Machogames: TNA iMPACT! Is Sure To Bore Hardcore Wrestling Fans And Gamers Alike

Wrestling fans are very particular when it comes to their video games. They must have a million wrestlers, they must have a million moves, and graphics tend to take a backseat to quality gameplay. Some of the old WCW games are still revered by rasslin’ gamers to this day for their superior playability, and the most hardcore fans will move mountains to import an installment of the Fire Pro franchise to America. TNA iMPACT!, the upstart promotions first foray into the video game world, is not going to satisfy the Mountain Dew-fueled thirsts of the wrestling fanatic.

Published by Midway, the first effort to bring the six-sided ring to the console falls flat, at least in the eyes of a hardcore wrestling/gaming fan. For starters, the moves can get very repetitive. Players will find themselves hitting the same punch, kick and grab over and over, to the point where it’s just not exciting to play anymore.

The create-a-wrestler feature lacks, as well. We’ve become used to wrestling games allowing us virtually every combination of look and move for our personalized characters. The create feature has become so vast in some games that today we have websites devoted to nothing but teaching us just exactly how we can unretire everyone from Kamala to Lou Thesz to Tito Santana and place them in a modern game. With only a handful of body parts and clothes, you just won’t be able to do that here.
Graphically, the game is very good looking. And the storyline in career mode is well done. You are Suicide, and up-and-coming TNA superstar who refuses to take a dive in the championship match, gets beaten up, left for dead and dropped in Mexico, and is forced to battle his way up through the ranks back to TNA. The story would be compelling enough to keep the player interested if it wasn’t for the gameplay.

Some things in the game take some getting used to. The XBOX 360 controls, for example, require the player to hit a button on the left and right of the controller to execute strong attacks. I thought this was a deal breaker when I first read the manual, but after a few minutes I hardly noticed. The six-sided ring can make some players reluctant to run the ropes or pull off Irish whips, since you never really feel quite sure where you’re going to end up.
The biggest plus in the game is the introduction of the Ultimate X match, TNA’s signature offering to the sport, which requires players to navigate a set of highwires over the ring and collect a suspended “X” to win. This was actually the most fun part of the game. Add a few friends trying to climb the wire at the same time and you won’t even notice that the moves are repeating.

But they are. While this game has enough to keep a group of people entertained for a little while, you’re not going to want to play it very long, and you probably won’t bother to complete the story mode. We’ve seen better wrestling games than this, and we’ll see better games from TNA. But TNA iMPACT is too repetitive, and lacks features that we have all grown accustomed to, to warrant spending any money on this.
Available for XBOX 360, Playstation 3, Playstation 2 and Nintendo Wii. More information available at www.tnagame.com.