its glory on the PS4 and Xbox One. The first thing that I noticed about the demo was how fantastic WWE 2K15 looked, you can certainly tell that it has had the same attention to detail as the NBA 2K series. Not only did the WWE Superstars look incredibly realistic in comparison to previous instalments, they almost moved with life-like mannerism as their real life counterparts.
During the demo we got to play as John Cena, Randy Orton, Cesaro and Goldust and each were strikingly as close to the real thing, then we have ever seen in the series. They move, breath and get excited when they pull off a signature move, these subtleties will be very apparent to fans of WWE. The gameplay does seem to be at a slower pace than previous games, but for me that makes it even more lifelike. It will be interesting to see how much the speed of the gameplay is taken up a notch when taking control of Superstars such as Rey Mysterio or Seth Rollins, only time will tell.
While fans of the series will quickly grow accustom to how the game plays as just about everything has been kept how it was, however there is a new grapple mechanic introduced. Now unfortunately I never got to play the demo as much as I had hoped, nor was the rep at the stand available at that time to tell me more. But the best way in which I could describe it, was that it was kind of like a Rock, Paper, Scissors QTE. I could be wrong, as like I said, I would have liked to know more about this gameplay feature.
If there was one thing that I was a little disappointed about, was that there was no JBL on commentary with Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler. But that’s probably just me being extra picky, because I know a lot of recording time has gone into this year’s commentary better than ever before and I can’t wait to see if it remains fresh post release, rather than the words of Michael and Jerry growing stale relatively early on. Unfortunately no commentary was available during the EGX demo, so we’ll have to wait and see on that one too.
Before the release of WWE 2K15, I will be attending a special event for the game and much like the event that I attended last year, I expect that the roster will be blown wide open and we will hear commentary by the dynamic duo and I should learn much more about the new gameplay features. So watch this space.
WWE 2K15 will release for the PS3 and Xbox 360 on October 28th in North America and then the 31st across Europe. The game will then release for the PS4 and Xbox One on November 18th for North America and the 21st for Europe.