Recent reviews by Doc

Right now I absolutely cannot encourage anyone to buy this game. If you are considering it, stop, read this post, then consider again.

1) The BIGGEST issue first: the bugs. The game is choc-ful of them. In fact, there have been more bugs added to the game from 2K23 to 2K24 than actual pieces of content. That's right. They revamped MyFaction (which no one likes), changed up MyGM (which is feature deficient, and half-baked), and added a few match types. Oh, and they added blood smearing on the ring. You know what else they did?

- Completely broke custom wrestlers, making several aspects of customization straight up reset at random. Also, while you're customizing there's a completely random chance that your game just... crashes to desktop (customizations don't autosave so you just lose all your progress).

- Broke Create An Entrance, creating several instances in which pyrotechnics become permanently disabled (only way to fix it is to completely reset your progress on the entrance), and titantrons are reset to default smackdown screens (with no way to change them).

- Broke several moves such as the "Perfect 10 Punches" which completely softlock the game if there are only 2 competitors. Yep.

- Broke perspective adjustments, making AI vs AI spectator matches nearly unwatchable when doing matches like Hell in a Cell. The cell NO LONGER becomes transparent, so you're just staring at a piece of metal half the time. Same thing with Tag Team matches. If the fighters go to the right of the ring? You're just staring squarely into one of the wrestlers backs, with the MOST important section of the screen blocked. This is ONLY an issue for AI vs AI matches (which a lot of people love hosting), but not an issue in PvAI or PvP.

- Broke the Community Creations tab. Wanna upload something with a custom name, or text? Go ahead, but if you have any random words that the moderation system deems inappropriate seemingly at random (in my case, the word ECON for some reason), it'll just crash your game to desktop.

- Broke the Community Creations UPLOAD system. Yep. You wanna upload a character with text on them that ISN'T deemed inappropriate? That's great. The text will disappear for anyone downloading them though... not custom images you put on the character, JUST the text. Oh yeah, and your moveset might get reset, or your signs, or your stats, etc etc. Literally nothing that you upload is guaranteed to be saved. It seems to just delete your work at random.

=
=

2) The game visually is a mix of amazing, and absolute abysmal garbage:
- The lighting? Pretty good.

- The arenas? Great!

- The models? Terrible. Female models have a mix of fine looking, and disgusting mannequin features. Male models are either muscular, slightly fat, obese, or skinny... but all skinny models have concave chests as though they've been flattened like a pancake. On a side note, I've seen better ambient crowds in games from the early 2010s, the crowd in 2K24 looks worse than the crowd at the arena in Oblivion.

- The textures? Trash. There's plenty of good looking things in the game, but why are SO MANY of the pieces of clothing marked recolorable if the team making them couldn't be bothered to properly define the bounds in which the color will change? Change a red piece to black, and watch as the forgotten pixels of red create a nasty looking crust around it.

- The animations? A mixture of great, and bad. Tons of animations look super cool! Too bad they're mixed in with animations that are half the framerate, robotic, and seemingly not changed since the PS2 era.

=
=

3) What about what they didn't do though? Let's see:
- They didn't fix AI in Hell in a Cell. They still wander around the outside of the ring cluelessly, and often just get stuck... unable to continue the match until you take control of one and jostle them around.

- They didn't fix the multitude of clothing issues. Plenty of clothing pieces are still extremely poorly modeled, poorly textured, or broken completely. Several pieces have jutting, stretching polygons, and some pieces have actively gotten worse (such as one of the trench coats, which has had the fur texture turn into... cubes).

- They didn't fix the AI. At all. It's still utterly, and inexcusably unintelligent. The AI will routinely decide to do the worst possible thing they can in whatever situation they are in. Randomly slow walking around the ring, and allowing themselves to be counted out. Picking up weapons just to throw them on the ground. Using extremely long taunts knowing the enemy will be able to attack them. They're just... terrible. It makes fighting them unfun, and watching them even less so.

- They didn't attempt to improve the MyGM mode (the mode everyone I know actually plays the game for). You know how cool match run-ins are? Yeah me too. They're in the game! Not in MyGM though. Why can match run-ins happen randomly when in play mode, but when you schedule them to happen in MyGM you HAVE to simulate the match, meaning you cannot watch the run in happen? What about 3v3 tags? No? Maybe first blood matches? No? What about GM interference? Nope. 2K... you have all the resources for the scenes involved in these match modifiers from Universe mode... just carry them over to MyGM.

=
=

Alright, review over. I don't need to explain any of those points any further, I'm sure you get what I'm saying.

TL;DR? Don't buy the game. If you absolutely must, then wait a few months. They're charging 60 dollars for a game they've delivered to you stuck together with duct-tape, and bobby pins. Skyrims bugs were charming, 2K24's bugs are not.

Play it, play it all day. Mind you, all of this is based on the Halo: Reach launch. None of the other games have been released as of this review.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Graphics - 7/10: In terms of modern day graphical advances, Halo: Reach holds up well. However, this is no remaster; there is an option in your video settings to use "enhanced" graphics, however there doesn't seem to be any difference - at least not a noticeable one - between classic and enhanced graphics. Still, though, it looks fine - nothing really to complain about. It isn't some 16 bit digital blurb of pixels, but also not exactly the 4k ray traced masterpiece that we've come to be accustomed to in today's gaming climate.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gameplay 7/10: There's a lot to talk about here, and it's only in the first stage of releases. To simplify this section it will be divided into two separate sections.

Campaign - 9/10: The campaign is as good as ever, and definitely faithful to the original game, however there are some things I would like to advise you to do if you haven't played through it yet. Firstly, don't play Legendary first. The proper difficulty to play campaign on has always been Heroic. Heroic has the challenge of Legendary, without the cheesy annoyances that Legendary has (mainly the Grunts and Jackals being trained marksmen with the trigger finger of the average wild west hero, and the brute strength of Elites that can punch straight through your chest, insta-killing you). Headshots on Grunts and Jackals are as satisfying as ever, and Elites are a brisk challenge that serve to give a bit of caution to your play style. Brutes pose a challenge, as their health is high and you can't use the same plasma pistol strategy with them as you can with Elites. Hunters, well they're tanks - yet still not annoying to play against.

Multiplayer - 7/10: This is a whole different can of worms. Depending on your skill level, you'll go 0-60 or 60-0, there is no skill based matchmaking as far as I have experienced, so you just have to take each game as it's own thing. For all forms of Slayer in non-competitive matchmaking (meaning ffa, or team based, and this includes SWAT, Snipers, etc...), there is a good amount of skill dependent on kills - however there is just as much; in fact more just based on if you have a power weapon or not. Regardless of skill, a player wielding a sniper rifle, or energy sword can usually dominate the scoreboard in most cases. One complaint I do have is the constant kill trading with other players. Whether it be melee, or just headshot swapping, there are plenty of times that you'll be shooting or punching someone and dying with them, it's kind of annoying but not something that ruins the gameplay. In terms of Invasion, the same kill swapping issues persist, as well as the skill gap issues, but there is one other bit of stratification present specifically in this game mode. Faction weapons are very slightly unbalanced; the Elites not only have the plasma piston that greatly assists in melee kills, as well as plasma grenades that stick to enemies AND do more AoE damage. Even still, with enough tactics and skill you can completely overpower the Elites as Spartans and win a game easily.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Replay Value - 10/10: After a while the multiplayer lost it's luster for me. It's still fun but nowhere near as fun as it used to be and that is a shame. However, the campaign hasn't lost it's luster at all. It's great fun to play through it with friends, and on top of that there's just so much variation you can apply to it. I recommend after playing through the campaign on heroic, that you play through it once more on legendary just for that unfair challenge. Then after that, once more on legendary with any skulls you want. Even after this, there are plenty of things you can do to bide your time till the next game is released, mainly achievement hunting and easter egg hunting! Try to find every data pad, then the legendary only data pads! Try to kill the target on Tip of the Spear before he escapes! Get through The Package on legendary with the Scorpion intact! Kill 1000 of each enemy type! Get all 10,000 medals! Beat the par times, and par scores for each mission! Do the LASO Campaign (if you're a severe masochist). That's JUST the campaigns replayability. For some people, the multiplayer may harbor this same amount of replay value, from the medals to the leveling, to the armor, to the scoring, career stats and more.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Final Opinions/Comments: It's a great port. The options are wonderful, however I would like to see view model customization implemented. We still need Forge mode to be added into the game, and if possible Theater mode. Some achievements need to be fixed, such as the Tip of the Spear par time achievement. Finally... we need the original progression system back. The season leveling system is terrible, it removes all of the freedom that the original currency system from Reach had, and replaces it with the most boring and inane mind numbing experience bar I've seen yet. Fix these, and you have a perfect port from Xbox to PC I've seen in a long, long while.

Overall... 8/10. Buy it, play it, love it. It really brings you back, but also don't expect everything to be the same as it was.