Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - WWE 2K25: How Bad Is The Island? - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

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What's up everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Wednesday, March 12th, 2025. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside Forbes 30 under 30, AKA New York Game Awards nominated, AKA WW. 2K25 Poppy Blessing, Eddie O. Yeah, Jr. Good day, Greg. I want to fix your thing here.

He's the poppy. I hate when that happens in my T-shirts. I know what I mean. But you got guns, too. Yeah, you roll them up. I looked at the other one to make sure it wasn't a choice. You know what I mean? We gotta let the world know.

You want that extra inch to really let him shine. I'm not doing these push-ups for nothing. Over there, it's the master of hype snow bike, Mike. Great, good morning. Great to see you. It's great to see you. Love the energy today, and I love that we're talking a little WWE. Can I tell you?

Yeah. Speaking of my guns. I know I'm deep down the WW well. Yeah. Because like when I need motivation in the gym, I start just thinking about Roman range. I'll be like, you know, lifting a thing. And I started thinking, I'm like, I started thinking about Roman Raines picking somebody up and throwing them. And I'm like, if he can do it, I can fucking pick up this weight, man.

I can do it. And so shout out Roman Raines. Shout out to Roman Raines in general, the OTC. Yeah, I was rocking some my faction stuff last night. I'm using the elite, you know, toy version of Roman Raines. And when he does the one where he grabs the arm and then pulls them up into the power bomb. Yeah. God damn.

What a man. What a man. What a man. What a man. Roman Reins, you're a man. What a man. What a mighty good man. A mighty, mighty, good man. Oh.

Mike, I enjoy your energy. How are the Pokemon minds? You're, of course, doing Nix, Nuslock 2.0. Soul Silver. Day three in the books, three gym badges down. We are having a great time over on the afternoon stream so far. The Pokemon Nuslock 2.0 has been a huge success with the community, with ourselves. We've been having fun.

We've been driving subs. We've been driving just good moments. You know, we haven't lost one yet, but we've had a couple of missteps for it. Maybe we weren't fully paying attention to what was on screen, maybe reading all the prompts, you know, reading is a big thing for us in that room. He didn't want to go to the Spirit Temple, right? That's no problem.

Exactly. He doesn't want that. But I'll encourage you, go check out, of course, our big marathon stream. The past two days have all been uploaded to YouTube. We're coming at you with day four later this afternoon. If you're listening and watching live here on Twitch and on YouTube, it's been a great time so far.

Of course, this is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we come to you with the biggest topics in video games, whether they be previews, reviews, reviews, or conversations we need to have. We couldn't have them without your support. If you love the games cast and all the kind of funny content, we pump out on a daily basis as a live talk show network on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, Twitch.com.com slash kind of funny games.

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the show, thank you. Even if you can't contribute it would mean a lot to us if you like, subscribe, share, ring the bell, tell your friends, leave a review so on and so forth. Of course, if you're watching us record this live right now, be part of the show with your YouTube Super Chats. We need you on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games to

chime in with Superchats to be part of the show so we can talk about the island. It wasn't a super chat. So it rolled by over here and I see people chatting it up already and I love that. But somebody was like, I've played the island. I see the vision. And I'm excited to talk about that vision today. This is a very specific review, if you will, today. Because we've been talking about the island for a long time, but we'll get to that one second. Of course, we're an 11 person small business all about live talk shows. Kind of funny games daily already happened. Of course,

it kicks off your programming day at 10 a.m. Pacific each and every weekday. It covered scoply buying Pokemon Go creator Neantic. Bless, I was coming in late because Ben had a singing performance. Seng today. Wow. Early morning singing. I mean, that's how you got to get them.

Vocal chords ready to rock. The longer you let one of these little kids cook, they're not going to have anything for you. You know what I mean? What song was it? A whole bunch of Mr. Son, you know, at the end we closed it out with, um, uh, this land is your land.

Oh, I love that one. according to him, Pokemon Go was already kind of in a bad place. So it is like when the bad people like devour the bad people it's like okay

well it could get more bad but already we're bad and so it's all bad. Fair enough. Yeah. After this, Daredevil screencast is popping off

where we'll be talking about episode three and then after that the Nick Locke continues as Nick goes to catch them all. If you're kind of funny member today's Greg weighs 15 minutes of me talking about putting your dog in dog jail.

Thank you to our Patreon producer Delaney Twining, Carl Jacobs and Omega Bust Today we're brought to you by Monster Hunter. Now, built rewards and stash. We'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin the show with what is and forever will be. Topic of the show.

Can I tell you what's dope about the games cast background? Yeah. Is that every now and then I'll beat a new game and then I'll see the thing and it'll make me emotional. Oh, hell yeah. Last night I beat Outer Wilds and the Outer Wilds backwall. Nice. It just came up and it just made me feel something. But I'll talk about that tomorrow.

You're reviewing that tomorrow. I'm very excited for that one. today however we're going to talk about WW2K25 don't turn off this show yet we've been talking about this very openly where I was like oh man usually I review my embargo and I was bummed out

I wouldn't be able to so I went back and looked at it was like oh right people don't watch the WWE review so we're not doing a whole blow by blow review of WW2K25 by any stretch of imagination instead we want to dive into just talk about the island of course this is something we talked about

quite a bit leading up to this when they announced this Mike has been through to talk all about, hey, I got to come in here and talk about what NBA is doing in 2K game, so you can understand what this could be and what it's going to be and blah, blah, blah, blah. Snowbike Mike dedicated his entire weekend to going through and being on the island of relevancy with Roman rain. I've touched it last night. I did a bunch of different quests in there, so I'd have some things to say.

And then, Bless, how much island have you been playing? I played about 15 minutes before I was like, I'm out of here. I'm going to play my faction instead. And that's what I love about Bless being here is like you're in on WW2K-25 this year. I've heard you and Roger talking about it, geeking out about the showcase, going. through my faction stuff, you know that speaks to my heart. Because I did a little bit of that last night too. Oh, yeah.

All right, I got the island. Let's go with my faction orders. Let's whip my faction order. Yeah. The roglet, yeah. Yeah, the roglet. Yeah, the roglet. Yeah, you got to go back.

I mean, because now you can buy the bosses, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's a big deal. I love that. I love that mode. It's so good. It's so good. But we'll talk about that. But this is specifically about the island.

You might not know much about the island. What you need to know about the island and Mike's going to go through and give you the blow by blows here and stuff is this. we've been worried about the island since they announced the island. It's you creating a character, putting it on the island of relevancy for Roman Raines' approval, going in there and obviously we heard about it. It smacked of, what is it, the yard, the neighborhood in an neighborhood in the city, where Mike drops no less than $150 every year to be competitive.

To buy the game and then upgrade my character, yep, got to do it. So there's a lot of concern about what we are getting here. We've made a lot of jokes about the island. Now we've played the island. The world is talking about the island in WW2K-25. reviews and it's not good. Metacritic right now on WW2K25 is an 82

notably IGN game spot a bunch of other places still haven't reviewed it behind the curtain codes came in incredibly hot for this and we were not given a lot of time with it so you're seeing a lot of people put up review in progress wait for it yada yada yada

what's interesting is 82 you go oof about what I'd expect from an annual game that's not what the reviews read like. The reviews are very very much like this is an amazing wrestling game hampered by the island. If you are familiar with what the island is, though, the official site says, for the first time in franchise history, step outside the ropes, and onto the island for

PS5 and Xbox Series X. Greg chiming in, notably the island is not on PC. In this immersive WWE theme world, complete quests, take on challenges, complete, I'm sorry, compete in live events and upgrade and customize your My Superstar through multiple storyline chapters, join the fight, I'm sorry, fight to join

the original tribal chief, Roman Raines at the head of the table. Let's jump into some reviews that have been posted. Chris Scullion,

of course, over at VGC, gave the game a four out of five and wrote, with a string of improvements across all of its existing modes, WW2K25, out does its predecessor

in pretty much every way. Remember, Greg chiming in again, as somebody who's reviewed games and wrestling games forever, played wrestling games forever. I've been very vocal that

we're fooling ourselves if we were saying WWW2K2K 24 isn't the best wrestling game of all time. And that's me saying that because I love No Mercy and I love these N64 games and I love here comes the pain. I'm not saying. But like the package, the gameplay, what they were doing

with that, I think, is on another level. So back to Chris though. It out does its predecessor pretty much every way. The weak link is the new island mode with its cynical pay-to-win mechanics. But throw a scene a taunt in its face and pretend it doesn't exist and you'll find more than enough elsewhere in this game

to keep you entertained for months. Ben Wilson over at Games radar plus give it a four out of five. But it's there. And until we... He's talking about the island. But the island's there. Until we figure out that new two-tiered scoring system,

it means the island in my faction have to factor into the final rating. Where in-ring action is concerned, this is right on the cusp of being a five-star wrestling sim. But it has to lose a star for its cash-grab modes, which land as snugly as a Logan Paul brass knuckle shot to the jaw, in which you're the recipient rather than the mega-rich YouTuber. Snow, bike, Mike. I have seen you flourish.

It kind of funny. I think no one can deny what a great host you are, what a great personality you are. Last year was the year of Mike, of you coming into your own. I walked in today and you said, I got the dock and you sent me your copious notes for what you think of the island.

I was so excited because you have been so good on the road to this of coming in and saying, here's what NBA is doing, here's what it is. I want to give you the floor. I have plenty to say about what I played on the island. I brought screenshots. I brought videos. But I want to hear what you have to say. Yeah, Greg, I have a lot of thoughts.

I have completed the island season chapter one, whatever you want to call it. If you're an audio listener, yeah, Mike's blue skies up. I've completed the island, WW2K25 and need to get outside more dot, dot, dot. And it says this is screenshot. Chapter one complete. You've caught Roman's attention and unlocked a valuable secret. The first of many on the island. Will it motivate you to continue your climb to the top?

chapter two is not yet available continue to explore the island and press your tribal chief by leveling up in matches against fellow competitors until additional story content drops and remember Roman is always watching yeah let's just hang it there for just a second that was a massive disappointment blessing to be smacked in the face with that message

at the end of it all because I was competing for that WWE contract contract of course that's what you get on the island of relevancy did you make yourself did you make somebody else I made a poorly bad look of myself. Yeah, I put on a mask, so I pretend like it's me. I made Snowbitch Mitch, my alter ego when I get up tight and I get angry. Yeah, I know that.

I was very stoked for mine. I sat down. I'm like, I don't think I'm committed to this mode. And I'm not going to sit here and customize a Greg, right? I didn't see an option to download a creative character and put it in like you can in my rise. So I was like, okay, I went through like the, they have the templates which I liked. They're like, all right, well, what's your background? You know, you're an indie star, your family legacy.

Yeah. You're a social media creator. I pick that. And then I looked at, they just gave me a guy with a hoodie and sunglasses. And then they're like, his name is Teddy Roblox. And I'm playing this thing is Teddy Roblox. I love that. Yeah, let's dive deep into the island because it is a mixed bag.

There's some good that I want to highlight. There's a lot of bad that I definitely want to highlight. And I want to talk about where we stand right now with WWE and the island present and hopefully in the future because I don't see this mode going away anytime. soon because of what has been built off the back of NBA 2K and the neighborhood into the city. So let's talk about the island right now. The island for me has some nice goods from the nice look of the island. Think universal Disneyland theme park.

All of your favorite attractions, all of your favorite themes are there. It is interesting. I don't want to call it fun because you move in slow motion. So it's not fun to run around. What the fuck is going on with the movement on the island? We'll talk about that. That's why I told you. That's how 2K upsells you.

You buy a go cart with your VC and you can zoom around the city in NBA 2K. But on the island, it is fun to run around the island. Now, I say fun because running isn't fun. But seeing the detail and the love and care that this team put into all of the small little details, all the calls to all of your favorite wrestlers in this theme park vibe is good. It is cool to see that come to life. I agree. like I think they've done

I have a lot of critiques about the island and how they've laid it out and we'll talk about all of it through here but to give them praise like when we were watching the first debut thing and right there you saw the Ray Mysterio outfits through the years I'm like oh that's cool and then this graveyard I think we paused it

and did a shot by shot on one of the shows and it was like oh my god there's Pepper's Grave you know what I'm a memorial to the Gabali Gouca it's like okay like this is fucking nonsense but it's like I like that they're calling out wrestling stuff like clearly wrestling fans built this Yes, it has a lot of great detail. And you enjoy if you're a wrestling fan running around,

getting lost if you imagine yourself in a WWE theme park. This is what it would look like, right? There's the Hall of Heroes with Cody Rhodes and Becky Lynch. You go over to Undertaker's Graveyard and you get lost with Paul Bearer, right? And then you go over to Ray Mysterio and his giant temple looking back on the years of WWE and Luchador wrestling. It's very cool and novel and fun, right? and that's about where it stops for me. So that is the good I want to highlight, right?

I really enjoy the look of the island. I appreciate the ring detail. They all have four unique rings that you can play in from the Hall of Justice Cody Rhodes to Oscar's Arcade of Tomorrow. Very cool look. Like the detail, love and care into the look of the island, very well done what I expect,

especially because I dinged NBA 2K, those first early iterations of the city and neighborhood were awful and ugly to run around and this is like, oh, somebody handcrafted this and really puts them up. And again, as a wrestling game fan, I'm always going to be down for more arenas, right? So having more rings in there, bless,

I'm all four. And like, yeah, Arcative Tomorrow actually is kind of dope. You knock them out and there's like, the see-through floor of like pipes or whatever. And I was like, oh, that's, they're doing something different that isn't, oh, it's just NXT. Oh, it's Bash at the Beach. Oh, it's Raw 2001. Heroes HQ, looks like you're in the Justice League.

Like, I don't know, Hero Center, maybe Batman's Batcave. Like, they got really cool. like background to all of these rings. So that really elevates it like, man, that's awesome. I hope we can use those in generic game modes and the other ones. So that's where my praise will kind of begin and probably stay. Because now I turn my attention to what the island really is. And it is just this mishmash of it wants to be a beautiful shared universe like NBA 2K

where you create your character. You run around this theme park with Blessing Greg and all of your friends and get to show off your cool, wacky outfit. show off that your overall is X, show off your ranking is this, go play matches together. But none of that happens in the island. So you cannot play any matches with your friends in the island. It is dedicated to just random matchmaking

because it's built off the back of a competitive landscape, which I get, right? So instead of NBA 2K where you would think, oh, WWE, they're just going to put a bunch of wrestling mats all around the island and you'll queue up with your friends, you'll do the WW or the 2K nod while you wait and then you'll play with your friends. No, there's none of that.

You'll go to the four different areas. So there's six areas on the island that will highlight six locations I wrote. You have the main plaza, which is your welcome area in your shops. You have Roman Raines monument, giant gold statue. There's clearly things that they want to build off because there's an arena and a hall of legends

that are just set pieces. There's nothing going on there. They're not open at all. Then you have Undertaker's Graveyard, which has Ria Ripley's ink and piercings. You have Undertaker's Church where you'll get your matches there. You have Ray Mysterio's Temple, which has Ray's mask shop, Lorena's face paint and Ray's Temple,

where you get more matches. Cody Rojas Hall of Heroes, which has Truthwear, Hurricane Outfitters, the Hall of Justice to take matches, and Oscar's Arcade of Tomorrow that just has the Arcade of Tomorrow. So you probably saying yourself, something like, Mike, that's a lot of shops you brought up. Yeah, there's 11 shops in this,

just so you know that you can buy. Luckily, bless, I'm sure it's all reasonably priced, yeah? Yeah, we'll talk about pricing in just a moment. But what you would think is, oh, man, that's so cool. I get to run around this theme park with my friends. Surely I can group up with them. Surely we can go do matchmaking together. No, none of this is about that.

It has a... Which is weird because when you're in there and you can tab over and it'll sit your friends online. Yeah, you can jump into their world and see them, but you can't queue up and match together. You can't party up at all. So it's a very odd thing of it. It wants to be a shared world, but at the same time, at its core, it's very single player oriented. You have a very big single player story in this.

That's not my rise, but it's its own standalone story. That's wacky that incorporates time traveling with Ray Mysterio, Paul Bearer bringing up the Undertaker's greatest hits, going over to see Cody Rhodes and Becky Lynch fighting the Judgment Day as Heroes versus Villains, going to see Xavier Woods and his video game character and creating your own... No, I've not done this. So, like, yeah, like, what I'd like to dial it back to, I feel like, hopefully there's a lot of people watching who don't, like, are just here to hear it here, I was back on the aisle or whatever.

But to give you an explanation for it, right, when I did the call after they announced it, they did like a media call, like, oh, you know, a Q&A, and I didn't ask you a question, I just listened in. But one of the things they said that it didn't make sense at the time and makes more sense now is the designer of the island said, listen, the way 2K has brought WWE to video games, we want to bring video games to WWE. week. And so you hear that and I was like, what the fuck does that mean? And then you get into this and you go, Barrett, can you toss up Johnny and Dakota,

JPEG? The idea is that it's, they're trying to do this quest based, you pop in, these guys, the character models are just on screen, look terrible.

Terrible. They don't move, but they will move their faces. Kind of like in a persona if it was just art and would look beautiful. Here they take the character models and stretch their faces into like, oh,

it looks totally fake. But it's this idea of like, you're going, through talking to these people. And so you click it. There's no V-O. There's no V-O to this. You're just clicking it,

and then it advances to another screen as if you're doing a visual novel, as if you're doing whatever. And then the stories, yes, are wacky. So the Wood's storyline, spoilers, is that zero, from up, up, down, down,

like, Xavier's alter ego he builds every year in the video game to go play or whatever, has gotten out of the video game. So it's Xavier Woods on the screen talking to zero. I also say, Are you a gamer?

That's great. But look at out, with all due respect to Xavier Woods, how bad his face looks. Yeah. And that's not, Xavier looks bad. That's them taking a character model and, like, raise his eyebrow and put his thing down like he's talking. Like, it just doesn't work well. But it's like that kind of insanity. And then like, because they're in the arcade of tomorrow and they're doing all the stuff,

Dakota and Johnny have made mech gear you can wear in the game in this ring to be more powerful. And so then you put on this, you have a me. If you want to throw up my video, uh, Barrett, there's a whole. bunch of terrible things there, but they put you into this mech gear to then go fight Xavier Woods. This is when there's a big reveal that he's zero. It's like, it's an excuse to go wrestle, but then it's this nonsense story tossed on top, which I want to get to. I'm not shitting all over that because of course my rise does exist and my rise is the hey, you're backstage and the Miz hates you so you have to go wrestle in a gauntlet match tonight. Like whatever. This is

the weird fictional, we're on the island, anything can happen. Yeah, that's the interesting part is at the core of the island is just a single player narrative alongside a online competitive ranking system that is strictly one v one. So you have two options here to go through. Of course, Roman Raines has tasked you with becoming the number one on the island to earn a WWE contract, which will lead you all along the island with some of your favorite WDWE superstars. And it is a crime.

It is a crime that we can't ask WVE superstars to record. four lines of dialogue. We have a whole year. We have cell phones. The writing on this is grade level at best. If you tell me you can't walk up to Woods and say, hey Woods, great Matt,

you got to read this line really quick. Insane that we have incredibly talented human beings and we can't put voice over lines on this stuff. Do you want to get into it? I mean, yeah, let's get into that. Because I hear you and I feel you. But it's like I see what they're trying to do. Back to the person who said it earlier

and came back to say the vision again. I see what they're trying to do, especially with there being another chapter. Of like, hey, rather than, like, my rise is that. If you're not a WDB player, my rise is the one you take your creative character, you throw them in,

and there is a narrative story that branches and does stuff, and you come off and Kathy Kelly will talk to you backstage and tell you what to do. Xavier will insult you. There's this, that, the other, right?

That's what you're getting all of that, and I think that has to be written so far and recorded so far in advance and animated so far in advance, that that's locked. Whereas this, I think, their hope's going to be that they can update it throughout the year and drop in. Here's the Johnny Gargano character model with text underneath it.

Mike, I'm with you. I don't think this works the way they want it to. I don't think it's impressive. I don't see anybody being like, I love this mode because of that. But I see what they're trying to do. And this is my, there's a great episode of the Blessing Show I did about why WW2K should be a live service, right?

And I think it falls back into this of like there is an issue with WWE2K of they try to do so much. And when you do this much, nothing can get the 10 out of 10 treatment it deserves, right? I guess I say that to step back and give them flowers, the gameplay is awesome because they've just been iterating, right, since they screwed up in 2020. They've just been, hey,

here's what it is and they add to it and they change it and like, I think the gameplay is awesome. I think the presentation is awesome. Well, that's great. But like, you get into these things right night. We already had a super chat come through. A demon hacker says, why is terrible? Why is terrible normal online not considered in reviews? took three hours to play one successful

Elimination Chamber online without issue and it's been the same for years. That demon hacker falls into the category we're talking about, let alone the shitty review period people are given with the game. Where you get this game, I want to say we got it on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Roger got that on like a Tuesday, Wednesday.

Thursday morning was the embargo. So it's like you have people who are cranking through trying to taste everything as fast as possible. Online always gets the shaft on this kind of conversation in that kind of review period because there's not enough people playing online. to go do it, but then it's also the thing of

what do you, person watching or listening, want out of this game? And I think when a game is this diverse where me and Bless can just, I played so much my faction last year. That was like my main mode, right?

I did one GM with you on a stream. I did a universe and stopped really early. I never played online. Maybe I played one of my friends online. Like, it's, everybody comes to these games for something different. And it can get to the minutia of like,

man, I love X, and Z, but it's like, okay, well, I love Royal Rumbles, and that doesn't work well. And I would never know that because I don't like playing Royal Rumbles. Like, there's so much going on in this game that it's not impossible to review, review it, but it is the reason that, like, IGN's got a review and progress up that hasn't been updated since I think Monday,

because I think they're still cranking away on it. Well, sticking on the voices, right? You are teased by the opening of the island is Paul Heyman and Roman Rains in a YouTube-esque quick 30-second video. And you're like, oh my God, they got these two dudes together. Like, this could be dope. you get three of those total for a grand total of like 45 seconds. I got two. I got my second already.

I was waiting for another. Slap in the face on that. Because like it's exciting to see Roman Raines in the gear, Paul Heyman next to them. And we're talking the basic of sets, right? They're in a locker room with one chair. Like I'm not asking much out of this, right? And like that shows you how much the wrestling fans wanted of like, holy shit.

Like they got Roman Raines on this right now to do this. And it's like completely taken away by you jump in and there's the point. more character model in 99% of the stuff. Here's your text messages from Roman Ray. Here's storylines that feel like it's AI generated as well. And that's my worry is like if you put at least their voices on there, it feels a little bit more above what you're reading. Because we're talking about Charlotte Flair and fucking, what's the girl, something fire, right?

The witch's girls, right? We'll just call them for a minute. They're putting sleeping powder on Cody Rhodes at the Heroes. HQ. And you're like, what are we doing here? Video games. And it's video games into wrestling. But like, you read these stories and you go, man, this does not seem legit. This isn't good, right? But at the core of it, you're getting to gameplay, right? And if you are a wrestling fan and you like the games and the gameplay, that's what you're getting the most out of, right? Because every single little bit leads to

another piece of gameplay, right? Whether it be you and Zero battling in Meck Armour, you and Ray Mysterio, going back in time to go fight Ricky Steamboat, which is insane, mind you, because that is 100% ripped out of last year's WWE WrestleMania montage. Because if you remember, you fight Ricky Steamboat and Macho Man, those are quite literally the exact same fights in this. And so you're like, oh, maybe we didn't spend too much time thinking about this one,

because that's pound for pound the same thing, right? And so there's this mix of like, I had a fun time because of the gameplay. I enjoyed running around this novel theme park, setting. I hated that it's supposed to be this beautiful, cooperative world, and none of it is cooperative, right? It just feels like I'm alone

on this island running around. Mind you, we're in early, right? I'm in with only the people who are buying the super edition of the game playing a week ahead of time. So like, there's minimal people. Also, there's four different game modes you can play. So if we go down the list here on my island

breakdown for you. While you break it down, hold on. Let's of course remind everybody we couldn't do this about their support over on Patreon. dot com slash kind of funny. YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Apple and Spotify. That's where you can pick up a kind of funny membership to support this small 11 person business

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Offer is subject to T&C's. We're back and we're still on the island. But blessing, you tried the island for 15 minutes. Talk to me about that. Yeah, I booted it up and I realized I didn't want to be here and I booted out. But I also, I think for me, I never had interest in the island. So it was very fascinated to hear you guys dive deeper into it and like kind of, you know, as like the main topic of the of this version of the game obviously because it's the big new

mode yeah but for me it's the thing of most of my experience so far with 2k25 has been pretty much the modes outside of the island and when I tell you that I in the way that you mentioned 2k24 is the best one right like I feel that way right now about 2k 25 in terms of how upgraded everything feels how obviously up to date because that's how these things work of like okay cool now I can play this jacobot too finally but like hopping into the bloodlines rules match me and that was one of the first things me and Roger did when you had to code in. They're pounding on the mat around you. Yeah.

Oh, you're right. I'm sorry. That's underground. You're right. Yeah, that's underground. Bloodline rules is like the WrestleMania thing they did last year. Right. And like having all of our like picking our own individual wrestlers and having that come out one at

a time and like have it be though. We're recreating this WrestleMania moment. But it works within the ally system of the game. And so like, you know, depending on who I pick, like I chose Gond there. Right. And so, oh, what's the homies name? Kaiser. Yeah.

Ludwig Kaiser comes out right in the middle of the match and he's playing somebody else and his allies come out. Like playing through these different modes, feeling the moment's moment gameplay of, man, it just feels like this game is way more dialed in than any other WWE game I played in the past. Like it's been so wild playing it and seeing how upgraded this game feels compared to, I guess, any wrestling game prior.

But then, yeah, hearing about the island me being like, my eyes kind of glazed over a little bit because I'm like, man, this sounds like a nightmare. And I'm so glad that I'm not like, allowed myself to get sucked into this thing at all. And that's what's weird for me.

And I will pass it back to you, Mike, because I love everything you have here. The Doctor of Island Economics. But it's this idea of like, I am there with you, playing it last night, jumping around, going into Showcase mode, which is always, showcase is always so well done. But to have Paul Heyman there. Yeah. To have Paul giving you this, you know, just fucking crushing everyone. Like I'm somebody who, obviously, yeah, I came into wrestling, or to say obviously,

but I came into wrestling in like mid-2000s, right? And so I never had a moment to learn about Yokozuna. And like what his role was, right? Even like, I don't think I even knew that he had retired Hulk Hogan for about nine years or whatever. So like hopping into the bloodline story, seeing how far back the family spans. Like I've known that the family spans back, right?

But getting the context of everything and being like, oh damn, it started off with this, like, which led to this. And like, you know, like, I watched when Umaga was wrestling, right? And so I'm like, oh, fuck, yeah, like, Umaga fits in the puzzle. Fucking wild shit, right, of like learning that through the showcase mode. And yeah, this showcase mode feels even improved from previous. showcase modes as far as how they fit in the cutscenes together, right? It's not cutting back to a FMV video. Now it is like all recreated within the engine. It just feels more natural and it

feels so far, in my opinion, I think this is probably the best showcase they've done so far and especially with Paul Heyman narrating it and it being such a, you know, such an important story throughout the history of wrestling. I'm having such a blast with it. Yeah, I think, you know, I talked about in my preview for WW2K25, right, that it is a game about the little things. It is about okay well now LED walls get damaged or you can jump off of this thing you know I mean because they I think were in such a great place for what I want out of a wrestling game

a simulated a sim wrestling sim right and so yeah I'm right there with you like everything under the hood is so good and going so far but then it is like the island and then for me it's not even so much that like you were getting there and I want to let you get there but the thing when I'm playing it last night and I'm like oh my God like

when I'm slowly running around this fucking island right and I you know we get the the one you get a review code most most likely, especially for WWE, you get the highest, craziest edition. So we have the Dead Man edition, right? Which is the crazy bells and whistles one. Or is it the bloodline edition? We have the, we have the biggest edition they have, right? So it also came with a bunch of VC. So when I went and created my character, you can immediately pay to move your character up. And I started doing it because I, it's free. And I was like,

you know what? No, I want to see what it is like for normal. So I erased it all, started it. And I'm playing the matches in the same way when I play my faction. And I'm playing as a bunch of 69s and 72s. It's like, okay, yeah, I'm not a full-powered Cody Rhodes, but I'm not also getting my doors blown off. Now, again, your mileage will vary. That's me playing when I know I will never play online. Correct.

I'm never going to go PVP with this thing. And that's only half of the island, right? It's like you're playing that single play experience, but the island is built off of a ranked competitive situation because, like, clear his day, it says, hey, rank up. We want to see that rank underneath your name every time you turn on the island.

So it's like, I can tell you right now, every time I jump in the island, everyone is 90 and above because they had the super edition. They spent that VC and no matter what, you're about to bang into Mike who's 94 overall and he's going to blow your doors off. Someone in the chat. If you don't upgrade. A while ago was like, I tried it last night. I got a level two overall 100 beat my doors off.

Yeah. And so, yeah, that's the wild part is we talk about the single player side of things, but also on the competitive multiplayer, whatever you want to call it, right? there's four match modes that you can choose from. So you go to the different locations on there, which there should just be a press start and instant match make for all four. But no, you have to run slowly to each location,

queue up for that one and only match, right? So Undertaker has hell in the cell. Ray Mysteria has a ladder match. Cody Rhodes has a normal match. Oscar Tomorrow has extreme rules. So you run over there nice and slow. And again, run is being nice. You are not running.

You are very fucking slow. You queue up. for it and you wait, right? And so the big deal here is, if you're on the early edition like me, at night, you'll get matches fairly regularly, but it's still a little bit of a waiting time this morning when I'm queuing up. Oh my God, I'll never find a match, right? Because you're queuing into this one specific game mode within this larger experience, right? And so there's so much going on. And then, of course, when you get in, it's still 2K online. I've never played an NBA 2K game where it felt like the real just play now version by yourself.

You're always in quick stand. It's always just a little slow. And then the moment somebody quits out and you're playing on your own thing, it feels fucking fantastic. And you're like, man, oh man, this is a nightmare, right? So it's built off of that. It will be interesting to see when they open up the doors to the island officially later this week, right? With the full release, I believe, tomorrow.

So we will see what it looks like if people are buying V-C to get up into the 90s and 100s. Am I just fighting people that are 74 to 8? area. And if I can stop you for one second, Barrett, give me the one. Yeah. Everybody, it's me, Greg Miller. Many of you've known me for many, many years. You've seen me review wrestling games my entire career. I'm begging, begging, begging,

everyone who buys WW2K25 and tries the island, do not spend money to upgrade your character. I know it's a losing battle. I know the majority of people are, the whales will do it, but don't, because this will be the death of my rise. This will be the death of the normal single player. This will be, like right now, we're sitting here all at 24 was the best. This is better, but it's like got this, but it's still like next year is going to be the year where we're like, well, they took away my rise and now it's all inside the fucking island or whatever they're calling it.

And it's completely fucked and we hate it. Don't do it. Don't do it, Mike. It could be sick. We're going to talk about the future in just a moment. But yeah, that is the landscape of the island right now. It's this fun theme park with different areas that are very well done, a really wacky, story that feels like it was created by

AI, but it has fun single player moments in it that you're just going to... I shouldn't say moments. It's just a regular match, just different themes to it. So it's not really that special. Here's my problem. You keep saying, you know, a really fun theme park or whatever, right? And I don't agree. I think it's well designed and they put love and

care to it. But the running in slow motion to get there to go into the arcade of tomorrow. Load screen. I'm in the arcade of tomorrow. Walk to Woods. Talk to Woods. Woods says go talk to Dakota and Johnny. They're outside the arcade of tomorrow. Walk to the thing. Load. I'm outside. I talk to them.

They say, go talk to Woods. I go back in. I talk to Woods. I finish the match. I'm still standing in there and talk the woods again. I'm like, what the fuck? Like, I, this is the part that I was struggling with last night where it's like, I don't mind silly nonsense. I don't mind. Like, you buy a wrestling game, in my opinion, to wrestle, right?

So they are giving you more reasons to wrestle, which again, if you wanted to dial it back to me being wrestling obsessed in high school and having my N64, and having Smackdown, where I would be in class drawing up my own paper views that I would then go home,

play those matches, but it wasn't in a mode, it wasn't a thing, it was all my head cannon, right? I love that they're giving you reasons to do that, but this bloat around it of walking over and talking,

but it's like, I understand you don't want it just to be this, but I even think of AEW fight forever that I review, right? Where they had a very weird mode as well where it was like, you know, you would travel and then you would go out to eat and that would give you a buff,

but then little things could happen. It was like, I remember playing me like, this is wacky, weird, but okay, they're doing, like, this is just so half-baked of what I'm doing in, like, I don't mind, I like having the matches to do it, and I don't even hate, like, you're fighting Gunther, and he's dressed like a space marine, like, I don't know, Gunther would never do this, I don't know why, but okay, whatever, I'm doing, but it's the, now run around and really slow over there to talk to the guy in the hall of heroes.

Well, that's to create this open world quest giver as you brought up experience, right? Once you beat that, you'll never do that again, right? All of those quests are now gone. You will never see Our Truth pop up on your screen again. It is literally you and the fake NPCs that walk around the John Cena T-Suit. That guy in the whole whole rule shirt. I see him everywhere. Just so you know, like, yeah, that feels slow, but like that reminds me of any other open world game, right?

Go talk to Susie. Okay, cool, talk to Susie. Go over and talk to Ben over there. All right, go back and forth. Like, they're making it their own. Go put it out. You see how fast that moves for getting your quests. Oh, my God.

It's so boring running around some of these open worlds. But even that, like, I'll argue with you on this. Because in an avowed or whatever open world game, and I don't know, I'm not talking about NBA. If that's your one reference, I can't. Well, I'm going to bring it to NBA. But my thing would be like running around an open world, when you're going from point A to point B,

you run into objective C and side mission D. And you go and do those if you want to or you run. But like here, that doesn't happen. Well, here I'm running to talk to the world. The thought process would be to mimic the city, right, in NBA 2K, where you'd be running in and you'd see other people, you'd see their crazy alpha. you might stop for a park game, right?

Or you might be running to the pro-am. They don't have any of those things here, right? So there is no ring in the center of the island. They have to queue up for. That's what this is missing, where you would then, you would run and go, oh, shit, like they're fighting in the center. I should stand here or I should queue up, right? And so, yeah, it's a drag to run back and forth right now.

They'll sell you a segue for $15. Don't worry about it. It'll go faster. But I do agree with you, Greg. I'm like, it sucks when you complete the story where you're supposed to run around the island and see all the cool points to now I have to run actively and run like you've brought up

the slow run to go to these spots actually queue up for a match which sucks there should just be a cell phone where I press a button and just say cue up but then there would be no point of me running to the Undertaker's church and all the time that they spent in making the church if I wasn't going to run there right. Gotta go to the Undertaker's church.

It's weird up and down thing of they clearly wanted to build a little mini open shared world. They wanted this NPC story to have run around like an open world video game. They did that. And yeah, if you like it or not, that's clearly what they're going for, right? The problem is, is there, the other side of NBA 2K has so much more because they've already

built that over for 10 plus years, right? This is year one that's still figuring it all out. And also on top of that, I'm not doing it with my friends. The whole draw of this was to do it with my friends and none of that is happening. So that's why you feel isolated. That's why it feels bogged down because it should. be me and blessing running up to Xavier Woods and I go in the microphone go, what the

fuck is this blessed? He just starts laughing, right? Like, that's what this whole experience should have been, and it's not. Do you like the city in 2K, in NBA 2K? Do I like running around the city? Do you like the experience overall? Yeah, because it has Pro-Am. It has street ball, which I love.

It has some of the best game modes in NBA 2K for a single-player experience, or for a, I create my one player and I get to play on a team, right? Like the coolest part about NBA 2K and Pro Am is I am my point guard playing with four others in a 5V5 rec league style basketball game. And that is the coolest game mode that NBA 2K has ever created, right? Like on the flip side, I can play two on two streetball against two other gibronies in a park that hundreds of people can watch. That is a cool idea and experience.

Now, does it run well? Absolutely not, right? Is it bullshit that I show up and the kid that spent $100,000? $50 is now $99 and I'm 78 and they blow my doors off every time. Of course, that's boring and dumb. But the idea of making this metaverse of my character running around and experiencing this is a cool and novel idea that I think really went far in that game style, right? The issue is wrestling is not that, right?

Wrestling is all fake, not supposed to be competitive. So you should be going for the five-star matches. But why would I do that when I'm just going to try to beat the brakes off of you? So, like, that's not happening. It should be me and my friends tag team, triple threat. All of us should be in a fatal four way going against each other. I don't get any of that. So it takes away the fun experience that was the NBA city with my shared friends to now there's nothing of that.

But I like the city as well. I would rather run around and, like, experience things than just going queue up into a menu and never see anything, right? Because that's your alternative is you can literally just play online, the same exact, experience like the island and just say, cue up and just see a menu that says waiting online, waiting online. Like that's fine. Every game has done that for the past three decades, but...

And that's where you fall into this thing where it's like, again, I want to talk about the VC and microtransactions, right? One of the super chats we got to start the entire thing was from Demon Hacker who said Island of Microtransactions, rest in peace, my rise in 2K26. But it's the idea of like,

just playing through the stuff and completing the storyline gives you custom item. It gives you banners. It gives you icons. It's like, okay, I get that. And that's cool. I like that. It is this misinterpretation,

or at least I think miss on what the island should be, where it would make more sense to me, right, if there were these sections. And maybe it's a shared world for 100 people, private servers, whatever, you know what I mean? Where you enter in and then there is the, you're competing for the dead man belt. So there's like a ladder system over here that's going on.

Here is the tag. team division warehouse where you and me are friends Mike and we go in there and it's like oh we got to climb the ranks and do the thing here's the I mean they would never do this but the backyard wrestling you know I see you're wrestling in a yard so it's totally different and there's like have you enter into that then also have these storyline so it's like I understand more of what you're doing and why it's different and even then this is where of course 2K would throw me out of the goddamn conference room is I would have it be like all right it's what we see in so many action RPGs, right, of you're going to come in here and you're all going to get buffed

to 98 or you're all going to get set to 85, right? And then we have, like, there's a free form ring and championship over here of like go in and test your medal and it's whatever your character actually is, but find ways around it where it is. Hey, you can go do this. Yeah, go on. Well, that's the perfect. That's the dream situation. We're on baby step one, right? Of like, could we pass this off and get people interested? That's where we need to be is right, Greg. And so that's the interesting one of like when I finish and I put out the tweet of like, oh, that was chapter one. They're going to probably bring out season two. I expect season two to have tag teams, right?

I expect them to build off of this and hopefully nail what that is. It will be very interesting to see starting this week and beyond. What is the fan perspective of this? And will this die on the vine sooner than later or will this be something they build off? Because my character in the island does not go on to my rise. So stupid. I click on My Rise, my character's not there. This is as bad as what two years ago when they were like,

all right, here's My Rise, and your character that you have downloaded or whatever can't be imported here, but you can import your character out. Last really fixed it where it was like, whatever your created character is you bring it with it. And so now all of a sudden I have just this isolated experience that doesn't share anything with this. I put money into this.

I'm playing this, but it's just this. And it's very odd that like it's not connected to My Rise. Why is my character not there? He should be there. So I feel like, oh, that's cool. all this stuff that I'm buying is just for me to slow walk around the island and show off to bring me up to speed on this this is something we have not touched on the mechanics of it Blessings ready to go buy some Air Jordans.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. I've never touched this mode ever again. I bought some ugly little tidbits, bro. So let's talk about the money because I know that's what a lot of you came here to talk about. And so, of course, thank you to 2K. We were provided with the super deluxe edition that comes with like a hundred and sixty-five thousand VC.

more VC than you need to level all the way up. Not by much. I'm going to give you the big breakdown. I was doing it. I'm like, wait, I was watching the number go up. I was like, holy shit. When you come onto the island, I don't know what the number is. I'll say it's 74 might be 82.

But when you arrive on the island, you can instantly level up your character. If you would like to be level 100 on the island, level up your character. You will have to spend 161,000 VC, which comes out to a, About $40, but they only sell it in special increments. So let's just call it $50. You have to spend $50 to level up instantly to $161 to make it $100 right there. Cosmetics range anywhere from 6,000 VC to $18,000. That's sitting out of price range of about $5 to $10, depending on how many purchases you make, right?

Those purchases? Shoes, pants, shirts, jackets, hats, masks, tattoos, face paints, right? I mean, there are a bunch of stores here. And the biggest one that I am not okay with is the I Slides Sandals Shop. The I Slides Sandals Shop is selling sandals that are 18,000 VC on the highest price range of any of these. That's more than $5 real world money to buy sandals. Do not do this, people who play this game. Do not buy this stuff.

Or do it because you deserve it. If you pay for this, you deserve what you get. Becky and Seth's drip and porium, they range from 6,000 to 18,000 on jacket, shoes, glasses, shirts. All of them atrocious. None of them look good. I can promise you that. Ray's Mysterio's mask shop is all 6,000.

Tattoos are 6,000. The barber shop to cut your hair is 9,000. They already have hairstyles in the game. They have more tattoos than Rear Ripley's tattoo shop. So technically you can change your hair and put tattoos on for free, but they sell you a small amount for an odd amount of money,

which is like, why? Why are there 34 tattoo styles already in the game, but I can buy 12 more over here? Why not? Great question, great answer right there. That's them arguing, right? Like, hey, we're giving you a whole bunch of stuff for free. If you want it, you can pay for it.

And so the weird part is, is none of this goes into any part of the other parts of the game, right? Like, that's insane. sane that none of this goes over there. It's just its own separate thing. And to everyone out there that's like, so we always say, I always preference this because I see you always in the chat.

You don't have to spend money, Mike. You don't ever have to. You don't. You don't, right? But here's the deal. This is a ranked game mode. It's about your ranking. If you're not paying to win, you're not going to win.

If I'm level 100 and you're 82, you best believe you're not beating me in the ring. You better be real good. And so I do think there's a big pay-to-win situation that has to be discussed here since it's more on the competitive side. And on top of that, Greg, you're not earning shit. I walked out of every single match and I think they gave me 150 VC after every single match. Because here's the catch blast. You earn 150, but you earn XP, the rest of the stuff.

So if you get more stars on the matches, you complete challenges, you get XP. Those XP's go to your battle pass, which is at the level of the battle pass, which gives you more name tiles. sometimes more VC, new t-shirt, right? So, like, none of it is making you enough money to justify as 18,000 VCI slides if it takes me a shit ton of games to get that much money. I lost the words you were saying as you were saying.

Like, somewhere in halfway through that statement, you got, like, too many currencies in. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing, I'm like, I don't follow anymore. The battle pass, premium past VCA. Yeah. And the issue is, it's like, I play NBA 2K. I already know all this.

I've been through this. It's not like, it's not crazy. It's not like stopping your tracks. I mean, like all of this seems on track. Actually, it seems on the more lighter side. If it's $6,000, $18,000, that's pretty minimal right there for a $5 t-shirt. I know that's insane to say. But like on the microtransaction side, they all seem a little less egregious.

And it was like, okay. But also when you look at the WWT shirt that you buy from R2 Streetwear, you go, ooh, that's not worth 18,000 VC. So this, who's playing this mode? Like you guys talk about like don't spend money, don't do that. But like, is there, everything you guys are saying makes it sound like, like, kryptonite to like anybody who wants to even touch, from anybody who even touching this thing, right?

Like, I can't imagine, it doesn't sound fun. It doesn't sound well balanced. It doesn't sound like the moment to moment gameplay is there. Do you guys expect people to actually boot into this thing and play it? Yeah. I do. Really? Yeah.

I think, you know, when we talk about predatory tactics and you talk about gambling, you talk about micro-transactions, inevitably, somebody's always like, think of the children. I do think this appeals to that. Like, if you remember when Poe was here with Jack, right, and we played a whole bunch helldivers and it was awesome, Jack would just sit on the couch and play WWE. And he just, he had already played it at home, obviously, a million times. He was just rolling new showcases and going through. And remember, showcase, or not showcase, I'm sorry, My Rise.

And one of the My Rise storylines had to like fight in a scorpion or whatever last year. You know what I mean? So the weird shit is already there. And so I think it would be the idea of go here. Oh, I do the Fortnite model of, yeah, I do want that. I, you know, when I was at Royal Rumble and I was walking around Indianapolis, I, I, blue skyed about it. But I was like, I have never seen this much merch for one wrestler like the Yeats shirts.

Yeats shirts were fucking everywhere. And I own two of them, obviously. But it was like, like, I can easily see. Jack booting into this, spending all that time making a character, running off, getting the Paul Heyman video, seeing the goofy thing of, oh, I'm going to go fight zero and this, that, and the other. And not like, back to what you said, Mike, right, of like, the writing is here, right? It's like bottom of the barrel of what they're doing to get you. Like, he's not going to care about that.

He's going to run through it. And then it would be the, well, I want to get a shirt. Oh, I want to get a slide. I want to get this. And like, does that domino effect out? And it be, I don't know. But it's like, I don't know how he plays online either if that would be fun for him, if that would be a thing. and that it is the, I got my ass kicked and he's 100,

so now I do want to spend on it. Yeah, people come to these modes for the shared experience, right? Like, what got me excited for the island was the idea that me, my buddy Washi and Kevin ASEX, we're all going to jump into the island together and have this shared experience that I have an MBA 2K. And unfortunately, since it's not truly shared experience, there's no reason to play this for me, right?

And so I wonder if that wow factor were wear off very quickly where people will jump in, play for 50s, and go, I'm good. I can't play with my friends and bounce out. But it's an interesting world. I'm trying to figure out what the hook is here. Because I understand and agree with like so much of what you guys are saying. But even for kids, I'm like, if I'm thinking to like myself at my most vulnerable when it comes to you,

man, I want to, I'm going to play anything, right? Like I want to let me buy the worst game and even play through that shit. At the very least, like, even kids need some kind of carrot on the stick. And it could be the expensive thing. But if I want, if it costs real money or. if the path to get there is too long and the journey there is just not fun because I'm getting my ass kicked by a bunch of level 100s because my dad got me the standard version so I'm a 65 right and I keep doing this and I'm like I'm just going to play another mode aren't I'm just going to play the fucking exhibition I jump back to when I was a kid and again I'm playing every wrestling game under the sun and again the hundreds of hours I would sink into these things I would think that the I would eventually end up playing this. And I don't, you know, who knows, whatever. I don't think I would ever invest the money in it in terms of I need to be a hundred. I think it would just be all grind and play the single player stuff. Because do you ever have to play online? You've finished it. Oh, yeah. Once you finish the single player, there's no more story. But that's my thing is like, but they're going to give you a new chapter that'll eventually be single player. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So now you're playing the waiting game. Yeah. I think like that kind of thing would bring me back because I'd be doing everything. Universe mode has been around for so long. I don't know. I'm not a universe mode expert by any stress imagination. How much new stuff's been added this year to make. make that more appealing.

Like, I feel like everybody's going to go touch this. And I could see it being like, oh, I made a cool character, so I want to keep doing stuff with them. I don't know if you'd invest in it and do this. Yeah, I mean, that's what it's all about, right? It's making that character and running around this little shared playground

with your friends, right? Like, that is the sell, that's the selling pitch of these game modes. It's like, hey, you made that character. Now run around with your friends. Like, that's what they want you to do here. And so it'll be interesting to see they have on a look, they have it right?

right? The theme park look is a wrestler's paradise, right? Your own universal theme park that is wrestling just detailed out. You have game modes in there that you can play. It's matchmaking, you'll squad out, your battle, and go from there. I just don't know. It's an odd one because, like, I have some things of like, well, what is the future, right? That's my big. I feel like that's where we're at, right?

Because I want to know what you think from the NBA way, if this is going to succeed, if it's going to infect everything. because I'm, my fear is like this is the last time where we're able to be like, this is ignore, like every saying in the reviews, ignore the island and everything's great and it's better than ever and da-da-da. And next year when it is, my rise has been incorporated into whatever they will call it the island again. And that's my thing is I think from the way we're talking about this, right, and what I'm hearing, because for me the mind-blowing thing of this is, man, this can't be successful because I feel

like for the amount of choices you have right now in 2K, there's no reason to play this from how you guys are talking about this, right? So you have to start forcing people to play. Yeah, you have to start forcing people to play. I looked at Roger as we were playing the game, I think yesterday, and I was like, dude, the game is in a various, but riches. I barely even touched this mode.

It has to be, I think, of next year, you have to figure out how to put my rise in it. You got to figure out how to put, if you put my faction in that thing, then it becomes a problem. Which people already have a problem with, right? My faction has always been the ultimate team mode that people are like, well, hey, you got to,

you're buying packs to get things, but it's random drops on that and da-da-da-da-da. And even then you could not do it for a long time, but your characters would be low. And then they started, they introduced persona cards last year, persona cards being that when you get the solo Sacoa card of him in the black outfit, the black

you know, blazer and whatever, then that now unlocks that costume in the base game as well. And so people were starting to get there. The whole thing is the slippery slope because again, from an outside perspective, we've seen how bad it's gone for NBA. Yeah. I mean, for all these games with what they've done, it's an interesting one of, you bring

up my rise, right? And so NBA, I think, is a little bit easier to picture in my mind being a basketball kid of like what that looks like and how that kind of morphed into it, right? We're talking about an NBA my player career mode. They used to have Spike Lee on it. They had Spike Lee

make the series and it was bad still. Okay, don't give them any credit. I forgot about it. What year was that? Spikely. And so you've gone down these things of like they've made their own my rise in all these sports games, right? Where you start your character off at whatever level and go forward. But the interesting

one with NBA 2K in the city is you can picture yourself as a basketball player, right? You have the penthouse loft that they give you with your own little basketball court that you'd have private little one-on-one and shooting sessions with your friends. You can leave the basketball court, run around the city, buy stuff that will go in the gym look and also in the city look. You can go play pro-am with your friends. You can play some streetball.

You can go to the arena that has the single player, my rise, onto the next game and progressing through the calendar. You guys have to tell me on the WWE side, is this a WWE training facility lifestyle where you have that because I can easily see us you buy everything in game that is for your matches and outside of matches on the island. I could easily see a wrestling ring in the middle

where you and your friends can battle in your apartment. I could see them running around, going to the different arenas, battling online, and then going to the team bus or whatever and going forward with the next match in whatever city, I guess. For your answer, yes. Like that, I think that's the inevitable future if they stick this mode. Because honestly, as much as I hate what we have right here from the money grubbing and how it's just not that great overall perspective.

Like, that actually sounds cool. That actually makes sense. If it was like, you figure the entire wrestling journey, especially in my rise, usually right is what? I'm a kid. I'm entering the performance center. I'm working my way up. Now I'm on to NXT. Now I'm on, you know, I'm in a dark.

match. Now I'm opening things. Now I'm a mid-carder. Now I'm a main inventor, right? So if you were to break it down where it was like, we've unlocked WWCity or whatever the fuck you call it, right? And it is like, there are arenas tied to your level of like, all right, cool, you come here and you are grinding it out in this bingo hall doing the thing. And then, okay, now you can move on to work at high school gymnasium. Now you can move on to do the area. And eventually you're in wrestling, you're, you know, you're wrestling in the arenas. You're at WrestleMania. And to your point of you have a shitty apartment you're sharing with some other loser wrestler. Throw up one of loser wrestlers I put in

What's his name? Scott is what a Barrett's one of the images The fucking guy who's in no name anybody He's a creative guy Yeah Kyle Slickman You're living with Kyle Slickman in this One Bedroom apartment right Then all of a sudden you go to the

Then you get the I'm Roman Rains And I have this penthouse that does have a ring Where I can invite my friends over Like that again I think if I'm just being honest Sounds cool except for I bought the addition And I'm starting as in the I'm starting as in the

I'm starting in the bingo hall at level 100, and I have to fight you at your level 20, and it's like, you know, that's when it all falls apart. It gets fucked up. Yeah, it'll be very interesting to see the future of this, right? What is the reception from month one? What do we hear from the feedback? Clearly, the reviewers do not like this new game mode, right?

Me and Greg, I'll tell you, I was a mixed bag. I do not like this. I had some fun times with just playing the matches, but all in all, this is not a good product. This is not what it should have been in my mind, and it will be interesting to see where you build off of that. What would you give? What would you give the island on a kind of funny review scale?

Bring up the numbers, Barrett. Let me give you the Snowbike Mike official number right here. Of course, we review on a 10 point scale. Remember, of course, this is, or actually a 20 point scale. Remember, of course, that this is just the island. We're not talking about a 2K-25 overall, which is a lot of fun of me and Bless Love. I assume Mike loves it too. Yeah, I'm sitting right in the meh to mediocre range here.

I gave it some props. I gave it a lot of beat downs on that one. I'm in the meth to mediocre range. So we'll go with a solid 4.5 for the island. A me. Okay. Plenty of room for improvement. They know what it should be.

I think they know what it should be, but they didn't want to create that. So they went with a more single player focused video games in the WWEs you brought up, Greg. And it just doesn't land, right? You have My Rise. Focus on the single player stuff there. this is for a shared universe, the WWE universe with your friends.

Focus on that, make it greats. A couple different super chats to get through over here before we let you go. Erk the Imp says load screens on the island are terrible. One minute load on PS5 Pro just to view a shop. Then again, to exit the shop. Welcome to the island. That's how it goes. True Strike says, the zany scenarios you're describing me from the island are actually selling me on this more than it should.

And then he says also, or they say, also, thanks for the cheers, Greg, Alea. that's a monster hunter thing. I'll leave a finished their little thing today, so I cheered him on my Monster Hunter now app. Don't worry about it. Andrew Brown says, Will Greg admit that Will Osprey is the best wrestler in the world? No, the best in the world, of course, is CM Punk.

Come on, it's right there in front of your face. And then Zombies 8 Keegan says, I'm bored at work. Just want to make someone say, peep, pooh, pooh, cac out loud. I'm a simple man. Happy to be there for you. Bless, I assume you're going home and boot this up right away.

Oh, yeah. I'm hopping into this mode immediately. Talk to me. then from the wide picture of I was very happy with you all the time of course but last year when you come in like I was still playing 2K24 I booted it up last time I did this do you see that again

with 2K25 are you doing a universe are you doing just my faction I think I'm just doing doing my faction is the sucky thing where 2K the WW2K games always come out at a busy time they're always March and March just happens in the last however many years to be always a busy time for video games so

it's funny because I think it was games cast or maybe after games cast or something where we were like okay cool let's play wwee for the rest of the day so we can talk about it today and I boot up WWE I start playing it and then like probably 30 minutes into me playing it I get a code from you where I'm like oh

I want to play this game actually but even with that I finished up what I was doing I let the code you sent me install and as it was downloading I hopped into my faction like the rogulight mode the faction wars thing and played through and got far enough where I was like

now I'm riding this out I'm having way too much fun with this thing. And so I think I'm going to continue to do that. I'm like more into wrestling now than I have been in the last like decade probably right. So I'm in it. I want to play it as Jacob fought to and get that card. And you know, right now I have the action figure Roman Raines and I want to get the actual Roman Raines because actually don't really like looking at the action figures. And so yeah, I'm all the way in it. I've never really been in my rise person. I've tried it and I don't like how bad the acting is a lot of the time and how just like shank the overall experience can be of my rise. I do love just hop it into random exhibition. So,

I might do that. I want to play through more of the showcase mode because I like Paul Heyman. I like how they're presenting it. I want to experience the full bloodline story. I won't spoil how they started it, but they started off in the best way you could possibly start off a showcase for the bloodline. And yeah, I'm definitely good. I think I'm definitely going to have this be more of like a pop in for the next few months and have fun when I can. Michael, you're going to still play WWI or no?

I will check out MyRise. There's a lot of love for My Rise, of course, in the WWE community and experiencing the Island and having the small fun moments, I should go check out My Rise. I will definitely put on the big 30 man 30 man Royal Rumble with all the crazy user-generated content from Spider-Man to Winnie the Pooh. So I'm looking forward to that

kind of shenanigans. Blessing bringing up the awesome highlighted mode of the Bloodlines. I really loved what they did last year with WrestleMania. And so, yeah, I should probably check that out because I really enjoy the storytelling, the story moments that we have with all these games. So yeah, I'll probably check that out.

WWE, you got me more than I usually am. That's a positive. Two things you winch in the creation suite and downloading Winnie the Poo and everything else. Shout out to Olive Party, who has already uploaded, gruesome Gregie and Nick Scarpino out there. I'm sorry, Johnny Ace.

Greg Miller and Johnny Ace are up there. The KFW tag, I assume he will continue to do the rest. And also, as much as we've, slippery, slow up all this stuff, one of the things I appreciate about the island from a very Greg nerdy thing is that they put all the island trophies

on a DLC thing. Meaning that if you wanted to platinum WW2K25, you would never have to touch the island. But that's a nice thing. But also, they're not hard, the island ones. I have three of five right now just from tinkering around. I need to get a badge and I need to compete in a PVP match. So again, not terrible.

But ladies and gentlemen and NBs, what do you think of the one, the only WWE 2K25 island? Sound off in the comments so we know. And of course, keep on coming back. Remember each and every weekday, we have so many. live talk shows for you to hang out and watch. You already got games daily. Now you got the games cast. Up next is our screencast about Daredevil, episode three.

And then, of course, the Nick Nuzlock continues. For now, though, we'll say goodbye. Remember, if you like what you saw here, pick up a Kind of Funny membership, YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games, Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Spotify and Apple. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.