TNA Impact
Posted By: Richard on Oct 05 2008

The lights come up, fireworks explode, and the crowd pops as the shows opening music blares over the PA system. One of your favorite wrestlers is on the entrance ramp, calling out his arch rival at the time, and you can't help but get excited for the inevitable confrontation. This is TNA, and as they say, they are wrestling. The young company started by Jeff Jarrett a few years ago brought us back to a feeling from our youth where problems were solved in the ring and the show was about the action that went on there, instead of behind a dressing room door. This is the exact same nostalgic feeling you get from the outset when you put in the game. The return of the old school ways of doing things is exactly what you get with this title and while that part doesn't disappoint, this is also where it fails us.

On the plus side, the graphics in this game are amazing, the character detail is nearly flawless, even down to the scars on the wrestlers' faces. Midway went to great pains to insure that when you are playing as these wrestlers it looks like the characters you see on TV. Even the created superstars look as if they belong side by side with real thing. The characters move like they were pulled straight from a Mortal Kombat game, which is funny, but at least the hit detection and physics are nearly flawless. Moves performed near the ropes often toss your opponent over the top. Once you get past how great everything looks though, everything else is downhill.

Let's start with the lack of content. When I play a wrestling game, I look forward to creating a superstar in my own image, outfitting him how I would dress in the ring, and giving him the moves I would want to use in a match. Instead, what we get is a limited character creator with only a few outfits, ten canned intro videos, and no option to change your moves. That's right. When you start, all your moves are set to default and you must unlock others as you go. Now this would not be too bad if you had a couple of options at the outset and there were more to unlock, but there are only a handful of moves to unlock and they come at a slow pace. This forces you to play the game over and over again just to get your created wrestler a decent move set. Most of the time I wouldn't mind that, but this one wasn't worth that much time.

With only nine match types to play, you get bored very quickly. TNA is known for it's innovative matches, so where are they? No lethal lock down, heck no six sides of steel at all, and what is a wrestling game without a tables match? Not only are you lacking in game modes but all of them are not even available online, just a standard match, the ultimate x match and falls count anywhere. One on one matches are all that is available. You can't even do tag team online. What is there to keep us coming back?

When the character select screen opens up, you notice right away that there are no stats on the wrestlers. Without any previous knowledge of pro-wrestling, how is anyone supposed to tell which guys are better than which? Based on this, I couldn't tell you. I wont touch on the fact that there are only 17 wrestlers to chose from at the outset and a total of 31 in all. TNA doesn't have the size of roster to put many more in the game, so then why make them all so similar? Each wrestler has only a limited list. This means that you never really get a feel that that you are playing as any particular wrestler. Intros are reduced to only a two second clip. Controls are simple enough, a punch, a kick, some grapples, and an action button which is used for all miscellaneous tasks such as grabbing chairs and climbing turnbuckles. There is only one counter button, as opposed to SVR's two button scheme, but I guess they only need one because there are so few moves. While running, you can change direction which allows for more precise aiming of running moves. So much of the 360's controller was left open, I don't understand why there wasn't more content when in the ring.

The story mode was pulled right off the pages of a soap opera script lacking the depth and feel of an actual wrestling program. Even over halfway through, I was fighting against jobbers every other fight or more and never fought the same TNA star more than once. Did the guys that write this ever watch a wrestling program? You play as a wrestler who gets attacked after a show and loses his memory only to decide to take up wrestling again and you work your way up the ladder in TNA as you slowly put together the pieces of your former life. Pro wrestling is all about the drama, and there is none present here. Through most of the game you face off against nobodies, and the entire plot is merely used as background for your character as you go from match to match kicking the crap out of guys that you never see again. The few times the plot resurfaces you feel as though now it's only a sub-plot to the larger story unfolding in the foreground.

As far as content goes this game would have fit in great with the wrestling games that were out ten years ago. It may have even been one of the best. Now it is merely a second rate game with great visuals that is more entertaining as a casual experience than an affair that will keep us in front of our controller for months on end. Save your cash for SVR 2009.