Review

TNA Impact

Almost Nonstop Action…

I have been a big fan of professional wrestling for a long time. WCW and WWF (WWE now) were two of my favorite shows to watch. I remember watching great wrestlers like; Arn Anderson, Dusty Rhodes, The Steiner Brothers, Andre the Giant, and the Hulkamanic himself, Hulk Hogan. I even remember Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling, an animated show staring popular wrestling stars. My point is I have invested a lot of time into this sport. With that being said, I have grown a little tired of wrestling video games. None of them really feel like the great television shows I loved watching back in the day. WWE Raw VS Smackdown 2007 came the closes to emulating the on-screen action, while 2008 was a let down. I was hoping that TNA Impact, developed by Midway Games, would push the genre forward. Although there was a lot of pushing involved, I am afraid it was in the opposite direction.

I have to warn you now; I am going to be making comparisons to the more recent WWE titles. Reason being, WWE is the only competition TNA has, on TV and on consoles. Some might find this comparison unfair, but TNA has a lot to live up to. And as much as I want to say that TNA Impact will give Raw VS Smackdown 2009 a run for its money, the reality is that TNA falls short of surpassing RVS 2008.

For those of you who don’t know, TNA (Total Nonstop Action Wrestling) was created by Jeff Jarret (a former WCW wrestler) and his father, Jerry Jarret. It terms of a wrestling show, all of the normal elements are present (including bad acting and over-sized belts). The same can be said for it’s video game counterpart. One minor difference is that the wrestling ring is hexagonal (six-sided) and not square. I say minor because it doesn’t have much relevance on the gameplay. You will still body-slam, drop kick, and clothesline opponents as if the ring was square. On one hand, that’s a good thing as you shouldn’t feel out of place when grabbing the controls. Especially because it’s so easy to perform your drop kicks and body slams. Impact’s controls are tight and responsive, while being easily accessible to gamers that are new to the genre. The X and A buttons are for punching and kicking while the Y and B buttons are for grabs and actions. Punching and Kicking are pretty self-explanatory. Grabbing has different effects depending on what direction you press the left analogue stick when you grab your opponent (like up and grab initiates a suplex). The action button’s function changes according to the situation. Pressing the action button near the ropes, for example, will make you climb outside of the ring. You hold the Right Trigger to run and the Right Bumper for reversing/countering. The Left Bumper is used to alter your attacks. For example, holding the Left Bumper and pressing the punch button will cause you to do a strong punch attack. Pressing the grab button while holding the Left Bumper allows you to Lock-up with your opponent. Once this happens you can perform strong grapples, like a choke slam. Pressing B while holding the LB will allow you to do even more actions, like tagging your partner.

On the surface, the controls are very similar to that of RVS. The main difference would be when performing a move that results in an animation (programmed movements that are not controlled by the player). In most wrestling games, once an animation begins between two players you have to wait until it ends before you can attack either of them. For instance, if your partner in a tag match were put into a submission hold, you’d normally have to wait till the entire animation played through before you could break the hold. This gives your opponent’s partner plenty of time to stop you. This also makes the matches drag on as you are forced to watch the same animations over and over. This isn’t the case with TNA Impact; you can break the holds and grabs at anytime. You can even stop someone’s signature move mid-animation! This theme of instant action is found all throughout the gameplay. The first time I drop kicked a wrestler out of the air after he jumped off the turnbuckle was amazing. This makes Impact feel more realistic.

Now, remember when I said that being similar to Raw was a good thing. I have the “on the other hand” clause. On the other hand, the fact that TNA Impact is similar to Raw VS Smackdown, also hurts this title. The problem is that TNA is very lacking when it comes to content, making it hard to differentiate itself from RVS (in terms of quality). With the games being similar, the lack of content is even more glaring. There are about 8 arenas to choose from, only one weapon to wield, the move lists are limited, and there aren’t many match types. The fact that there aren’t many arenas isn’t too big of a deal. I can’t say the same thing for the weapons or the move lists. The only weapon you can use in TNA is a chair, located on the outside the ring. You don’t even get to use tables. I don’t know how you can have Team 3D on your roster and not have the option to slam someone through a table. I am used to pulling out bats, tables and even ladders. It’s not like wrestlers aren’t using tables on the TNA TV show.

Then there is the move list. Impact boasts that each wrestler’s video game character is just like them. I beg to differ. Other than different finishers, most of the wrester’s moves are identical to everyone else in their weight class. All the X-division (or cruiserweight) wresters have the same regular attacks. Every wrestler has the same moves when their opponent is on the mat as well as the same taunts. Sting should not play like Kurt Angle and vice versa. Sting and Angle have very different personalities and wrestling styles. In TNA Impact this fact isn’t represented at all.

The create-a-wrestler mode is lacking in options as well. The choice of physical features are very restricted and you are not given many options when it comes to moves either; and this is on top of the already limited general moves set. Another drawback is the fact that you can’t preview your character’s area entrance while still in the create-a-wrestler mode. You have to start a match to see it, which will take a while thanks to long load times.

Moving on to the match types. You are able to choose from a total of nine different types of matches. These are Single (one-on-one), Free for All (duh), Tag, Submission, Handicap, and Ultimate X. There are FCA (falls-count-anywhere) variations of single and Tag (allowing players to pin opponents outside the ring). There is no tornado-tag match, which allows all the players to be in the ring at once. This wouldn’t bother me if people were disqualified for cheating. Why force players to follow the rules when it comes to tagging in, when you’re going to allow them to bring a chair (the only weapon) into the ring? The only truly unique match type was the Ultimate X. This is a match where three players try to unlatch a big X suspended by ropes above the ring (similar to a ladder match). Each player must climb on the turnbuckle and then jump to one of the ropes in order to reach the X. The other players can grab the guy hanging from the ropes, slamming him down hard to the mat below. If two people are on the ropes, they can fight each other with the loser being sent head first to the mat. This had to be the most exciting match I’ve played in a wrestling title. The chaos that ensues in the ring is awesome, to say the least. I once even saw a player fall from the ropes and then drop kicked out of the ring while in mid air…awesome!

For everything that TNA Impact does right, it tends to slack on two or three other things. You can break animations, which help to create realistic action in the ring. However, the characters faces never animate. Booker T has the same weird look on his face when you hit him with a weapon (again a chair) as he does when he first enters the ring. There are no smiles, no wincing in pain, no emotions at all really. I do realize that this is TNA’s first wrestling game, however, this isn’t Midway’s first game. There are staples that are set in place for every genre of game that should be implemented. If you can’t do that, then you innovate. Impact doesn’t innovate (besides the animation breaks) and is currently lacking way too much content to compete with anything WWE is putting out right now. There aren’t even any female wrestlers on the roster. Normally I wouldn’t care but TNA actually has good female wrestlers still on the payroll like Gail Kim (first TNA Women’s champion), Awesome Kong, and ODB to name a few.