Company: Midway , Midway Studios LA
Genre: Wrestling
Released: 9/9/08
ESRB: Teen MSRP: $59.99
It seems silly to list the pros and cons of a sport where large men in diapers gouge each other in the eyes and sit on each other’s faces during scripted matches. Either it’s your thing or it ain’t. Similarly, your personal preference regarding “professional wrestling” will be the largest determining factor in whether you get much enjoyment out of TNA iMPACT! The game is average enough on all counts that people will either love it or loathe it based on very little else.
TNA iMPACT! has, on initial glance, a decent number of options. You have exhibition and story modes, and match types range from the standard one on one and tag team options to the more “extreme” modes such as “Ultimate X”.
Story mode will be the main mode people will use to unlock the large but initially unavailable roster of wrestlers. After creating a custom wrestler (using a very large number of customizable sliders for style and attire), you learn that you were once the TNA superstar “Suicide.” As “Suicide,” you refused to take a dive in the championship match and were subsequently beaten to a pulp by corrupt wrestlers, only to wake up in a Mexican hospital with a convenient case of amnesia. The only thing you know is that you love mixing it up with bulky men who have a proclivity for face-painting, so you venture back into the ring on a quest for redemption and revenge. Simplistic? Occasionally offensive? Check and check. In other words, just your average TNA storyline.
As you climb the ranks from Mexico back to the US, you will unlock new moves that you can add to your repertoire. A nice feature is that the more complicated moves you land on your opponent, the more style points you rack up, which you use to unlock the new moves/wrestlers/bedazzled chaps, and so forth. It really encourages you to mix up your moves to maximize your point total.
Lots of customization options and a story worthy of Anton Chekhov are all well and good, but if the game doesn’t play well, it won’t amount to much. In the ring TNA iMPACT! is the proverbial mixed bag, doing some things competently and botching some others badly.
Graphically, the game is underwhelming. Wrestlers animate fine and have a decent amount of detail to them, but the arenas are small and fairly static. The sounds of the arena aren’t terribly dynamic, only achieving a crescendo when someone executes a finishing move or gets hit over the head with a chair (the latter being my favorite thing about the game. Maybe a chair-to-face mini-game in the next iteration?).
The controls are easy to pick up, but this is both a blessing and a curse. You have your basic punch and kick which can in turn be pumped up using the strong modifier or the run button. You can also grab and throw your opponent, as well as reverse any move he attempts. The problem is that most moves are context sensitive, so while it’s pretty easy to bust out a cool-looking move, such as a drop kick or piledrive, it’s harder to actually bust out the move you intended. Also, many maneuvers are mapped to the same button. You’ll find yourself performing the wrong action more than once, especially in the corners.
The main problem with the game is clipping and hit detection. For example, if you are performing a flying move to punish an opponent on the mat, the standing animation will cause you to pass right through his body and crash to the ground, where you are vulnerable to his counterattack. This is irritating in multiplayer, but in story mode it can be the difference between victory and defeat. Reverses are also a bit too frequent and don’t require much in the way of careful timing, making the longer and more elaborate moves risky to pull off.
All these issues aside, the game can be fairly entertaining for a short while in multiplayer as you are pounding on a friend with a folding chair, or splitting his legs in the air to get just the right angle for a boot-to-groin special. The action is pretty shallow though, and most folks will likely tire after seeing the same few special moves performed ad nauseum. TNA aficionados may have the fortitude to unlock their favorite characters and arenas, but for everyone else the effort isn’t really worth the hassle.
Gameplay: C+
Look: B-
Presentation: B-
Value: C+
Overall: C+
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