I know that i have spoken about new arrivals in this years game before and the expansion of NXT in the gaming world helping with more new faces getting into the game. However, there is a number of other names entering the virtual world for the first time of many likely to come in the future. Though at first I was going to focus my attention on one name instead of stretching thing I realized that Undisputed Era were in the game for the first time. 

Last year, top Ring of Honor stars headed over to the WWE from their home company. First off Bobby Fish & Kyle O' Riley arrived in the company and then we saw the leader making his shocking debut at Takeover: Brooklyn III attacking the new champion Drew McIntyre. This in my opinion ushered in a new era for NXT as a lot of the old stars had gone up to the main roster by this point and the NXT brand needed some new fire power. 

Even though at this point and time nobody in Undisputed Era have held the World Championship they have all held gold as a member of the NXT brand with the former ReDragon holding the NXT Tag Team titles. Looking at the other two members of the group namely Roderick Strong who is a co-holder of the Tag team championships with Roddy taking Bobby's spot in the team. The leader of the group Adam Cole is the former and first ever NXT North American Champion, in all honesty though it is clear that Adam will at one point be NXT World Champion. 

Overall though seeing Adam Cole, Kyle O' Riley and Bobby Fish together for the first time in the virtual world will be awesome. This will allow for some awesome dream matches and maybe even for some what if situations to take shape. One closing note and that since the game has hit store shelves I will be winding down this section as the activity in this section will soon go down and the cycle will continue, but this section will not close quite yet. 

Though the game has officially arrived that doesn't mean that we still can't look at different ways to dig into the game. In most cases the WWE games always have different ways of sticking out from the previous games in the franchise. Since the beginning of NXT a few years back we've seen more and more NXT talent enter the games. Early on only a handful of top stars were included in the game, but now 2K games has expanded the presence of NXT in the WWE games. One of the best parts I find year to year is seeing the new faces in the games to be able to play as such new talent. 

Though the booking of the women's division has been hit or miss in recent years the arrival of Ruby Riot on the main roster was very surprising and unexpected. I firmly believe that Ruby will be champion in the near future and has a very bright future in the company as she has shown to be one of the more well rounded fresh faced females. Honestly I don't remember the last time one star has gained the amount of stem in such a short time like the Velveteen Dream. In my opinion this still proves that gimmicks in wrestling still work if the gimmick fits the talent. There is absolutely no doubt that Patrick Clark has found himself and has a tremendous amount of potential once he finds his way to the main roster. However, at the extremely young age of 23 there is no rush to rush the Velveteen Dream to the main roster as he still has a lot to do down in NXT. Overall though this is their presence in the gaming world of WWE can be a lot different then what we see in the real world. 

Since Take Two took over the WWE gaming franchise they slowly broke the games down to the bare minimum and started building again from square one. Now I think that the company is really getting to the point where they have hit their stride with the company and really have tapped into some past games. In my opinion the WWE games have needed some revamping some matches as they just needed a little bit of an upgrade, but also the idea of being better matches. Fact is that in the past Cage matches have been extremely tedious and annoying to play as well though the Hell in a Cell match got very boring after a while. 

Starting with the Cage match upgrades apparently now you can dive from the Cage mid climb if your opponent is up. The other new addition is a climbing mini game similar to the way THQ used in older games back during the SVR series. But in recent games that mini game had changed and honestly I don't remember what we did in Cage matches during recent games. However, just by looking at some pictures and gameplay it does look like these types of matches will be a lot better. Also I want to point out that I know in the Legend of Wrestling franchise you could dive off the cage mid climb and I'm pretty sure you use to be able to in WWE games not sure when though. 

Moving to the Hell in a Cell and the changes coming to that match type this year. First of all they haven't really done anything drastic to the Hell in a Cell match in an extremely time I think since changing how you get out of the cell from the door to a finisher or adding weapons under the ring. However, the changes coming this year are in my opinion designed to make the match more fun and less of headache like it had been in previous years. 

As now you can fight on all four sides of the cage as oppose to just the right and left side like you could in previous years due to the size of the cell. Another new addition is escaping the cage is a lot simpler as you have the ability to send your opponent through the panel if the move does enough damage. This will make the match a lot more fun in my opinion because now you don't have to expend a finisher to get out of the cage and can do it whenever you like. The last change that they are bringing this year is that pretty much all the roof panels that are above the ring are breakable from the roof similar to the way they did it in Day of Reckoning. This means that not just the middle panel like in past years is breakable, but I would say close to 50% of the roof might be breakable depending on the amount of times you want to take that fall. 

Overall it seems that they are finally at the point with the franchise where they can start making much needed changes to match types. Now they have added new matches and updated the Money in the Bank as well, but I thought the upgrades or revamping done to these match types was more interesting to talk about. Either way though the game will be out before we know and it is just nice to be able to talk about more than just the roster as far as new additions to the WWE game. 

Once 2K took over the WWE games franchise somethings changed up from how THQ operated in the past and one of those things was the season mode. In the older games you could select any active wrestler on the roster and take them threw a full years of WWE programming with feuds set in place depending on decisions you make in the season. However, after THQ sold the WWE games franchise in bankruptcy court things would slowly start to change and get phased out. Season mode was one thing that I don't think really got phased out, but more got a facelift by the new owners as they really decided to follow overall feuds. 

Basically instead of coming up with different storylines for the player to follow during a season mode 2k decided to go the route of using feuds that happened already and having the player go threw those instead. In my opinion it was very interesting playing in the Attitude Era again and the WCW Invasion as well being able to revisit the Triple H vs Shawn Michaels feud. The one problem that this format has is it is very easy to run out of feuds to let the player go threw. 

When the announcement of Daniel Bryan's return came down it was a cause for celebration and in my opinion the best way to celebrate as a fan is by getting the opportunity to relive Daniel's incredible ascension to the top of WWE. One question I do have is how far back the company will go and at the same time how far into his return 2K will go or can go in that case with Daniel's feud with Miz only in the early stages of starting up again. 
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Though they did appear in last year's game as DLC assuming they appeared following their induction into the Hall of Fame. Over the years a number of fans have wondered what it would be like to see certain wrestlers in the WWE gaming world and though the list is never ending some names always show up. In my opinion one team that we never thought would appear in a WWE game, but was always on a list of "What if" they did appear in the game and that was the Rock N Roll Express. 

In my opinion Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson are one of the greatest tag teams in the history of pro-wrestling. The idea that in game we could see some top teams within modern WWE and some teams from yesteryear like the Hardy Boys. I think that the Hardy's vs Rock N Roll Express is one of the dream matches that I believe that a lot of fans would've liked to see if it was possible. 

Overall it is surreal to me that the Rock N Roll are actually featured in a WWE game and where you could actually have them fight some dream matches. The reality of it is that Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson were never big stars in the WWE, but they had legendary careers down in the Mid-Atlantic region. Either way though Ricky & Robert are a welcomed addition to the WWE gaming world!! 

Every year we expect the WWE to improve upon certain things between the games and for the most they usually don't underdeliver on that front. Especially when it comes to the roster for the game which does normally expand as the game gets older threw downloaded content or DLC which adds things to the game post release. Getting that out of the way its time to move to the important stuff as it became clear really early on post Cruiserweight division return that the WWE thought things would just fall in to place. 

This ideology was perfectly clear based on the poor booking of the division and the company never letting them do more then just the half hearted comedy and lackluster non wrestling segments they had been doing. Now this is not to say that the guys in the division don't have what it takes on the microphone side to at least hold their own it was more the idea that they have to be over before they get mic time for the fans to care about them. 

This is where an old TNA trope comes into play by having the talent do interviews one on one or just having vignettes play for the talent and letting their in ring skills speak for them as oppose to looking to the microphone like everyone else. Early on names like Neville (Remember him) Brian Kendrick, Drew Gulack, and others really were the only ones getting heat using the microphone. Once Neville left though a spot opened up which was quickly filled by Drew who has taken advantage of it and become a highlight of the division and 205 Live. Overall though the amount of incredible things that both Dorado and Ali can do in the ring has been showcased since the "New Era" of 205 Live began earlier this year and I'm excited to see what these two will be able to do in their first WWE games. 

With the conversation now shifting to this years installment of the WWE video game series. However, before we look at this years roster it is time to look back at some gameplay action from last year's game. At first when 2K Games purchased the WWE gaming rights from THQ I was a little confused because they had never made a game like this before the WWE series. Looking at the first few games produced by 2K for the WWE series they weren't the best but compared to the worst WWE games the first games weren't the worst. 

Last year's game did improve upon some limitations that were in place in WWE 2K17. One of the better parts of this game was the expanded backstage area compared to 2K17 including a large semi truck the likes of which we haven't seen since Smackdown Here Come's the Pain. Either way though I don't think that their is better match I could pick to start the 2K conversation then AJ Styles vs Seth Rollins. Let's get into WWE 2K mode as the countdown begins for 2k19.

It's official at this point and though I might be a little behind the curve it's time to celebrate the arrival of the new game. Last week WWE 2K18 arrived on store shelves for the world. This years game had some extremely needed updates to different parts of the game including match types that needed some updates. Both the Royal Rumble & Elimination Chamber match have been updated as two of the most clear new matches. I for one will say that of all the matches that needed an update the Rumble was on the top of the list. 

Another thing that changed from last year was the My Career Mode. The one thing I never understood is that with 2K working wonders in the basketball series that how could they not do the same magic in WWE games. Now the other clear difference is that they have added more NXT talent and just new faces in general to the game which is always fun when you get the new game. 

Every year the WWE game has new features and updates to match types or at least that's how it used to be. In recent years it feels as though they have put updating the game on hold to update graphics. This is why the 2K18 installment of the series has got so much hype as a few match types have been updated and they have improved the backstage area. 

​One of the matches that have been improved is the Elimination Chamber match as they have the updated match from the most recent Smackdown Live edition of the event. Seeing this makes me believe that 2K has finally invested some extra time into designing the game which is something they really haven't done in recent years. Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think of 2K18!! 

With the release date of WWE's newest game coming up soon I thought it'd be fitting to take one more look at last years game. Some of the moments featured are somethings that I didn't even know were possible to do in the game. I do guess that some of these moments have been seen in your games over the last year, but I am actually looking forward to this years game, if you can't tell by the amount of hype I have been doing.