Wrestlemerica 2K19; Glitch Mode

I assume folks already know but there’s meme-level bugs in the latest WWE game. People are phasing through each other, they’re pinballing around the ring, they’re walking through the mats… look it up and you can find tons of weird gifs and vids. Point being I mashed that concept together with Your Favorite Healslut, where a FPS character is trying to enjoy herself within her videogame.

The mix of meta humor with pro wrestling and bad videogame jokes ended up with this baby. It’s mostly setup, but it’s got some embarrassing action that reminds me of the Ashley’s Bullies series, complete with a plain Jane heroine who abuses weird powers and bugs to win her fights. 

Making up shitty knockoff wrestling gimmicks is still a lot of fun, btw.

I had heard all the reviews online hating on Wrestlemerica 2K19, but I’ve been following the franchise for years now. I felt like I was in too deep to back out now. Even with all the reports of buggy AIs, graphics freaking out, physics-breaking glitches, and questionable character models, I decided to stick with it.

I popped in the disc and went to the Story mode. They hadn’t used Story in the last two years so I was ready to get back into it. I knew just who I wanted to play as. There were the usual real fighters, but it encouraged you to make an original for it. I went through the settings, and while it had some pretty ridiculous shit, I went with a basic design.

She was a little short without a lot of curves. She wore plain green wrestling pants and short boots with a pretty modest red sleeveless shirt. She wasn’t the sexed-up eye candy (like the infamous Eyecandy was) or a butch brute (like Bonebreaker). She was a cute, regular girl with shoulder-length black hair and a sweet smile. I just called her Amy, and when it prompted a nickname, I just put it as “The Wrestler.” She was plain, but I thought that just made her cuter compared to the loud and bombastic ladies of the game. I statted her as an underdog; lots of fan appeal but her other stats were lacking. It was good for giving the fighter second winds when they played to the crowd but she lacked any real punch or flashy moves.

Fortunately, there wasn’t really a game over in Story mode. Your career path just changed, so I wanted to try my best with her. I double-checked her stats and moveset before I hit Start. The lengthy loading screen didn’t fill me with the most confidence.

And Amy The Wrestler popped into existence. She shivered and made a cute shuddering noise as she shook her dark hair out. She was in the locker room, surrounded by some of the biggest names in women’s pro wrestling. She was hardly a few seconds old and already she was feeling starstruck.

“Oh wow! I can’t believe it! So this is what it’s like being in the big leagues!” Amy hopped up and down and rolled her shoulders, testing out her new body. She beamed around at the other wrestlers, who were casually chatting, snacking, lazing around or changing clothes. None seemed quite as enthused as she was just by being there.

“Ooh! Hi! Miss Firebird!” Amy ran over to the red-haired woman. The woman had dark eyeliner with tanned skin and a six-pack showing between her shorts and her fire-painted spandex top. She was smoking and leaning against a wall near the showers when Amy grabbed her hand and shook it. Patricia Firebird looked back at her nonplussed.

“Hi! I’ve been a big fan of your work for all my life. All twenty seconds of it! I just loaded into your game, but I’m really glad to be a part of your league! It’s an honor to be here!”

“Uh huh,” Firebird said, quirking an eyebrow. “You’re the Create A Character?”

“Yes! I’m gonna be the player’s persona. Like… I don’t want to say main character, cuz come on. I’m no star. You girls are! I mean, ladies. Of course. But… but wow! I can’t wait to get going!”

“Look, kid. It’s a job.” Valerie Silicon appeared behind her, putting a bracing hand on Amy’s shoulder. The busty, finely-dressed woman in a slutty business suit held a briefcase in one hand, her full blonde hair perfectly sculpted to the point where it didn’t even move. “It’s a game for the players. Win or lose, we’re going back in the ring again within a day or two. Especially if he gets into online play. That one’s a real addiction, I hear. Assuming you can get the wifi going properly.”

“Oh fuck the online play,” Firebird sighed. “I was floating for like 10 seconds straight last time I was on there.”

“The physics engine is garbage enough. They made way too many cuts on this year’s edition. It spared up the memory for a bigger roster, but…”

“Um…” Amy piped up, sheepishly raising one hand. “Hi. Um, sorry, but… which way is the Story mode?”

The two vets nodded towards the door at the far end of the locker room.

“Thanks. Thanks a lot. Thank you,” she rambled sheepishly. She scampered off towards the door, and as soon as she opened it, she loaded into the game. She suddenly wasn’t in her wrestling gear; she was in a high school wearing jeans, sneakers, and a Wrestlemerica t-shirt. She raised a hand to look at herself and nearly dropped her textbook.

“Oh jeez! Uh… I guess I’m still in school?” Amy thought out loud, looking around the halls with random students walking past her. Some of them looked absolutely identical, and for some reason one of them was purple. She shrugged it off as a text box appeared at waist height.

“Ooh! Finally. This must be the tutorial!” She leaned over to read it.

“Amy wasn’t always The Wrestler. She grew up in [INSERT HAILING FROM] as a normal student. She dreamed of joining the Wrestlemerican Wrestling Federation, but it was just a dream. One day, everything changed.”

“Oof,” Amy winced. “I’m sure they’ll… uh… let you enter my hometown during the next patch. Sorry. Sorry, player.” She waved up at the sky, even if she knew her every motion and word didn’t get through to the real world. She was just a part of the game. It still felt polite to make an effort.

“Hey! What are you looking at!?”

Amy looked up at the shouting. A pair of tall, fit blonde girls had surrounded a mousy girl in glasses. They weren’t especially well-detailed… even their skin wasn’t fully textured beyond generic white girls. They were certainly taller, bustier and fitter than Amy was.

“Watch it, you nerdy little bitch. You’re not welcome in these halls. This is The Bully Bitches turf.”

“Bully Bitches,” Amy repeated, shaking her head in disbelief. “Like… someone WROTE this, right? It feels like I’m in an old NES game…”

“Hey! Knock it off!” Amy’s mouth spoke for her as the gameplay took over. Her eyes went wide as the two bigger girls turned to face her. The nerdy girl ran away with a pitying glance towards Amy.

“What’d you say to us, punk?” one of the blondes asked. She was slightly taller and with curly hair rather than the long flowing kind on the shorter, thicker one.

“I uh… was just reading the script,” Amy answered sheepishly before her mouth took over again. “I said leave her alone. You can’t just pick on whoever you want!”

“Oh yea? Well what if we felt like picking on you?!” 

The huskier one shoved Amy in her chest, knocking her through the door behind her. She stumbled clumsily and landed on her ass in the gym, wrestling mats already laid out beneath her feet. She looked around uneasily as the two girls phased through the door like a pair of slightly pixelated ghosts. Amy shivered from their glitchy look as much as their intimidating appearance.

“You’re dead meat, bitch,” the taller blonde sneered as she put up her fists.

“Oh crap. HERE’S the tutorial,” Amy squeaked, hurrying to her feet as they closed in on her.

She felt a liberating tingle in her muscles, cuing her to fight. She rushed the bullies, but considering she was outnumbered she stopped short and dodged around the bigger one’s grab. She juked around her and grabbed the door to the gym, grabbing at the handles. Her fingers just scraped across them like they were painted on.

“Dammit! Should have known they wouldn’t program an escape option,” Amy hissed under her breath. She broke into a shriek as one of the photocopied blondes grabbed her hair. She quickly regretted screaming as they swung her face into the door, making her grab her mouth and wince in pain.

“There’s no escape, punk!” the blonde hissed in her ear as she threw her into the middle of the wrestling mats.

“Now you tell me,” Amy hissed as she tried to steady herself to mount some kind of offense. She took a swing at the shorter clone but she caught her arm and dragged Amy into a headlock. Amy gave a quick gag as she was bent over, forced to stick her ass out into the camera. She was still trying to yank the arm off her neck when the other bully swung a harsh kick up between her legs. Amy let out a husky wheeze as she dropped to her knees, finally breaking out of her first foe’s headlock.

“Your opponents will use double-teams on you when they can. Try to single them out,” a text box reported at the bottom of her vision.

“Yea. No kidding,” Amy squeaked as she squeezed her aching pussy. The bullies dragged her up by the arms, forcing her back to her stumbling legs. They reeled her back and flung her into the padded wall nearby, smacking Amy’s face and tits into the wall at full speed. Her head spun as she landed flat on her back, seeing literal stars to show off that she was in a Stunned status.

“C’mere, loser!” one of the bullies snapped. They grabbed her legs and pulled at them until they yanked her jeans down around her ankles. Her plain white panties were exposed as Amy could barely muster the strength to try and cover up.

“N-noooo… quit it,” she groaned.

“Quit what? Quit THIS!?”

Amy screamed again as the bullies held onto her legs and wishboned them in opposite directions. Amy screamed as her bare legs were pulled apart, spreading her thighs and pussy painfully. She barely noticed that her pants had vanished as they phased through the floor. Apparently, the data for jeans didn’t layer with the gym mats.

Amy cupped her crotch and crawled away on her elbows, eyes watering as the Stunned status finally wore off. The girls came stomping after her, but she was surprised when after a couple of seconds, they hadn’t caught up to her. She glanced over her shoulder, seeing that they were both trying to walk towards her. They had walked right into each other, phasing partly through their double as they walked in place, intercepting each other’s path as they seemed to fuse together in an awkward blob of limbs.

“Okayyyy,” Amy mused as she shifted to sit on the mats. She didn’t want to move too much and provoke them out of their clipped together state. The glitch was honestly the best thing to happen to her all match. She looked over to where her pants had vanished, just to snap her head in the other direction. The spot on the floor was bare for a split second before the mats loaded back in. She raised her eyebrows as her mind started racing. The match was stacked against her, but they were subject to the game and its glitches just as much as she was. It was just a matter of knowing how to play them.

Amy took a moment to restore some stamina before she went from a crouch to a sprint. She threw herself at the stuck bullies and threw a high kick at their heads, smashing her sneaker into both of their co-existing skulls at once. The bullies let out a simultaneous “Ouch!” as they stumbled in different directions, dislodging themselves from each other. Amy grappled up with one of them, grabbing her shoulders before shoving her into a nearby weight bench. It was cheaply designed, with blocky pixels and stretched out patterns on its surface. The system clearly didn’t know what to do with it as the bully collided, making her trip over the bench… just to teleport back to her feet and fall again. The glitch caught the screaming bully in constant tripping and falling in a constant loop.

Amy gave a triumphant laugh but the second bully grabbed her from behind. The taller girl got her in a bearhug, trying to lift her off the mats. Amy gagged as she was squeezed and raised off her feet, her belly crushed by the bigger girl’s arms.

“What the hell was that, twerp?” the generic enemy growled. She shook Amy around in her grip, letting her flop like a ragdoll.

“Just trying to not get my butt kicked!” She reached over her shoulder and rubbed a hand on the bully’s face. She didn’t have any real dirty tactics, but the game wasn’t really programmed for any face contact short of slaps and especially harsh taunts. The bully reeled away clutching her face as the game defaulted her move to an eye rake. Amy dropped to her feet and felt around on the floor.

“C’mon, it’s got to have something hidden under an imaginary ring or something,” she muttered. Her hand finally phased through the floor as she laughed proudly. “There we go! What’s down here now…?”

The bully grabbed her by the shoulder. Amy yelped and tried to pull harder on whatever she’d found hidden beneath the floor. It didn’t budge, but she yelped as she found herself pulling herself in rather than it out. She fell into a black, empty void, floating aimlessly for a few seconds before she popped back into existence… right against the ceiling. She flailed and gave a startled shriek as she went flying back towards the floor and landed right on top of the confused bully. Amy blinked in surprise as she found herself sitting on the dazed bully’s head, her perky little ass right in her face.

“Holy crap, did you see that?!” some new voice shouted. Amy looked up, still wildly lost as she saw a small horde of students waiting at the now-open door to the gymnasium. “Amy just beat up both the Bully Bitches.”

“Ew, were they really called that?” Amy asked with a grimace. The students ignored her and looked down at the dizzied girl beneath Amy’s butt, then over to the one who was still caught in an eternal loop of yelling and tripping. They broke into cheers as they flooded the gym.

“And so, thanks to reckless violence, Amy the Wrestler showed that she had what it takes to be a wrestler. The girl she rescued in the halls was the daughter of a recruiter for the Wrestlemerican league, who arranged for her to drop out of school, begin training, and follow her dreams. Before long, she had finally gone pro,” a text box explained.

“Wait, though,” Amy interjected as the screen slowly faded out. “Why did I have to drop out of school? Shouldn’t I finish my education in case this falls through? That feels like we’re setting a pretty bad example to me…”

“No,” the text box replied. “You go to Wrestlemerica.”

“Okay, fine,” she sighed. “Just would have been a nice touch… oh! Wait. Before we go...”

Amy jogged over to the weight bench where the one bully was still tripping for eternity. She charged up her kick attack and jumped up, dropkicking her in the tits. The bully grunted and tripped over the rest of the weight bench, landing flat against the wall before she slumped to the ground. Amy bent over and bumped her butt into her face, grinding it into the dazed and groaning bully’s face.

“Serves you right, you double-teaming tutorial jerks,” she scolded before jogging off towards the floating Continue button.

Amy returned to the locker room she’d started the game in. Her player sorted through her contract info and finer details as she collapsed onto one of the benches. Her little breasts puffed as she reached for a locker, flipping it open and finding all of her costume options pop up in the menu. She started to load the basic spandex pants and top her player had picked out, tugging them onto her body to replace her school clothes.

“That wasn’t so bad,” she panted as she changed into her ring attire. “I just might make it through this one in one piece. I sure don’t want…. Uh…”

Amy paused to glance at the menu.

“Little Chungus 89 to be disappointed in me.” 

“Oh yea. Congrats,” Kelly Karls the Mean Memer scoffed. The spectacled but fit girl sat cross-legged on the other end of Amy’s bench, playing on her phone. “You barely beat the walkthrough tutorial and came out pantsless. How good do you think you’re going to do with ACTUAL wrestlers, new waifu?”

Amy frowned and looked back at her locker. She definitely didn’t have the skills to win on her own against big leaguers. She didn’t have a lot of options. No matter how badly she wanted to win, she was nothing but her stat block.

Then she noticed something blinking green in the corner of her locker. She tapped the floating light and it popped up with an antenna symbol.

“So, uh… what’s that?” she pried.

“Oh, we’re online,” Kelly said in her usual casual and dismissive voice. “The player must have got the wifi going to share data and stuff. Probably won’t be using it for online matches, though. It runs even buggier than the local matches.”

Amy chewed her lip thoughtfully before she tapped the symbol again. A browser window popped up, originally meant to be used to upload your achievements and content to social media. The fact that it was a full-on browser ate up data like crazy, but at least it had some use. Amy loaded it up, closed the tab for the player’s twitter account, and started typing into Gooble.

She entered “Glitch exploits WWF2K19” and started to browse through the plentiful lists of reported bugs and tricks that people had discovered in the game before starting to commit them to her AI. If it came to raw stats, she was destined to lose. If she used the tricks like she had in her demo match… she suddenly had a real shot at winning her player the championship!

…or whatever the actual goal of Story Mode was.