What I Like

Roster

I’ve seen rumblings across Reddit and Twitter criticizing Interactive’s current roster for some notable omissions such as Mike Tyson, Floyd Mayweather, and so on, but I think the criticism is a little much. While the roster isn’t quite as robust as EA’s UFC 5 it’s certainly more impressive than EA’s last boxing game, Fight Night Champion.

When you consider the landscape of boxing and how hard it is to negotiate with fighters for them to actually fight top class opponents, it’s impressive that a relatively small company like Steel City Interactive was able to pull this many fighters, on both the women’s and men’s sides. Furthermore, the likenesses and unique fighting stances and styles are extremely well done, adding to the immersion and fun factor.

Graphics

If the roster size is the setup/throwaway jab, setting the table for what’s to come, the graphics are the cross that comes next. Whether it’s down to the details of the fighters or the arena(s) in which you’re fighting in, both are extremely impressive and help to build the spectacle that can only be achieved in combat sports.

Faces are highly accurate and recognizable with body scans very representative of the size and stature of fighters across the various weight divisions. Even the damage system, while not perfect in terms of execution, looks good, especially with cuts and bruises.

When it comes to the venues, they are impressive no matter the scale. Fighting with your created boxer in career mode and starting off at the local bar scene looks authentic, as does making your way to the big time of the WBC arena or this lovely ballroom.

More Fluid Action

One of my main issues with the early betas on the PC was how static the action could be at times. Too often fights would feel like Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots with both fighters standing in the middle of the ring exchanging haymakers. Thankfully, the pain that us PC players endured in the early days has been refined for the official console release and it’s no small feat.

Undisputed, just as boxing is in real life, is largely determinant on what goes on with your feet. That static nature of the footwork, and some of this is fighter dependent, would result in punches being thrown from too many stationary positions and not the various angles/positions they should be thrown from.

The pace of the fights is at a good place now, one in which it’s largely defined by the type of fighter you have (weight classes matter), the traits of that fighter, and your preferred style (boxer, counter-puncher, slugger, and so on). Because the movement downstairs is better, the upper body movement looks and feels better with all of the tools left at your disposal (feints, bobs, weaves, and so on). As a result, you can really pull off some beautiful combinations or conversely get hit with some lovely shots.

AI Improvements

The improvements in difficulty as it pertains to the CPU AI is night and day from previous PC betas. Adaptive AI is usually a catchphrase we’ve seen with various EA games over the years but one that never truly delivers. In Undisputed, it’s a completely different case, especially as you go up in difficulty.

The early days of spamming pull+power straights are long gone in the sense that you can still try them, but eventually your AI opponent will catch-on and render that attack useless by blocking them and even countering them.

A subtle side-step by the AI-controlled Leonard is shown here before he then counters my shot with a jab to the head followed by one to the body before finishing up with a straight right upstairs as he then escapes the pocket to reset. It’s a subtle move, and while none of these shots had real power on them, they help to score points with the judges — for fighters like Sugar Ray Leonard they’re invaluable shots that accumulate over time as opposed to those boxers that have one-hit knockout power.

I found myself dominating most, if not all fights on the PC, but I’m back to the drawing board on the PS5 as I hone my skills and try to erase some bad habits.

What I Don’t Like

Career Mode Gets Stale

At the heart of every successful combat game there are two chambers, career mode and online. While the online aspect is relatively simple, albeit still suffering from a bit of desync (punches not landing on your screen but landing on your opponent’s) the career mode in Undisputed already suffers from being too monotonous and stale. Simply put, there isn’t enough to do inside of it to keep you engaged. The rundown pretty much goes like this:

Hire a Team –> Enter Fight Negotiations –> Training Camp –> Fight –> Rinse and Repeat

Even inside of these actions there’s massive room for improvement, especially in the Training Camp department. Give me some mini-games like hitting the heavy bag or some mitt-work with my coach. Little skill games like they have in EA FC would go a long way towards breaking up some of the boredom that can creep in between fights. Actual press conferences or weigh-ins would bring some more immersion beyond just “doing a social media post.” Even navigating the balance between making weight and staying sharp is relatively easy to figure out fairly quickly.

Speaking of making weight, a large complaint of mine and the community in general centered around not being able to change weight classes during career mode. It’s very common in boxing to move divisions, especially as you get older and it’s easier to gain weight (move up) than to lose weight and move down a division. Catch weights would make negotiations a little more interesting as it would be cool to look back over your career and see you’ve cleaned up in multiple weight classes. We know the ability to gain weight is there, now Steel City just needs to let us roll with it and face some new challenges.

Career mode also falls shorts when it comes to the number of AI fighters. Most weight divisions have ~50 fighters in the ranking and over time you find yourself fighting the same top guys, only they’ve aged 10 years and have accumulated many more losses. As fighters get up there in age, why not auto-generate some new ones and retire out a few of the older guys/gals?

Pushing Is OP

Before the push (R3) was implemented, the input was reserved for clinching, which after some updates was punishable by the ref if it was deemed excessive. Now that folks online have complained about clinching (a very useful and common tactic in real life), the push mechanic has been implemented and abused online by fighters who want a cheap tactic to use when they’ve been dazed and are in danger of being dropped.

As an option and/or gameplay mechanic, it’s vital to have the push input in the game. However, in order for it to be balanced, you have to be able to hit or get hit by an opponent while doing so.

Stamina Still An Issue

For over a year and some change, the Undisputed community has been raising concerns over the issues surrounding stamina and arm fatigue (spamming punching with the same arm/hand). Simply put, the balance between stamina drain for the AI and the human is heavily skewed towards the AI, and when fighting online versus another human power punches thrown (and missed) don’t have enough of an effect on stamina.

Case in point, here’s a fight I was watching on YouTube. Sugar Ray Leonard (boxer-puncher) vs. Canelo (slugger). As you can tell, Canelo finishes the fight with 61% stamina whereas Leonard is on 46%. A quick glance will show you that Sugar Ray threw ~180 more punches, landing at a very solid clip of 61%. Knowing that body shots tend to slow fighters down (in both real-life and in Undisputed) I usually chalk up the stamina disparity to them, but the stats here are relatively close (90-73 in favor of Sugar Ray).

Now the huge disparity in punches thrown can be attributed to one area, Power Punches, where Canelo lands them at a 53% clip connecting on 125 of them compared to Sugar Ray’s modest output (46% with 25 power shots landing). In an ideal world, stamina is a result of conditioning (fighter traits and stamina ratings) + punches absorbed + punches thrown — because in theory and practicality a punch thrown and missed is more draining than a punch connected, and that’s even more true if that missed punch is a power shot.

The Canelo fighter here throws and misses over 100 power shots and is hit with over 100 more punches from a fighter (Sugar Ray) known for being in great shape when going deep into fights (15 rounds vs. Duran, 14 vs. Hearns). There’s no logical explanation for why Canelo is +15% when it comes to stamina, and unfortunately this kind of things plays out a lot online where it’s often power shot after power shot after power shot. Hopefully now that the console release is here and more gamers play the game, we’ll see more feedback from the community regarding balancing stamina.

Dazed/Stunned Fighters

For some unknown reason, Steel City has made it so that stunned AI fighters are harder to hit than non-stunned fighters. Whereas you can get to an AI fighter and knock them into a dazed state, all of the punches they seem to let in now get blocked as they go into an impenetrable shell, channeling their inner Floyd Mayweather by cutting off openings to both their head and body no matter if you mix it up and attack the body to open up the head or vice versa. It’s already frustrating to have to run and chase them down as they retreat once dazed, but they too frequently get out of trouble once they’ve been rocked.

Bottom Line

The frequent tuning and updates that us beta players were used to seemed to slow down ahead of the Undisputed console release. While this was logical on the part of Steel City as they ramped up their efforts to bring the game to consoles, the expectation is for them to now get to work and incorporate some balancing at the behest of the boxing community.

Once the freshness of having a new boxing game for the first time in years wears off, the community will start to pick apart the game in such a way that would make Bud Crawford proud. By exponentially increasing the number of players, the usual online exploits will be exposed, so it’s up to the developers to continue to tune the gameplay, add more fighters to the roster, and flesh out their career mode. For now, it’s an excellent start and a must-have for any die-hard boxing fan or casual that enjoys the sweet science.

What I Like

Graphics & Presentation

If there’s one word to describe the visuals in EA FC 25 it’s stunning. Everything from the kits to the stadiums and players look as true to life as they ever have in this franchise. EA has fully come to grips with the power of these current-gen consoles and powerful gaming PCs. Nowhere is this displayed more prominently than in the game’s most popular league, the English Premier League, where the pageantry and atmosphere is captured to a tee.

With full match introductions returning, it’s nice to be able to set the controller down and watch in anticipation as the match builds, going from the fans entering the stadium to the lineup overlays that resemble the Sky Sports presentation package. Even in motion, where I’ve been very critical in past years, the game looks and moves as realistically as ever with kit physics and weather effects helping to enhance the authenticity of the world’s most popular sport.

Modes

Credit to EA here as they do a great job of making a game that is accessible to everyone, both in terms of inclusion and also in terms of game modes. Just look at all of the modes available this year:

• Exhibition
• Career Mode (Player & Team)
• Ultimate Team & Seasons
• Pro Clubs
• Rush
• Seasons

While I’m no huge fan of Ultimate Team, it seems like every year EA dedicates some time and resources into expanding each game mode, and apart from The Journey and Volta, most of these modes are keepers and will be here to stay with some like EA’s new Rush Mode (basically 5-a-side) being incorporated into career mode. Offering a variety of modes is a good way to not only attract new fans but also keep those existing ones around. Future articles will dive deeper into career mode, but so far I find myself enjoying jumping around from mode to mode when I want to play the game in a different way.

Improved Keepers

I mentioned this aspect in my early impressions article, but it’s worth promoting to the first team. Keepers were not only an eyesore last year but also a game breaker for me. The enjoyment of scoring a goal is one of the most adrenaline-pumping moments in all of sports, but last year that enjoyment was sucked out of me due to hilariously poor keepers who would make the routine save look difficult and then pull off a world-class save numerous times throughout a match. The consistency of saves, whether it was in covering your near post or coming off their line, was downright putrid.

With shooting accuracy always skewed towards the attack on default settings, the scorelines last year would get out of hand quickly, so if you fancied a good player career mode save you’d soon find yourself breaking long-standing records because of a combination of terrible defensive AI and poor goalkeeping. While far from perfect this year, keepers inspire much more confidence in a game where your defense often leaves you hanging out to dry (more on this later).

What I Don’t Like

Tactical Rigidity

There’s a big issue with EA’s newest catchphrase FC IQ. Simply put, the IQ isn’t IQ’ing. The new tactical system that along with HyperMotion IV was supposed to revolutionize the game and bring some much needed authenticity to it has proven quite the opposite.

Welcome to the latest Deep Dive on EA SPORTS FC 25, where we’re taking a look at FC IQ, the new tactical system designed to give you more strategic control and freedom while increasing gameplay variety. 

Instead of players using their actual IQ on the pitch, they instead follow their instructions to a tee, rarely deviating from their instructions and roles. The ramifications of such can be seen in both attack and and defense. In regards to the attack, instead of reading the game, your attackers will blindly follow their instructions even it means actually abandoning an attack:

Case in point, off a corner, with my attack winning the second ball and my forward (Nkunku) driving towards the byline, instead of supporting the attack and staying in the box they inexplicably drop back leaving me 2 vs. 8 in the box, despite me being on Attacking:

Not even the most defensive of managers would teach this tactic, especially considering the opposition had eight defenders in the box and two just sitting outside the box. Again, what threat is my defense preparing for so cautiously that they have to abandon the attack in order to get back into their shape?

The tactical rigidity on display in EA FC 25 contributes to stagnant attacks.

In the above sequence, Frankfurt is on the attack with Stuttgart in defense. The build-up is patient and methodical, something that’s often portrayed in the modern game. From a numbers perspective, Frankfurt is attacking with three while Stuttgart have essentially six defenders behind the ball.

In the modern game, it’s all about overloads (getting the ball into an area where you have more attackers than defenders thus freeing up an attacker), and while there are certainly situations where you wouldn’t want to go all-out in attack, this certainly isn’t one of them. However, as soon as the Frankfurt right winger makes a diagonal run, the Stuttgart defense falls apart. Despite Frankfurt only having one attacker ahead of the ball who’s not in an offside position, the defense parts like the Red Sea and a big chance is gifted:

This segues perfectly into the game’s biggest issue, defending.

Head-Empty Defenders

Simply put, EA’s intent with EA FC 25, like previous years, is to keep the scorelines high and minimize the “intelligence” in AI. The game does this in four aspects when it comes to defending attacks.

1. First and foremost, the amount of space afforded attackers is head-scratching:

This is Brighton versus Nottingham Forest, two teams rated relatively high as both are mid-table English clubs full of young talent (Brighton) and full Internationals (Forest & Brighton). Not even at the lowest levels will you see a striker afforded so much space in the middle of the opposition’s penalty box while the man on the ball has no resistance — allowing him a simple pass into the striker’s feet.

2. Second on this list, and a contributor to my first point (poor man-marking/recognition), is defenders dropping too deep:

I struggle to say that this is a result of tactical rigidity down to FC IQ because this issue has been existent in FIFA/EA FC for some years now. Defenders drop too far inside their own box and because midfielders don’t actually defend (next topic), there’s a gap between your defensive lines that any striker can settle into and enjoy a cup of tea. Instead of pushing up and either getting tight to the attacker or looking to play them offsides, they simply allow attackers the time and space to receive a pass and turn, getting a shot off where it seems as if EA’s counter to this is to increase the defender’s blocking ability to prime Gary Cahill levels.

3. Midfield oh midfield, where art thou midfield?

Another running theme in the FIFA/EA FC series is your midfielders being absolutely worthless off-the-ball. As a direct result of the competitive crowd complaining about the AI doing everything for you, EA has ignored the fact that midfielders are often your most important defensive line. They shield your back 4/5, cut down passing lanes, put in challenges, and often do the dirty work that is essential to a good defensive side. In an era where the likes of Rodri and Declan Rice put in shifts week-after-week, we’re left with teammates likes this:

The end result:

Ignoring the positive from this clip, that being the AI shooting from distance, take notice of the midfielder who gives no effort and allows the attacker to bear down on the defense, even if the shot has a low xG (expected goal).

4. Defenders not following attacking runs

To cap off the defensive issues on display this year in EA FC 25, there’s an evident issue with defenders not tracking the most basic of runs. In this situation, the attacking team gets in behind, creating a counter-attack even with the defense still outnumbering the attack 3 to 2.

This isn’t the ideal situation any manager would want to be in, but the defense should have it covered as evidenced by the player with the yellow arrow adjacent to them. While the passing lane is open for a through-ball into the space, the angle and head-start the defender has should result in them being able to deal with the attack. Instead, this is what happens:

Instead of following with the run and/or anticipating the pass, the defender backs off, goes into some weird jockey animation, and allows the attacker to run right across their face to ultimately get into a 1-on-1 with the keeper and score. Just poor from EA, especially when they tout their new FC IQ.

Sometimes you get moments like this where all of the defensive issues rear their ugly head in one clip:

Simulation Mode

When the news and Deep Dive dropped and simulation mode was touted, I was extremely excited. Finally, I thought us sim players would have a way to play the game that would be based on actual skill and intelligence (the use of tactics, situational football, and so on).

For those who enjoy a more strategic and simulated approach, the Simulation Mode introduces enhanced CPU AI, wind effects, and player-controlled sliders for fine-tuning gameplay.

Instead, we already know that the “enhanced CPU AI” isn’t really enhanced, but better yet, simulation mode is basically a pre-determined slider set. And if we’re being truthful, it’s a pretty awful one, especially when compared to OS’ own Community Sliders. If you’re going to utilize a slider set, why not use the methodology and hard work put in from the actual sim community? Playing on simulation mode (evidenced by the many clips in this article), is actually a more arcade-like experience with the only “sim” characteristic being slightly slower players (sprint speed/acceleration).

Bottom Line

There are may times when playing this game where I wonder to myself how this game could have gotten out of production at the state it’s in. On the surface, the game flatters but the deeper you get the more it deceives. Even additions like Youth Tournaments are shallow and just a shameless way to plug their new five-a-side mode, Rush, which is admittedly enjoyable at first but quickly loses its luster.

With the details of the game getting more nuanced, coupled with the advancement of artificial intelligence, EA should really explore scraping the marketing gimmicks and focus on their core mechanics and how they all function. At this point with very little competition in the football/soccer arena, EA doesn’t need catchy features like “HyperMotion” or “FC IQ” to move units. The brand, the licenses, and the modes are what bring people to EA FC 25 year on year. Next year, bring me EA FC 26: Back to Basics.

If you’re using the broadcast angle when playing the game, it’s entirely possible that someone glancing at the screen could believe you’re watching an actual NBA game. The overwhelming number of ways you can play NBA 2K will often leave you questioning how you want to spend your time in the game. It’s the video game equivalent of a movie displaying every penny of its budget on the screen, maximizing its resources in showcasing a premium product.

Unfortunately, the NBA 2K series has also established a reputation for being the most shameless purveyor of a pay-to-play ethos that entices, goads, and all but forces you to engage in microtransactions if you want to truly enjoy some of its key modes. NBA 2K25 pushes both of these reputations to further extremes by boasting the same stellar gameplay and robust variety of modes as usual while nearly ruining this with the kind of unbridled greed that leaves you feeling as if the game were trying to pick your pockets at every turn.

The Pro Play technology that was introduced last year has been further honed to produce on-court animations that are astonishing in their accuracy in bringing real players to life, including new go-to shots. The improved AI, especially on higher difficulties, makes playing against the CPU a greater but welcome challenge, as you’ll see more aggressive attacks from elite players and better strategy on offense. The MyEras mode chugs along as the frontrunner of all franchise modes within sports games, thanks in part to the addition of a Steph Curry Era to go with the unrivaled depth and customization that we have come to expect. Proving that less really is more, The City within MyCareer has smartly been redesigned and renovated to become more condensed and easy to explore. The WNBA has been given more attention within NBA 2K25 and, much like the league itself, the mode is fast becoming impossible to ignore.

It’s hard to overstate though just how much the prevalence of microtransactions threaten to hamper the enjoyment of some of the game’s most popular modes, starting with the effort it takes to earn enough VC (or virtual currency) to significantly improve your created player. Similarly, you’ll be prodded into purchasing VC within MyTeam, the game’s card-collecting mode, where it’s made far too time-consuming to earn viable rewards when playing the lackluster assortment of single-player modes. The MyGM mode is a bland and unimaginative twist on a franchise mode that fails to generate much excitement from a world of board rooms and offices.

With so much to delve into within the game, let’s not waste another second and venture into the paint to assess where the game is raining down buckets and where its shot attempts are clanging off iron.

What I Like

Pro Play

The gameplay in NBA 2K25 is powered by returning technology dubbed Pro Play that seeks to translate the real-life movements of NBA players into in-game animations. It’s the catalyst in another step forward in realism for the series, gloriously rendering the fundamentals while also giving space for the smaller details that are part of basketball.

It starts with ball handling, where an overhauled dribbling system can have you stringing together some nifty moves to evade defenders, but without the overpowered behind-the-back dribble that could too easily be abused to create space in the past. There are some noticeable changes to shooting as well, including a revamped shot meter that’s customizable right down to how much influence you actually want it to have on your shot. The introduction of rhythm shooting offers a new challenge to mastering the right stick to shoot rather than just the press of a button.

Signature shot animations provide another layer of authenticity, as you can perform go-to moves like a LeBron step-back jumper or a Steph Curry hop-step three ball that looks remarkably like the real thing. Defense works a little differently this year as well, as you’ll need to focus on using the right stick to cut off anyone hoping to blow by you and attack the basket.

It all coalesces into moments that can be downright awe-inspiring in how genuine they look. With an astounding amount of variety to be found in the animations, I’ve played so many games now and will still see things on the court that haven’t happened before. NBA 2K25 plays surprisingly well too on default settings without any manipulation of sliders. You’ll organically draw fouls when you get a defender out of position and create contact when driving to the rim.

Players will routinely get their hands on any ill-advised passes and show increased awareness to step into passing lanes to intercept them, particularly when passes have to travel in the air a long distance. There are more instances of the sloppy play that you see in the NBA on a nightly basis, especially from bad players and teams where someone will fumble a ball or leave it exposed enough to get it stripped out of their hands. It’s not uncommon to witness the sad spectacle of an unskilled passer missing a cutter entirely with a bullet pass and instead whipping the ball out of bounds for a turnover.

Improved CPU AI

No matter what difficulty you played on, games against the CPU in previous years of NBA 2K could prove to be a tedious and frustrating experience if you were looking for the game to be a true simulation. CPU players were timid in their offensive approach, limited in their strategy, and susceptible on defense to simple exploits.

These deficiencies have received attention in NBA 2K25, resulting in a CPU opponent that can be considerably tougher to beat. Where CPU players were previously too quick to succumb to tight defense, they will no longer accept being pinned down and now work harder to find high percentage shots. The league’s elite guards are able to drive and score even with your defenders right in their hip pocket and are capable of draining contested shots occasionally from deep.

The CPU will also seek out those shots from the 3-point line more frequently now, running screens and plays to get shooters open looks at a rate in line with league averages. Possessions where you think that you have the CPU’s offense figured out and the shot clock is running down can suddenly end with a slick backdoor cut that yields a dunk. At the other end of the court, CPU defenders are no longer quite so inept at playing the pick and roll, jumping out to contest shots when the time calls for it or falling back to intercept passes to big men rolling to the rim if you’re not careful with the ball.

MyNBA Eras

There haven’t been that many new features added to MyNBA Eras in NBA 2K25, but for the best franchise mode in all of sports gaming for quite a few years running, the few key additions only continue to solidify its vaunted status. They further build upon the Eras that allow you to play as some of the best teams and players in the history of the NBA by introducing a Steph Curry Era.

This puts you in charge of what’s considered the league’s last superteam, with Kevin Durant headlining alongside Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green. You can try to keep the band together longer than they were in real life and chase a multitude of titles or take control of a team like the Raptors and see if you can dethrone the kings as they did when they won their first championship. By continuing to add Eras every year, it won’t be long until NBA 2K gives you the opportunity to start at practically any point in the NBA’s past.

If you decide instead to play in the modern era with current teams, one of the first things you’ll notice when starting a season is that you can choose whether or not to have LeBron James retire and go on a farewell tour throughout the season. It’s a smart idea considering it pays suitable homage to a legend of the game and is bound to happen eventually whenever LeBron does really does decide to hang it up. It’s also appreciated how the mode continues to offer a customizable amount of control over your team’s decisions, including the MyNBA Lite option if you’d rather focus more on playing games than making front office decisions.

Looking at the bigger picture, the mode is starting to show its age a little from a cosmetic standpoint and could use at least a fresh coat of paint throughout its menus.

The City

When developers first conceived of The City within the MyCareer mode years ago, they understandably made the decision that designing The City to be as sprawling as possible would dazzle the most people. But as players have continued to gripe about how long it takes to ride around from one location to another, The City has gradually shrunk in recent editions. The City is smaller than it’s ever been in NBA 2K25, and this proves to be a good call that manages to condense everything that you would want within a handful of blocks. In fact, you can get everywhere so quickly on your skateboard (or other vehicle) that the only time you would likely want to use the subway stops at all is to get from one end of the map to the other.

For my money, playing games within The City remains the peak of online sports gaming in NBA 2K25, with no shortage of ways to compete against others and chase rewards via quests. Looking for arcade style? Head to the parks. You prefer a more NBA style? Get yourself to The Rec. Want something different? Hit The Theater and see what playlists are on the marquee this week. There’s even a handy squad finder to assist you in linking up with others and helping to weed out some of the awful random players that inevitably become your teammates.

Of course, should you not want to deal with human teammates at all, you can play your NBA games or take on the streetball quests that have you playing CPU opponents on unique courts throughout The City. You’ll encounter a lot of generic cutscenes along the way that follow a familiar narrative formula of balancing your responsibilities to your team and your burgeoning notoriety, but you can always choose to skip these and get to hooping faster. If you can’t find anything at all to enjoy about The City, there’s a good chance you might just not like basketball.

WNBA

With the WNBA continuing to rise in popularity, it’s hardly surprising to see a mode focused on the women’s basketball league rising in prominence in NBA 2K25. There’s clearly been some attention given to the WNBA in the form of new features, aside from just the inclusion of the league’s newest star, Caitlin Clark. When playing through your career as a player you create who’s trying to make a strong impression in the league, you’ll encounter valuable opportunities to establish your reputation and gain recognition through postgame press conferences. Though its online realm is hardly as extensive as The City’s myriad modes (and we still don’t have a Play Now Online feature for WNBA teams!), it’s still nice to be able to play some 3-on-3 online against other female players, with the backdrop of a redwood forest being an appreciated bonus.

What I Don’t Like

Microtransactions

It may sound like a broken record at this point to continue to lament the rise of microtransactions within sports games, but it’s a better alternative than simply accepting it as the norm. Once again, the scourge of these microtransactions is felt most palpably within the MyCareer and MyTeam modes.

The temptation to improve your created player in MyCareer by investing real money in VC that can raise your attributes instantly is constantly nagging at you and not only through the persistent in-game ads for VC that pop up in menus. (At launch, you were pinged twice within the first couple menu clicks to buy VC via pop-ups.) The amount of VC that you typically earn through playing games and fulfilling quests ensures that you’ll need to play the game often if you’re hoping to ever reach the ceiling of whatever build you choose.

It’s not quite so bad if you only want to play against the CPU and don’t mind watching your player slowly blossom into a superstar. It’s bound to be an issue however if you’re looking to compete against other people in The City who have zero reservations about paying for their player to have superior skills. Every year, it also seems like inflation is real and the VC just doesn’t quite go as far as it did in the past. While you’re focused on your player reaching their full potential, how can you also be expected to afford a decent pair of shoes or a fly T-shirt from one of The City’s many stores?

MyTeam’s biggest issues are hardly new among card-collecting modes like Madden and EA Sports FC that lure you into buying packs to obtain the finest cards available. Faced with a staggering number of objectives and agendas to complete, the sinking realization sets in of just how many hours it will take to earn the truly worthwhile rewards. Even with the addition of the new Breakout mode, there’s not a great return on the investment of your time if you don’t want to play against what can be a toxic online community. If you do want to see how your team stacks up against others though, the popular Triple Threat Online mode has been made worse by moving to a park locale where it now can take a bit to find an opponent.

The underlying problem with both MyCareer and MyTeam isn’t the existence of microtransactions but rather how little you’re compensated for playing instead of paying.

MyGM

It’s hard to tell whether MyGM is a concept with potential that hasn’t been fully realized or simply an ill-advised idea from the jump. It’s admittedly a tough sell to make the job of general manager for an NBA team all that exciting, and it doesn’t lend itself well to the RPG format that serves as its foundation in NBA 2K25.

Once you’ve chosen your GM archetype, you’ll wander through the halls and offices of your team’s facility, interacting occasionally with players and executives by selecting your choice of what you want to say. This involves making decisions on how to delegate your scouts, what kind of promotional nights to have at your arena, and how to keep players happy on losing teams. It can be more stressful than you’d expect.

As a Raptors GM, I found myself getting into a full-blown fight with Scottie Barnes soon after the season began all because I couldn’t realistically promise him that we would win a championship anytime soon. The people you talk to are awkwardly animated as well, often speaking through clenched teeth while barely opening their mouths. As you progress through a season though, you’ll often find that no one in your facility has anything to share with you for weeks at at a time. Because of its limitations, it feels as if MyGM would be best viewed as a supplement to MyNBA rather than its own standalone mode.

Bottom Line

The strengths and weaknesses of NBA 2K25 follow a trend that’s been seen from the series in recent years. The on-court action has undergone another round of refinements that are noticeable in the presentation and gameplay. Pro Play technology that was introduced last year helps to yield more variety and realism from the animations, including signature moves from many of the league’s best players. CPU opponents continue to get more efficient in their execution, implementing strategies and deploying the talents of their players to better effect.

MyNBA Eras builds on its solid framework with the addition of the Steph Curry Era to go with its dizzying assortment of options in taking control of a franchise and chasing championships. The City may have shrunk in a successful bid to become more accessible, but it’s still the same addictive destination to discover a multitude of courts and venues to play games versus others or the CPU. The game’s WNBA mode shines a brighter spotlight on the ladies thanks to updates to its career and franchise.

Just as with NBA 2K24, the omnipresence of microtransactions within the MyCareer and MyTeam modes render the grind of improving your created player and assembling a team of top-tier cards especially frustrating for the no money spent crowd. The MyGM mode is lacking in direction and polish, failing to enhance the experience of helming a franchise in an engaging way.

What I Like

Surprising Authenticity

Equipped with the FIFPRO license, Sociable Soccer 24 has a surprising amount of authenticity to offer. With over 13K professional players and 1,000 teams, you can take the club of your choice and attempt to win one of the 80 trophies offered in the game.

It’s unrealistic to expect authentic uniforms, but the basic color combinations are there and surprisingly there aren’t kit clashes when randomly matched up against an AI opponent. Even the tactics and roster management are surprisingly realistic, but we’ll get into that in a bit.

Gameplay

According to Tower Studios:

It’s everything Tower Studios described and more. It’s fast and intuitive in the sense that it’s easy to pick up, yet takes a little time to master, especially when you factor in the ability to toggle the controls between assisted and manual — and of course the difficulty levels (Easy, Moderate, and Expert). At first, I began with assisted controls on the moderate difficulty levels before finding my footing and changing to the highest difficulty and manual controls, which still ends with me sending a few shots into the stands (a good thing).

The commands are simple on defense as well. You turbo and slide tackle, and the game switches players for you on that end to a better standard than eFootball. In general, the best form of defense is similar to UFL where you just try to run and take it off the other player while dribbling, but it’s acceptable for a game on the Nintendo Switch — on the PS5, not so much (sorry, UFL).

No DLC

What you see is what you get from Sociable Soccer 24. In a genre dominated by loot boxes in console and mobile games alike, it’s refreshing to know that you won’t need to grab your wallet if you want to enjoy the game. With a selling point of about $25, Sociable Soccer 24 is reasonably priced and offers enough content to justify the cost.

What’s even more reassuring is that Tower Studios (Sociable Soccer 24’s developer) is committed to updating the game as seen by its most recent patch (June, 2024).

Nice Pace Of Play For Seasons & Tournaments

One area that I really like, and is a must for mobile games, is the length of time it takes to complete a tournament or season. For my tournament playthrough, I focused initially on the Africa Cup of Nations, complete with three group stage matches, and luckily I was able to guide the Ivory Coast through three knockout rounds that ultimately culminated in me achieving legendary status and taking home the trophy, all in about 45 minutes.

Season play takes longer as expected, but since you’re not playing the other teams in your league home and away, you can get through a complete season in a couple of hours or space it out and take your time over the course of a few days.

Can Feel The Difference In The Quality Of Players

It’s a strange thing to say about a game on the Nintendo Switch, but you can really feel the difference between good and lesser players when it comes to quality. My first match with Sociable Soccer 24 was the heated contest between Argentina and Brazil with me taking charge of the Selecao, and just like recent times, Argentina handed me my head on a plate with Julian Alvarez scoring a hat-trick.

The action was fast and Argentina was all over me, a stark contrast between my “world” squad, DC United, where it was slowed down because my players were not as good.

What I Don’t Like

Lack Of Stats

There aren’t many things I don’t like about Sociable Soccer 24, but the lack of stats across their modes is the big one. I don’t expect a game like this to have the advanced stats EA FC has, but a simple tally of goals, assists, and clean sheets is the bare minimum and that’s what I expected, especially as I put my finishing boots on and started scoring goals for fun.

Even if the stats aren’t tracked on a league status page (league leaders and so on), it would be nice to see some Team Player stats.

Bottom Line

There aren’t many mobile or Nintendo Switch sports games that can hold my attention, but Sociable Soccer 24 is one. You may or may not find me getting a few matches in during work hours while I slog from online meeting to online meeting. You can’t prove it regardless! At about a $25 price point, the game offers a good bang for its buck and is enough to satisfy a hardcore footy fan like myself or casual fans like my daughters. Either way, Tower Studios you have a fan.

It’s a welcome return that revels in recreating the details that make football at this level so special. From the roar of a raucous packed house mingling with the marching band’s school fight song to the high-scoring shootouts fueled by gadget offenses picking apart defenses that offer little resistance, this is nothing if not an affectionate tribute to the sport.

The natural concern that the game would be little more than a re-skinned Madden 24 proves to be both warranted yet overblown. It certainly follows in its footsteps on the field, where the games share an engine, but it makes the sort of improvements over Madden 24 that we don’t always get year over year with annual releases. Reworked passing mechanics and better control of ball-carriers are just a couple of highlights to the gameplay, but don’t sleep on the introduction of a promising new kicking meter.

EA Sports College Football 25 carves out its own identity and separates itself most from Madden off the field where the game’s dynasty mode captures the strategic intricacies of trying to recruit high school players and shepherd their raw talent to greatness. Dynasty is made even better thanks to Team Builder (bugs and all) providing you the opportunity to customize your school’s logo, uniforms, stadiums, and more.

However, it’s hardly surprising that EA Sports College Football 25 falters in some of the same areas where Madden has habitually come up short. The career mode, Road To Glory, suffers from the sort of design flaws that have plagued Madden’s similar Superstar mode in recent years. It saps much of the excitement of excelling at a position like running back or wide receiver by keeping you off the field during pivotal moments of a game and limiting your ability to adjust your coach’s atrocious play-calling. Ultimate Team, the game’s obligatory card-collecting mode borrows its playbook directly from Madden, right down to the endless challenges within Field Passes and the necessity to spend real money if you want to ensure that you have the best cards available.

All that said, let’s venture through the transfer portal and closely examine where the game looks like an elite prospect that’s destined to be a high draft pick in the pros and where it could use another year of eligibility or two to work on its shortcomings.

What I Like

Presentation

A central challenge for EA Sports College Football 25 is to conjure the same kind of electric atmosphere that you see regularly on Saturdays and its effort here is admirable. That starts with the massive crowds that fill the biggest stadiums in the country and stir up such a commotion that the game is smart to bring back on-screen meters that measure their energy level. Close-up shots pick out individual fans within the chaos, and for the most part it’s enough of a spectacle to feel the sea of colors undulating together in the background. The marching bands that move in tandem on the field during pregame festivities and punctuate consequential moments in the game with the familiar strains of a team’s fight song serve to keep you immersed in the bustling environment. There has clearly been a great deal of care invested in ensuring that every team represented has specific emblems, mascots, and stadium features that their fans will be able to recognize and appreciate.

The same flashy TV-broadcast style that builds excitement at the outset of every game with shots of the home team storming triumphantly onto the field continues to inject a palpable sense of intensity after the kickoff as well. Replays from a variety of angles are cued up following game-changing plays just as you would hope, even utilizing an effective picture-in-picture view while you are calling your next play to show what happened on the previous one. There’s a steady stream of stats after plays too that help keep you abreast of how players are doing pretty much whenever someone throws, carries, or catches the ball (albeit those sorts of stats during the on-field gameplay are curiously absent).

The commentary teams that include names like Kirk Herbstreit and Jesse Palmer can come off a little bit repetitive and stilted at times (the A-team of Herbstreit and Fowler is clearly much worse both in quality of audio and what they’re saying), but that’s pretty much what we’ve come to expect from the commentary in Madden games at this point (plus you can always just turn it off anyway).

There’s so much more room to grow here in terms of more camera angles and wide shots to appreciate the stadiums and crowds, improved commentary, and better overall TV-style presentation, but in terms of atmosphere and tradition — areas where it had to succeed — most everything pops.

Gameplay

If you’ve played a lot of Madden 24, the gameplay isn’t going to be all that ground-breaking in some respects, but there are some differences and innovations that make it ultimately feel like a noticeable upgrade. Revamped Passing allows you more influence on the trajectories of the ball, and coupled with the different skill levels of quarterbacks, this leads to more dynamic ball placements from throw to throw. If you want to return to Placement & Accuracy, it might still be the “better” option for the highest skill level, but that EA has implemented two viable passing systems is a big accomplishment for a sport where it has always struggled to balance various passing systems at once.

With that in mind, one of the stranger omissions is the lack of a tutorial system that meets the moment. Madden has actually done great work with tutorials the last couple years, and there’s no doubt the amount of new players is through the roof for this game. And though you can always hone your grasp of attacking through the air in open practice or mini-games, you’re still left wishing there was some kind of tutorial that walked you through the intricacies of manipulating the passing meter, offensive line adjustments, defensive coverages, and so much more.

Running the ball is more fun and intuitive than in Madden 24 for a number of reasons. It’s easier to make cuts and alter your direction using the left stick at the outset of any runs, allowing you to identify the holes in the defense and then hit them hard. Speaking of those holes, the offensive line generally shows good awareness in locking up defenders and a new pre-play option is invaluable by displaying each of your lineman’s assignments on any given play. In the open field, the jukes at your disposal can seem downright diabolical at times in evading defenders and stringing together a finesse move with a brutal stiff arm is undeniably satisfying. Then there are the playbooks that lean heavily on option plays and can keep your opponent on their heels with all manner of RPOs, well-timed pitches, and QB keepers. Overall, the new playbooks really are the star of the show and help to highlight all the new open-field chaos you can get into now.

As you might expect from a college football game, the hardest aspect to master is defense. Slowing down elite offenses that boast potent weapons, especially when you’re controlling a school that doesn’t have a lot of depth on that side of the ball, can be an exercise in futility. Inept defenders will feel especially sluggish and struggle to make tackles in space or hold up in coverage. It doesn’t help either that they will often stray from their assigned zones, leaving receivers as wide open as you have ever seen on a football field. While this kind of broken coverage logic is what breeds the sort of money plays that have plagued Madden for years, it also creates exhilarating back-and-forth shootouts that are more commonplace at the college level. Rather than trying to pitch a shutout in a game, getting a single stop in a pivotal moment can mean the difference then between victory and defeat.

Still, we have to at least mention how bad the pursuit angles are in the game. New coverage shells, and mixing and matching zones means playcalling can get you further than it used to even if the players let you down at times with their coverage assignments during a play, but there’s not a great way to plan for defenders taking terrible pursuit angles while approaching ball carriers. Even with the fantastic new Switch Stick, there’s only so much you can do at times to make up for AI defenders taking the wrong line on the way to trying to make a play.

On special teams, the game introduces a kicking meter that goes a long way towards bringing some realism to an oft-overlooked yet vital component of the sport (it is called “foot”ball, after all). The 3-click method that Madden has used for many years now has clearly proven to be too easy to master, especially when it comes to the accuracy of field goals. The whole process has been simplified to only one click now, but it’s harder than you might expect to keep the ball straight. You need to time that one click carefully and that’s increasingly difficult when you’re lining up a lengthy field goal and working with a kicker who definitely isn’t going to be appearing on NFL draft boards any time soon.

Dynasty

Without question, the game’s standout mode is Dynasty, where you’re able to coach your preferred college team over the course of multiple seasons, grasping for supremacy within your conference and hunting the elusive opportunity to play in the CFB Playoffs (or, failing that, at least in a bowl game). Creating and customizing a coach doesn’t offer quite enough options, which becomes more of an issue with the gear and style of your coach than with their physical appearance. Standout matchups against rival schools within the conference or area are given sufficient fanfare, allowing you to stay connected to the emerging storylines surrounding your team and around the nation.

Even more so than in real life, the weekly rankings of colleges throughout a season can be a little wonky though, and it’s always disappointing to see teams with inferior records being ranked higher than those racking up more impressive wins. Other items like wonky simulated stats, an overabundance of upsets, progression getting out of hand as years progress in your dynasty, and a lack of certain roster editing tools are all things that can be pointed to as areas for improvement either in patches or for next year.

A crucial part of dynasty mode is recruiting high school players to commit for your college, which is a complex and rewarding mini-game in its own right. You start by combing over prospects and devoting your currency of time to scouting their abilities, deciding who’s deserving of the limited number of scholarships you have to offer. You can help grease the wheels with coveted prospects by showering them with attention, scheduling visits to your school, and making hard or soft pitches. All players have their different priorities, however, and they will eventually base their decision on where to play on such factors as playing time, school history, and if they can stay close to home. When you’re successfully able to outfox other schools and lure a promising talent to your school, there’s no doubt that it makes you all the more invested in their future on your team.

People will point to the aforementioned bugs/missing features like the simulated stats being unrealistic, but the thing to point to here for the future is the presentation. As much enjoyment as there is sinking time into recruiting, coaching trees, and the new transfer portal, there’s a lot of “juice” that could be added into the mode. Whether it’s old things like a trophy room returning, or just giving us more flavor around big upsets or national signing day, this is the real area dynasty mode could attack next year in order to make everything feel more alive.

Regardless, it all works well as a single-player offline experience, but it’s even better when you join an online dynasty with other teams being coached by people. Trying to coax a high school player away from a CPU’s rival school just isn’t quite the same as narrowly beating out the pitch of a friend of yours and then notching an on-field victory against that friend on the back of the recruit you had both wanted. The shorter seasons than in a Madden 24 franchise also helps to cut down on inevitable quitters during losing seasons since it’s easier for them to believe that better days are just around the corner next season if only they can land a few impactful recruits.

Team Builder

Whether you decide to spend most of your time in an online or offline dynasty, the mode’s Team Builder customization suite that can be accessed online allows you a lot of freedom in how you want your school’s team to look whenever they suit up and take the field. It’s genuinely surprising to learn that this is a returning feature from EA’s older NCAA titles because it can’t help but expose how the company let a wonderful idea fall by the wayside in Madden games. This revived version gives you an almost overwhelming amount of control over the look of your team, including the ability to alter your school’s name, stadium, logos, uniforms, and preferred brands. You’re even able to edit the physical appearance, name, size, and abilities of the players that comprise the team.

It’s almost all of the tools needed to start creating an entire universe of your own invention across the landscape of college football — if only you weren’t constrained by the amount of teams you can use. There are some definite bugs here, and the website is still shaky at times, but this is a clear winner of a mode that just needs to be added to now.

What I Don’t Like

Road To Glory

One day EA might get a career mode right. You’d really think by now that EA would have a better grasp of what people want from a career mode, but they just can’t seem to get out of their own way. All we really want is a big sandbox to play in, and yet they keep watering it down to the point that it’s nothing but mud. How else to explain the manner in which the game’s career mode, Road To Glory, appears committed to deliberately keeping you out of exciting moments on the field? As a receiver or running back, you’ll be deprived of the chance to develop quickly by having to sit out far too many plays on the sideline while the games are decided without you. Nobody is longing to ride to the bench in a video game — it should be a no-brainer to throw you into the fray from the outset so can you start logging snaps on a regular basis.

Your coach is also bad at calling plays (for all the credit given to the expanded playbooks this year, the “suggestions” from your coach for what plays to call remain disappointing in all modes). While you do have the ability to change a certain number of plays during the game, your three options will usually include the very same play that’s just been called that you’re trying to change. The way that you can choose to develop your player by devoting energy to different areas week-to-week doesn’t yield results that are presented in any meaningful way. The storylines that unfold in stagnant text-message exchanges between your player and various figures in his orbit are perfunctory and the method of presentation is dated.

Ultimate Team

It would have been so refreshing if EA Sports College Football 25 had lofty ambitions to re-imagine what a card-collecting mode could be, but it opted instead to stick depressingly close to the tired formula long established now by Madden games. That means you’ll have to invest some real money to purchase the mode’s best cards or devote an inordinate amount of time slogging through series after series of repetitive challenges if you want to field a halfway decent squad that can compete online without shelling out a dime.

Some might enjoy the depth involved in completing objectives to progress Field Passes that reward you for completing sets, and buying packs, and purchasing abilities, and on and on and on. For the more casual player, it quickly becomes exhausting and has you feeling a little like Sisyphus trying to roll that boulder up the hill every day.

Bottom Line

EA Sports College Football 25 succeeds in scratching the itch that had been nagging football fans for just over a decade by delivering a solid, if not quite perfect, return to the world of college football. In terms of things it simply could not “miss” on in year one, it almost always delivers.

The presentation is stellar in the way it transports you to faithful renderings of every school’s stadium, allowing you to bask in the palpable and unique atmosphere of gameday at various locales. The gameplay isn’t drastically different than Madden 24, but its upgrades are impactful, giving you command of powerful offensive playbooks and tactics while also introducing an inventive new kicking meter. In other words, it feels better than Madden in many ways while finding its own identity along the way.

Dynasty mode emerges as the game’s centerpiece by tasking you with making crucial decisions for a school’s team over the course of many seasons as players go from being recruited in high school to being drafted by an NFL team. Dynasty is made even better thanks to Team Builder, which lets your creativity flourish in designing all aspects of your team’s aesthetics and lineup.

The game stumbles though when it insists on remaining in the shadow of Madden, bearing the same frustrating flaws and ethos that continue to hold that series back from greatness. Road To Glory, the game’s player career mode, doesn’t get you on the field enough early in your college career at some positions to have you invested in your team’s games and its progression system is slow on dishing out incentives and tangible rewards for your efforts. The game’s Ultimate Team mode leans on the same framework, redundancy, and outright greed that forms the foundation for the one that’s all too familiar at this point to those who play Madden.

Zooming out, College Football 25 just lacks a bit of character and depth in ways that don’t involve the pageantry itself. Everything from dynasty mode to the TV-style presentation should all benefit from another year where EA can hopefully get a little more in the weeds and add more personal touches and fix glaring issues that will hurt the longevity of the game this year.

All in all, that its depth isn’t quite there is more understandable when considering this is the return of the series. It’s a home that’s being rehabbed from 2013. The outside looks great now, but the master bathroom and the kitchen still need to be updated to match where we’re at now in 2024.

So, let’s get to it. Here’s my review of College Bowl on Steam.

What I Like

Throwback Graphics And Presentation

My favorite thing about Super Pixel Games might be the way they re-imagine the games of old. Nothing reminds me more of playing video games as a child than the old 8 and 16-bit graphics. Those were my earliest memories of sports games, my first true love. So, seeing the care they take with their games is respectable. That said, for a game that looks so simple on the surface, there’s a ton of depth all throughout.

Nearly every player in the game has a unique look, background, and traits. This makes each player feel unique and special. As for the game-day presentation, they do a great job of showcasing the sights and sounds that fans have come to expect — and love — about college football. Bands and cheer squads can be seen along the sideline, and chain gangs will appear during close measurements. Players, refs, and commentators will add fun (text) dialogue throughout the game that adds personality to things. There are even drones that fly around overhead to keep close tabs on the action. Speaking of which, did I mention that College Bowl has REPLAYS!

This may not seem like a big deal, but when I played Legend Bowl, one of my minor gripes was the lack of an efficient replay system. That is no longer the case as we constantly see big plays being replayed throughout a game. This not only adds a big-game feel to College Bowl, but it also allows gamers to bask in the glory of some of their top plays.

Additionally, the graphics and presentation pack a lasting punch for a game that looks so simple on the surface. Furthermore, the game does a great job with the little things, like creating a lively environment with truly unique dialogue from one game to the next.

Menus are sleek-looking and add a special touch to the game.

Familiar Gameplay

In a day and age where some games can be too complicated for the average gamer, College Bowl does a great job of keeping things simple while adding layers of depth that can keep the most diehard sports fans happy. Take the controls, for example. One look at the controller layout and (most) anyone who has ever picked up the sticks should be able to play. X snaps the ball, and if it’s a pass play, the icons will appear as you’ve come to expect.

The most significant learning curve you may see is with the passing system, which utilizes a meter similar to what you’ve come to expect in Madden and other sports video games. How hard you press a WR’s button will change the velocity of the throw. The meter is easy to use but can be thrown off by a pass rush or blitzing cornerback. New this year is the addition of hot routes, which, as you can imagine, add an entirely different element to the offense. Being able to adjust a player’s route is obviously a game-changer.

Ball carriers have an array of moves at their disposal, including vicious stiff arms, jukes, spin moves, and a lateral button that is a game-changer. To nerf these moves and keep things fair, players will fatigue and get gassed out when breaking off big runs, so it never feels overpowered or unstoppable like you may have encountered in other games. Earth-shattering hits can see players lose their helmets or, worse, get injured.
And for those wondering whether star players will play like #elite players (like Joe Flacco), well, you’re in luck because there was absolutely a difference when controlling a star player. Most of all, the game is fun and challenging.

It truly felt satisfying when winning a shootout in dynasty against an in-conference rival or even a meaningless play now game. College Bowl deserves praise, and it starts with the gameplay.

Dynasty Mode

If history has taught us anything, it’s that it’s tough for developers to successfully develop a career mode in sports video games today that can hold gamers’ interest for the long haul. Take Madden, for example. Every year, it seems like a chore to play through franchise mode and multiple seasons of scouting and whatnot. The same can be said for most other sports games, with very few being the exception.

Yes, it’s incredibly early, but I have not felt the slog when playing through a 10-game season of College Bowl, followed by a realistic playoff tournament that eerily resembles the one adopted in college football. Maybe I never got bored because of the shortened season that made each game feel important. Or it’s because I’m just all-in for college football games right now. Whatever the case, dynasty mode kept me interested. Best of all, it was extremely easy to navigate, given my prior history with the series.

For those who played Legend Bowl, the recruiting system feels eerily similar and can almost be considered more like a free agency, which isn’t surprising considering the limited resources. Still, there was enough juice to keep me interested.

As for the recruiting process itself, it wasn’t anything crazy like you might expect from Madden or College Football 25. However, it was still a pleasant five-week process that allowed users to recruit players based on things like playing time, prestige, location, training, academics, and media deals. And it certainly wasn’t easy to scout as I watched many of my top recruits head off to greener pastures. This alone added a layer of replayability for me as I was interested in how the players I liked would develop.

Another nice touch that keeps me eager to continue playing is the constant newspaper clippings and news tracker that kept me updated with the latest happenings around the nation. For example, I saw players around the league getting suspended for various reasons — many of which added humor and depth to the game mode. It was also a nice place to track what was happening with recruiting. For me, these little quirks, coupled with the fun and challenging gameplay, should keep gamers coming back again and again.

Customization

Nowadays, gamers want as many customization options as possible, especially when it’s a game created by a small developer with fictional teams and rosters. The first thing I did when I started to review College Bowl was make sure there was a file that allowed gamers to import real college players and teams into the game. After all, this was a huge selling point for myself and others with Legend Bowl, so to see the same type of commitment from the community and developers is a pleasant surprise. Check out College Bowl‘s official Discord channel for those interested in updating their rosters and teams.

What I Don’t Like

Small Hiccups And Other Minor Gripes

No game is perfect, but I’ll admit I had to use a fine-tooth comb to find issues that genuinely irked me. Minor issues from a broadcast standpoint included inconsistent audio and music during games. As for gameplay, defenders consistently took poor angles, and the computer defensive backs are not good at playing the ball when it’s in the air.

Far too often, I’d throw a deep ball that seemed to hang forever before miraculously being caught by my receiver between two defenders. This would have never happened in Legend Bowl, so perhaps the game needs to be tweaked a little before it becomes genuinely perfect.

Another gripe was how overpowered CPU blocking was. Far too often my offensive lineman would miss blocks or be easily pushed aside by an incoming pass-rusher. That was not the case for the computer, which seemed to have success in pass protection and the run game.  

Lastly, the game has crashed on me three times, but I’m starting to think that it may have had more to do with the setup I was playing on than the game itself.

Replay Factor

Like any video game, my biggest concern is whether it can withstand the ever-changing world around it. College Bowl is awesome. In my limited time playing, I could definitely see myself coming back to continue my dynasty — if for no other reason than to see how my recruits are doing. I’d also like to win a championship someday, so there are definitely factors to consider.

Still, with extremely competitive gameplay and a rather in-depth game mode, are gamers really going to pick this over booting up their favorite console and playing the latest iteration of College Football 25? That’s the question I keep going back to. However, even if console gamers don’t come back to continue playing College Bowl, for those on PC, there is no other choice out there.

Bottom Line

For $24.99, College Bowl is the perfect follow-up from Super Pixel Games after their hit Legend Bowl debuted on Steam in 2017. Like its predecessor, the game is a perfect blend of simulation and arcade football. Best of all, it is backed by its beloved 16-bit graphics and presentation, which are a staple of the series and admittedly part of the lore for me.

Sure, there are concerns that the game may become stale over time, but with a deep dynasty mode and balanced AI, there should be plenty to keep gamers returning for more. Top it all off with a deep playbook and unique pregame and postgame interactions, and this could be a fan favorite for PC gamers who unfortunately can’t play CFB25 this year

College Bowl is the real deal. With a relatively deep dynasty mode and quirky 16-bit graphics and presentation, gamers of all ages will appreciate everything that makes Super Pixel’s College Bowl an instant success.

While there have been a host of challengers in recent years like AO Tennis and its sequel on consoles along with Tiebreak on Steam more recently with its official ATP and WTA licensing, they have all looked more like pretenders compared to the depth of the gameplay that Top Spin 4 showcased. After that lengthy wait, TopSpin 2K25 has finally been unveiled by 2K and developer Hangar 13 and, despite an incredible amount of hype and understandably lofty expectations, it’s surprising to find that the game manages to be a worthy sequel and the natural heir to the tennis video game crown.

As you might expect, It mostly impresses with the same kind of satisfying action on the court that established the reputation of the series, routinely rewarding you for good input and punishing you in turn for the mistakes that you make.

When you’re just starting out, the game’s tutorial mode that’s narrated by the fiery John McEnroe does an admirable job of teaching you how to transform your racket into a weapon on the court. The gameplay doesn’t try to re-invent the wheel and instead leans on what made TopSpin 4 such a success, giving you access to a variety of shot types that are easy enough to grasp for beginners, but they come with a skill gap that’s formed from strategy, execution, and reaction time. You can also enjoy the thrill of stepping into the shoes of some real pros who look and play a decent amount like they do in real life on courts that are refreshingly accurate and brimming with detail. There are enjoyable online modes for both of those experiences as well, where you can see how your created MyPlayer fares against others in a tournament format or control real pros in either a highly competitive or more casual framework.

There are some issues and details that could have been done better in the game, but most of these thankfully fall more in the category of nitpicks than anything major that threatens to derail the entire experience. The MyPlayer allows you to create, customize, and progress your own player over the course of a MyCareer mode where you’re playing training sessions and events, but its grind suffers from a multitude of drawbacks that it can’t quite overcome. It would be nice to see more of those aforementioned pros within the game at launch too, but there’s already been talk of having more added in the coming months without the need for microtransactions to gain access to them.

Here’s a closer look at which aspects of TopSpin 2K25 are indisputable smashes and where the game might be making some unforced errors that can hopefully be rectified.

What I Like

TopSpin Academy

Since any budding tennis phenom needs the right coach to steer his career in the right direction, it’s hard to think of anyone better than the legendary John McEnroe to serve as the voice of the game’s TopSpin Academy tutorial. Johnny Mac lays out a series of lessons that all start with a video describing the concept you’ll be learning before having you apply that newly acquired knowledge in a drill. Though you’ll likely make mistakes at first, you should slowly begin to grasp what you’re doing wrong and be able to correct those errors to complete each lesson.

The skills you obtain build in their complexity, starting with the basics of how to move and hit the ball, progressing to more advanced techniques like how to inside out the ball and various playstyles to employ on the court. While McEnroe doesn’t really display any of the quick temper that he often let loose on officials in his prime, he can’t help but inspire you to do better when imploring you to get after the next ball, lest you tempt fate and have him fly off the handle should you do badly.

Gameplay

At the heart of what makes TopSpin 2K25 work so well is how you have to use both your stick skills and your brain if you want to win a point. That starts with the serve, which requires you to be precise with a crosshair as well as with a meter in order to place the ball perfectly with enough speed to generate an ace. Even if you can master the two together, there’s a little bit of RNG tied to your player’s serve attribute that can potentially induce a fault.

Throughout a point, you’re able to unleash a variety of shot types, including flat shots, top spins, slices, lobs, and drop shots. There’s also the option to hit each of these as control shots, normal shots, or power shots, which all depends on how long you hold down the button. The accuracy of your shots rests on your positioning and releasing your shot button at the optimal time according to a meter. You’ll need to be judicious about executing power shots, as the time required to load these up are usually due to a slow and poor shot from your opponent who’s giving you a chance to put the point away.

Of course, there’s also the possibility of charging the net at any time to try and win a point with volleys rather than only hammering the ball from the baseline. When playing at the net, you obviously won’t have the time to charge up any of your volleys, so thankfully the game has you instead execute normal, control, drop, or power volleys using different buttons. The counter to an opponent trying to dominate you at the net is to sail a well-placed lob over their head and watch them scurry back to the baseline to attempt a return.

It’s imperative that you’re also aware of how much energy you’re expending while you cover the court, as exhausting your gauge in a rally can sometimes be the difference between getting to a ball or not and whether you can apply some extra force into a return.

With all these shot options, it’s undeniably fun to try to anticipate your opponent’s next move and get yourself in the ideal spot to send the ball back over the net. If you manage to catch them off-guard or in the wrong position, it will lead to unforced errors like the ball sailing into the net or out — if they’re even able to get to the ball at all.

Online Play

When you’ve grown comfortable enough against a CPU opponent to increase their difficulty from normal to hard, it might be time to think about taking your talents online and see how you fare against other real people. Thankfully, there are a few options to satisfy those competitive desires. World Tour is where you can bring your MyPlayer and enter in online tournaments against other MyPlayers. There are a couple of tournaments available to you during the week and a third on the weekend. The further you’re able to advance in each tourney, the more tournament points you’ll earn as rewards, which will help you climb the online rankings. The good thing is that if you lose, you can just start the tournament over and see if you can do better (you can also win tournaments multiple times).

Online matches work pretty well, though the matchmaking is somewhat flawed in how it can often force you to face someone whose MyPlayer has way better attributes than your own. When your opponent’s level is much higher, it can often feel as if you’re a teenage amateur in an unfair draw against Roger Federer in his prime. The mode could really benefit from tiers that you can ascend to have you playing opponents mostly around the same skill level as your own so you don’t feel so outmatched as often. It seems like it’s nearly impossible to stay anywhere near the top of the mode’s rankings if you don’t play the game so often that it might as well be a full-time job. It’s not even entirely clear either what the actual reward is for accumulating tournament points besides the bragging rights of being atop a leaderboard. I’ve also encountered quite a few times where the game flashed an alert indicating either myself or my opponent had a bad connection (when mine is definitely fine and fast), though any lag on my end in these cases has been minimal or nonexistent.

If you’d rather avoid the unbalanced matchups that can occur when using your MyPlayer, you might want to try the slightly more chill 2K Tour mode instead. You’ll be playing there with a real pro of your choosing, thereby all but ensuring that you’re on even ground with your opponent unless, for some reason, you select a lesser pro. In general, the mode works similar to World Tour except there aren’t any tournaments to win so you’ll be earning 2K Tour points rather than tournament points in climbing the rankings.

Graphics & Presentation

While the graphics of the players during a match might initially look as if they could be from a last-gen game in Top Spin 2K25, it’s the finer details that start to impress. The gorgeously rendered courts and vibrant environments, for example, really help to breathe life into the atmosphere of wherever you’re playing. Shadows will hover and move across the playing surface depending on what time of day you happen to be playing. There are lots of cutaways to the lively crowd to help punctuate any key points or dramatic moments that happen.

The animations of the players and their momentum on the court achieve a welcome sense of realism, allowing them to sprint and reach for balls without feeling as if they’re teleporting or sliding too much. Even at the net when the action can get plenty hectic in a battle of volleys, the animations display enough variety to rarely seem too awkward or forced. It’s exciting to see players celebrating with a fist pump after winning points, falling to the ground after long rallies and basking in the adoration of the crowd at the end of matches in which they’ve come out victorious.

What I Don’t Like

MyPlayer & MyCareer

MyCareer is a decidedly mixed bag, but there are ultimately too many glaring flaws that threaten to sink the entire enterprise. Launching your own career as a tennis champion begins with first creating a MyPlayer that you can customize using a suite that allows you to manipulate their appearance and attire. While this isn’t all that different from other sports games, some of the more unique aspects you can choose in the game are your player’s animations and how they sound when they grunt during particularly intense swings. To set yourself further apart from other players, you can always purchase items from scores of reputable brands in the game’s Pro Shop using virtual currency or unlock some in the Centre Court Pass, the game’s version of a battle pass that will be updated each season every couple of months or so.

In the early stages of your career, you’ll naturally have low attributes across the board and find yourself sitting at the bottom of the rankings. You can improve your player by ascending levels through accruing XP that you’ll get by playing training sessions, special events, and tournaments. With each level that you ascend, you’ll receive six attribute points that you can apply to whichever ones you prioritize, building a player that best suits your own playstyle. It’s nice that you can choose from different scoring formats for the tournaments, making each match as short as a tiebreaker or as long as the full sets you see the pros play. You’ll receive more XP and VC rewards if you use longer scoring formats just as you will for playing on higher difficulties.

To add to the mode’s depth, there are also coaches that you can hire and progress by completing challenges, support team members that will aid you in different areas of your career, and fittings that you’ll eventually unlock and apply to improve your abilities further.

It’s a little unfortunate though that due to a lack of real and fictional players most tournaments have you starting in the quarterfinals round, only requiring you to play three rounds in order to be declared champion. The MyCareer mode’s energy system could definitely use some tweaking, as you’ll often find your player tired enough that they’ll need to sit out every second or third tournament or else risk suffering a minor or major injury.

Since you can only play in one every month as it is, that means you can only compete in a limited number of tourneys each year. Granted, you can help your player recover energy faster by purchasing homes across the world, but it stills feels like you’re missing out on too many opportunities while resting. Another fault to the mode is an annoying glitch to your player’s progression status that can force you to repeat the same challenges rather than moving on to new ones. This relegates you to playing in lesser tournaments when your ranking would indicate you’re ready for the majors. You aren’t even able to enjoy MyCareer offline when the servers are down either, which is a galling inconvenience.

Pro Roster

One of the biggest issues with the game has to be how thin the roster of real pros is that you can use in matches. While the Tiebreak game boasts the kind of robust number of players you’d expect from its official affiliation, the list of players in Top Spin 2K25 can’t help but pale in comparison. Sure, there are some big names included like Serena Williams, Roger Federer, and Carlos Alcaraz, but there are also some notable omissions like Novak Djokovic. Though you do also get the chance to control some legendary names from the past such as your aforementioned teacher John McEnroe and Andre Agassi, that doesn’t entirely make you forget that there are still only 26 pro players available at launch.

There have been assurances that more players will be added in the near future (along with missing modes like Play With A Friend) and that they will be free to access, but there’s nevertheless some disappointment in what we have here at the outset. Some of this “pain” could have been avoided if we were allowed to create and share pros online, and it would have been further alleviated if we could have added these created pros to our career modes to bolster the field, but none of that exists here.

Bottom Line

Despite it being more than a decade since the release of the celebrated Top Spin 4, TopSpin 2K25 carries on its vaunted legacy by building off its predecessor’s successful formula. Once you’ve grasped the fundamentals of John McEnroe’s helpful lessons, you’ll find that the blueprint for winning each point through outsmarting and outmaneuvering your opponent makes for a rewarding and challenging experience with all of the tools at your disposal. The game’s online modes give you plenty of ways to test your abilities against others but could perhaps use a better framework to add balance and proper compensation for your efforts. All of the on-court action is faithfully brought to life with sharp graphics and animations, especially when it comes to the spirited stadiums.

The MyCareer mode is bogged down by too many faulty mechanics that affect how your quest for greatness unfolds, though it’s still fulfilling to customize your player’s appearance in myriad ways and progress their strengths (and weaknesses) to meet your own preferences. The roster of professional players that you’re able to assume control of in various modes, however, is a little light at launch and will hopefully look a little better once supplemented with some other high-profile names in future updates.

With OOTP 25, you’ll be responsible for the performance of your team on the field, allowing you as much influence as possible from the confines of the front office and the steps of the dugout. OOTP 25‘s strength lies in its unrivaled depth, providing an overwhelming amount of options across a plethora of screens, each containing scores of options that can shape how your team will fare in games. This includes the ability to customize teams and play in leagues, both real and fictional, for as many seasons as you like while generations of players come and go as the years pass.

The introduction of a new player development lab gives you even more say now in terms of what aspects of players you’d like to see them work to improve, effectively adding personal trainer to your long list of job duties. The game’s card-collecting mode, Perfect Team, is addictive in how it facilitates building and bolstering a team that can compete in online leagues and tournaments.

The biggest weakness in the game remains its in-game presentation, where the graphics and animations continue to improve but still leave a lot to be desired in how they portray the stat and attribute-based action unfolding on an inning by inning basis. There also still seems to be some fine tuning needed to accurately reflect the way in which prospects on teams develop, as it’s unrealistically rare for budding stars to reach their full potential over the course of their careers.

Here’s a rundown of what aspects of the game are worthy of major league accolades and where it continues to flounder at a minor league level.

What I Like

The Leagues

One of the most appealing aspects of Out Of The Park Baseball 25 is the multitude of ways you can set up a league, offering you the ability to tailor them to your own personal preferences. Obviously, you can jump into a basic setup in which you play out the current 2024 MLB season using all of the actual players and teams that just started their quests for the World Series in real life, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

An option to assume control of a team in a historical league is staggering in how it includes the chance to guide any team from all the way back when baseball began in the 1800s up until modern day. Want to manage Murderers’ Row with the Yankees in the 1920s or Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris on the Bronx Bombers in the ’60s? No problem. Would you like to lead the Montreal Expos on the World Series run they were deprived of in the strike year of 1994? You can do that too. All of baseball’s history is at your fingertips, and you get to decide to which era you’d like to travel to.

Another fun way that you can set up a league in OOTP 25 is with entirely fictional players that will become as real to you as any that you’ve ever seen in the majors. As you progress through seasons, you’ll be responsible for guiding them from when they’re merely prospects you draft through to when they become superstars at the major league level. You can even create and customize new teams and then assemble them within divisions any way you prefer. If you’re seeking an online experience with other virtual managers, simply peruse the OOTP forums for leagues that are in the process of forming and see how your team-building skills stack up against other people. You’re liable to spend hours upon hours poring over your lineups and farm systems as you tinker with their construction in the hopes of somehow finding the winning formula.

The Depth Of Strategies

As you navigate through the seemingly endless number of screens in OOTP 25 that populate whichever league you’re competing within, it becomes obvious that there’s no shortage of strategies you can choose to employ to put yourself in the best position to get wins. This starts with the kind of basics that you’d expect from most serious baseball games, such as managing your team’s lineups and pitching staff across the different levels of your organization. Depending on how realistic you want your particular league to be though, you may also need to pay close attention to the financials of your team and meet the priorities of your owner if you want to keep them satisfied (and by extension, your own job secure).

Because you’ll likely find yourself simulating a portion of games to get through seasons faster, there are a number of ways you can ensure that you’re still taking a hands-on approach to how the players on your team perform. This involves manipulating sliders to decide on how often you want your team and even particular players to be looking for opportunities to do things like steal bases or use defensive shifts depending on specific game situations. You’ll also need to keep an eye on your team’s scouting to give yourself a better chance of discovering the next great talent, whether in America or through international channels. That’s even before you hit the field, where the decisions you make from the dugout in key moments can often mean the difference between success or failure during games.

Player Development Lab

A new addition to OOTP 25, the player development lab allows you to have players work on specific aspects of their game during the offseason and spring training to either improve weaknesses or accentuate strengths. By concentrating on certain skills, you can now attempt to transform someone like a power hitter to have them perhaps become a little better at fielding or on the bases.

It’s important to note that while you can put in the effort to get them better at these parts of the game, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the work will pay off. It’s realistic though that players can’t become elite in areas just because you’re having them put in the time, as it’s often true that you can’t will a player to become better. As you might expect with any new feature, there are still some kinks that need to be worked out with the player development lab to have more prospects live up to their full potential. In theory though at least, it’s nice to be able to exert more control over what kind of player you want someone in your organization to become.

Perfect Team

As far as card-collecting modes in sports games go, Perfect Team in OOTP 25 takes the whole format to another level entirely through its organization and the sheer number of cards available. You’ll begin with a starter team of mostly low-rated cards at the outset and then can improve your team just by logging into the mode every day since you’ll receive a standard card pack each time you check in. As your games are simulated, you’ll accrue Perfect Points that you can use to purchase more packs or target particular cards in the card shop marketplace. The amount of cards from across baseball history that you can obtain is downright overwhelming, and you can receive rewards for completing certain collection missions.

You’ll find that hours can pass quickly as you become immersed in adding players to your roster and making tweaks to how you assemble your lineups and pitching staff. You can also get intricate as to what strategies you want to execute in games, including utilizing platoons at positions and deciding how you want to deploy your bullpen depending on in-game situations. The games against other players in the community will be simulated about every 20 minutes or so, making it exciting to log on in the morning or after you go out somewhere to see how your club has fared.

Based on your performance, you’ll be placed in a league that has other teams roughly at your same level and are able to ascend to higher leagues if you put enough wins together over the course of a season. There are even separate modes where you can enter your team in tournaments or draft a team that will put you on more of a level playing field against opponents.

What I Don’t Like

Presentation & Animations

The biggest drawback to OOTP 25, as you might expect from a management style game like this, is the way the action unfolds on the field when you do choose to play a game rather than simulate it. To be fair, the game has made some significant strides in recent years to attempt to have its appearance become a little more dynamic. For instance, the 3-D presentation that’s available now gives you a decent amount of immersion, complete with a nice 360 pan of whatever stadium you’re situated in prior to the first pitch. They’ve even added some new retro visuals this year that are essentially filters to reflect different eras of baseball. That said, the graphics still leave a little something to be desired, with the players being rather small on the screen and completely devoid of any distinctive features to help separate them from each other.

It’s the animations though that continue to be the most underwhelming aspect to experiencing a game. They’re extremely clunky and limited in what they’re able to portray when it comes to swings of the bat, ball physics, and the movement of the fielders and baserunners. It’s too often that you’ll see balls slide through the infield when it appears as if a fielder could have been able to make a play on it. Yes, sometimes players will attempt a dive on defense and occasionally they’ll even come up with the ball, but they don’t showcase the kind of range that you would expect.

Outfielders are frequently slow to get the ball back in the infield too, preventing them from the chance to throw a runner out on the bases when it seems like it may have been possible. Of course, it’s clear that the results are preordained based on the attributes of all those involved and some amount of chance, so what you’re seeing isn’t an exact representation of what’s occurred, but the details still can’t help but be somewhat disappointing.

Bottom Line

Out Of The Park Baseball 25 is about as comprehensive a managerial baseball video game as you could hope for and just as good as you would expect from the venerable series. The diversity and options within leagues, whether online or offline, give you an astounding number of ways that you can play. The depth of the statistics, attributes, and strategy contained within the multitude of screens keep you informed and in control of all matters pertaining to your team.

This includes a new player development lab that might still need some refinement but serves its purpose well in terms of putting you in charge of what areas of their game players will improve. Perfect Team is an incredibly addictive card-collecting mode that offers plenty of incentive to have you logging in often to refine your team. The only downside with the game is during games where the graphics and animations of players are still coming up a little short.

I also have to admit that I am a huge fan of New Star games. Truthfully, I am delighted that New Star Soccer on iOS doesn’t track your playing time because I’m positive I’d be embarrassed by the hours I’ve dropped into it. So when I heard that the same team had developed a game based on Formula 1, my interest was immediately piqued.

After spending some time with it, I have to admit there’s a lot to like about New Star GP. So much so, that even the issues I have with the game don’t seem that important.

What I Like

Pretty much everything, honestly. New Star GP is just fun, there’s no doubt about it. There’s no faffing about with tuning every little detail of your car, you grab your controller, you pick your car, and you get onto the track. The only thing you need to worry about is which of the three tire choices (Soft, Hard, Wet) you want to use, and how much fuel you want in the tank.

The racing is enjoyable too. With arcade-style racers, it’s easy to find yourself just zooming past your opponents with ease, but in New Star GP, the other drivers are competitive, and they don’t want to give up their position without a fight. It leads to really competitive racing, especially on Pro difficulty.

Even the tracks themselves are remarkably realistic. I was able to tell which track I was racing on in every single one, with sections of the track included to make them feel familiar. From the iconic Senna “S” at Interlagos, Brazil, to the sweeping downhill hairpins of the Hungaroring in Budapest, New Star has really captured what makes these tracks recognizable.

As for the career mode, it is addicting. I stormed through a 10-race Championship season in a single night, upgrading my car and pushing it to the limit every chance I got. Throughout your journey, you’ll create rivalries with your fellow drivers, who will race you harder and make challenges in a desperate attempt to beat you. Nigel Mawson was my arch-nemesis in the 1980s season and more than once he made my life miserable with late lunges and aggressive defense.

The most important thing, however, is that winning a race in New Star GP feels satisfying, and in the end, that’s what is most important for me in a racing game. I rarely came away thinking that I hadn’t earned a win, and that feeling kept me going back for more.

What I Don’t Like

As much as I enjoy New Star GP, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things that could do with some fine-tuning. As much as I praised the AI for creating tense and competitive races, they do go too far fairly regularly and end up racing like they have a death wish. I regularly find myself being pushed off the track when trying to overtake on the straight, the AI regularly weaves across the track like a snake to stop you from getting past, and generally would rather crash you both out than let you take their position. Tone down their aggressiveness just a touch, and I think they’d be perfect.

The menus can also feel a little clunky and could do with some refining. This is especially apparent in the game’s perk system. Players can assign perks that are unlocked through staff members, but figuring out how to apply them, and how to get perks from different team members was not intuitive, with the option to change team members down at the bottom-left and the perks in the top-right. I had used the menu at least five times before I figured it out, but all it really needs is to be retooled to make it more obvious.

My main gripe, however, is that there’s no online multiplayer. I think New Star GP would benefit greatly from this, as I could see myself and a bunch of mates causing mayhem in a racing game like this. It’s a major absence, and what stops it from being really perfect in my eyes.

Bottom Line

In the end, though, those little annoyances fade away when you’re in a tense battle for the lead, and when you cross the line after a win, they’re not in your mind at all. This game is arcade racing at its best, and while I know that’s not for everyone, there’s something truly nostalgic about this game while still feeling like a fresh take on the genre.

I can’t recommend trying New Star GP enough, and I know I’ll be going back to it even after this review is finished, which I think is the best review I can give it.

• Release Date: March 7, 2024
• Platforms: Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo Switch eShop
• Price: $29.99, £24.99

We got WarGames, a slew of new gameplay improvements, and everything in between, which made me wonder: what could 2K possibly do this year to top last year’s game? Well, I’m glad someone asked because despite what may be viewed as minor changes, WWE 2K24 packs a punch.

Here’s my review of WWE 2K24 for the PlayStation 5.

WWE 2K24 Review

What I Like

Graphics And Presentation

One thing that 2K has been able to achieve since it first jumped into the sports video game market was realistic gameplay and presentation. If you want proof, look no further than the NBA 2K franchise or even any of its old games back in the PS2 days. To this day, developers are still trying to catch up with 2K in the graphics and presentation department. And while you can’t compare apples to oranges, after playing a great deal of THQ’s AEW Fight Forever, you can appreciate 2K’s more realistic approach to wrestling — and all the things that come with it.

Wrestlers feel different when controlling each of them, and their ratings matter. For example, playing as Roman Reigns will feel night and day compared to playing as an up-and-coming NXT superstar. The same can be said about legends, many of which are in 2K24. The roster has 200+ WWE superstars with different variations and attires. There are even a few unique surprises, like this year’s “Elite” Cody action figure, similar to the John Cena action figure character from last year. Some of these characters will have to be earned in MyFaction but will now be playable in the regular game as well. This wasn’t necessarily the case last year. Add in the slew of DLC on the way, and it feels like 2K24 may keep things as close to current as they ever have.

But back to the graphics, which 2K24 nails with every little detail. From each superstar’s hair to their mannerisms to how they walk to the ring, it’s all coming together. We even get to see a ton of new facial animations and camera angles this year, too. This includes new cameras for dives outside of the ring and camera angles during entrances. There are even some new custom entrances and movesets that will look familiar to die-hard wrestling fans. (Spoiler Alert: The CLEANER!!!)

New Match Types And Gameplay Improvements

Some of the most significant changes in this year’s game come in the form of new match types, many of which fans have been clamoring for. This year, players can compete in Ambulance and Casket Matches. Those familiar with the 2K series can expect things to turn into a submission battle in these. In other words, you rapidly try to tap a corresponding button to finish off your opponent. It can be fun, but after a bit the skin on your thumbs begins to deteriorate and it’s just not worth it anymore.

Other additional match types include the return of Special Guest Referee and Gauntlet matches, which, as one 2K developer put it, is a game-changer and one of their favorite new additions to this year’s game. In Gauntlet mode, you can pick from three different match types ranging from 4 to 30 participants. “Gauntlet Turmoil” (1 vs. All) can get chaotic at times, but it’s challenging to see how far I’ve been able to move up the ranks. Additionally, there are a ton of new gameplay changes that gamers will come to love.

During a match where both wrestlers were worn down significantly, my wrestler crawled to make the pin after hitting a finisher. Another time, The Undertaker hit Mankind with a tombstone late in a match, and both wrestlers lay helpless on the mat. There’s also a new “trading blows” mini-game that feels necessary in today’s strong-style type of wrestling. You and your opponent will go back and forth trying to time a meter that will cause you to deliver a strike to your opponent. Mistime and your opponent will block and return the favor with a closed fist of their own. This goes back and forth a few times before one wrestler gains momentum.

I also can’t write an article on 2K24 without discussing the little things. What I mean by that is the little things that can turn a good game into a great game. For example, you can remove Kurt Angle’s straps before applying the ankle lock, or the ability to throw weapons at your opponent. They even gave us a full roster of real-life referees and different ring announcers when there was once a time when we had neither. I could go on and on about the little things, but it’s better to let you experience some of the new additions yourself.

WrestleMania Showcase: …Of The Immortals

One of my favorite things about the recent WWE 2K games is Showcase mode. In years past, we’d get to follow the careers of famous WWE stars like Stone Cold Steve Austin, John Cena, Daniel Bryan, and many others, battling in some of their most iconic matches. The way 2K intertwines the game with reality is perfect, though I wish they’d implant commentary. Nevertheless, with so many different directions to go, I was pleased to find out that this year, WWE 2K24 would showcase some of the top matches from WrestleMania’s storied 40-year history. Yes, we’ve played some of Mania’s most iconic matches in other Showcase modes, but this was an opportunity to play and truly feel like you were a part of those moments.

Corey Graves does a great job of setting things up for each match, giving you a full background on why the battle has come to fruition. Each match has 10-15 objectives you must do throughout the contest, which you’re probably familiar with if you’ve played previous WWE 2K games. These objectives range from weakening your opponent to pulling off specific moves that trigger cinematic scenes. These scenes take you back in time and, to be quite frank, had me wanting to go back and rewatch some of the matches I missed.

Some of the early matches I’ve played include:

• WrestleMania 3: Steamboat vs. Macho Man Randy Savage
• WrestleMania 3: Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giants w/ Bobby “The Brain” Heenan
• WrestleMania 5: Ravishing Rick Rude vs. The Ultimate Warrior – Intercontinental Championship
• WrestleMania 5: Hulk Hogan vs. Macho Man
• WrestleMania 6: Ultimate Warrior vs. Hulk Hogan – Title vs. Title (New Feature this Year)
• WrestleMania 8: Roddy Piper vs. Brett Hart – Intercontinental Championship

Another thing I love about Showcase is that although they do a fantastic job of setting up different objectives to achieve throughout the match, you can still move on and unlock the various incentives by simply winning the match. Speaking of incentives, this is where the joy lies in Showcase. Successfully defeating your opponent will unlock special managers, attires, and WrestleMania arenas.

Showcase is a home run this year and is the perfect complement to 2K24’s other single-player story mode, MyRise.

MyRise

There are two new storylines in MyRise this year, and for the first time in a long time, I feel like players need to play through both game modes to truly appreciate the greatness that WWE 2K24 has in store. Because, in my opinion, this is the best single-player wrestling career mode that we’ve seen in quite some time.

Without spoiling anything significant, here’s a brief synopsis (in my words) of each MyRise storyline:

• Undisputed (Male CAW)

The Tribal Chief Roman Reigns steps down, and the WWE immediately holds a tournament at SummerSlam for his vacated Championship. Follow in the footsteps of your created superstar as you try to restore glory to the once-prestigious championship. But beware, there are plenty of surprises and enemies lurking around every corner.

• Unleashed (Female CAW)

My main focus has admittedly been on the Undisputed storyline, but what gamers can expect from Unleashed is equally as special. Here, gamers will begin their career as an up-and-coming women’s wrestler who made their name in the indies running the hottest promotion around. The question now is will she sink or swim when given the opportunity to make it big on the main roster?

I’ve admittedly been taking my time with MyRise, trying to savor it, but when all is said and done it might be my favorite career mode in a wrestling game to date. The storylines are fun and engaging, and the way they utilize wrestlers’ real voices adds an unmatched realistic element to the game. Best of all, there seems to be a variety of different paths you can take that will alter the storyline for better or worse.

What I Don’t Like

MyFaction

I’ll admit it, I roll my eyes and wrinkle my nose whenever a new “card game” gets implemented throughout sports gaming. We’ve seen firsthand what it has done to Madden and other games that have gone a similar route. But in some instances, I don’t necessarily hate the idea, especially when the game’s core modes are as good as Showcase and MyRise. That said, I still feel like MyFaction is a niche game mode that doesn’t have a place outside of a few unique attires unless you’re EA trying to make some additional money from people looking to pay their way to the top.

I’ve also had hit-or-miss experiences when playing 2K online. As you know, even the slightest hiccup or lag can cause a match to go south fast. Still, there may be a group of players interested in MyFaction, and I will say that some of the small changes are a breath of fresh air. But for me, a father of three with very little spare time, I’ll pass on MyFaction mode.  

Not Enough Big Changes?

I don’t know if it’s necessarily a bad thing that 2K has become so refined over the years that there’s not much tweaking that really needs to be done. It’s something we’re starting to see with NBA 2K and have for several years with MLB The Show. Gamers want more, but sometimes, there’s not a ton more that developers can do. We get some new game modes and updated features, but if someone asked me if buying WWE 2K24 was a must-buy, I don’t know that I could say it is because last year’s game was nearly flawless to me. That said, I don’t think I’d want to miss some of the new animations and gameplay features. And let’s not forget this year’s Showcase mode or the ability to play in Ambulance and Casket matches.

WWE 2K24 won’t blow your mind with dramatic changes, but to the hardcore wrestling fan, this will be one iteration you won’t want to miss.

Bottom Line

For the second year in a row, I’ve had the opportunity to review WWE 2K for Operation Sports, and for the second consecutive year, I think a new champion has been crowned. In every aspect that WWE 2K23 excelled, 2K24 has raised it to the next level. It has everything from the sights and sounds throughout the match to the epic WrestleMania Showcase and MyRise stories. And that’s not to mention the changes made to Universe mode and MyGM that will allow gamers to run the federation with storylines of their choosing. All in all, I could not be happier with this year’s game, and I think for gamers looking to scratch their wrestling itch with the biggest Mania in decades right around the corner, this is perfect.

I don’t think there will ever be a perfect wrestling video game, but if you had to ask me which wrestling game in the last 20 years has come close, WWE 2K24 would be at the top of my list.