TNA iMPACT Video Game (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii) Preview

Posted by JP Prag on 04.07.2008

411mania.com’s own JP Prag got to sit down with Midway’s Associate Game Producer Jaime Bencia and Media Relations Coordinator Reid Druck and ask all the tough questions while playing the upcoming and long awaited TNA iMPACT video game!

In Review Of…
By JP Prag

Issue #3

TNA iMPACT Video Game… Preview(!)



Intro

What did you do last Friday night? Catch a movie? Hang out at the bar? Hit up the club?

Well, thanks to our gracious hosts from Midway games, my good friend and former co-writer James "JT" Thomlison and I got to visit the iMPACT Zone in Orlando, FL for a taping of TNA iMPACT, as seen here:



We then went back to a private suite for an informal interview with Associate Producer Jaime Bencia and Media Relations Coordinator Reid Druck and got a chance to play the upcoming TNA iMPACT Video Game.

So welcome to the third edition (and first ever in the Games Zone) of In Review of…!

I am the one and only JP, better known as the Wrestling Zone pioneer with the most positive article in all the IWC, Hidden Highlights and the only wrestling news report focused solely on the business of wrestling: The Hamilton Ave Journal!

Now let's get on with the show!

The Basics



Game Release Date: Summer 2008
Genre: Wrestling/Fighting
Publisher: Midway
Rating: Not Yet Rated
Platforms: PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii
Online Play: PS3 and Xbox 360 only

The Game



For over a year we have heard about the TNA iMPACT Video Game. Details have been few and far between. What we had been able to confirm up until this point was the game would include a roster of 25 playable wrestlers including Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Jay Lethal, Booker T, Sting, Kurt Angle, Christian Cage, Homicide, Hernandez, Rhino, Scott Steiner, Eric Young, Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, Tomko, Christopher Daniels, Jeff Jarrett, and Shark Boy (who was supposed to by on the hush hush until later this week, but someone let the cat out of the bag). The wrestlers spent days in Midway's studios getting their visual looks and moves converted into the game's format. The way Jaime described it to me, it was not that they created characters and then started to program the looks of the wrestlers into them, but that it was they took the looks of the wrestlers and then started to put movements and moves into those archetypes.

Nearly 45 programmers and producers have been working on this game. Thus far, the product looks something like this:








And if you think these videos are just clips to make the game look its best, you are quite off the mark. Sitting down and actually playing the game, the graphics and level of detail are everything you could want and then-some. The group has spent considerable time working in every little Hidden Highlight you could imagine. While playing as AJ Styles, one of the first things I said during his intro was, "Look at that! He actually has his light chest hair!" Reid laughed at that and said it was something AJ wanted to make sure was in the game.

Even the crowd shared this level of detail. The folks from Midway took several trips to the iMPACT Zone, house shows, and PPVs to capture what the audience members looked like, what type of signs they carried, and how they reacted to the action. The crowd in the game was no less involved and looked much less generic than other crowds I have seen. The signs were spot on with what I had seen in the iMPACT Zone just a couple of hours beforehand, although one sign in particular seemed to be missing:



I wish we had an opportunity to look at the other venues (which include Japan, Great Britain, Las Vegas, Mexico, and a "small indie style venue"), but just getting a feel for the iMPACT Zone was quite enough. Now, I will be the first to admit that I am no great gamer, and I have rarely played on an Xbox 360. Still, with a little coaching I was very easily able to get a handle on the controls and start to whip some major butt. In and out of the ring, you have full control over where your character goes and what they do.

For instance, there is not a limited area in the ring you can walk around in. If you want to walk off into the corner and climb the ropes, then do it. You want to go outside the ring to catch your breath, go ahead! There are no limits to where you can go outside of leaving the arena or heading into the crowd (except by glitch, which we did see), which made the feel of the fight more like in an RPG or Shooter environment. The ease of controls and the ability to go wherever you want will be a key selling point of the game, especially to younger and older gamers who don't have the best button coordination.

As you fight in the match, you can do the usual punching and kicking, although you will get different types of hits depending on how close you are. For instance, while close I could slap someone across the face while far away I just did the Hogan-point to them (I was playing as Kurt Angle at the time). There are all sorts of signature moves programmed in, from second rope backspring elbows to death valley drivers. And even when someone has you in a move, there are ways to reverse it into even more devastating moves.

While playing, there are two basic strategies you can follow. On each of the corners above your character is a body shape that shows where you have been damages and an "iMPACT" bar that allows you to do finishing maneuvers. You can spend a match working on a body part in preparation for a signature submission move (PSYCHOLOGY!), or you can continue to beat down your opponent until your iMPACT bar gets filled up. Once it is up top, you can attempt your finishing maneuver.

Unfortunately, while I was playing the game, several the characters had yet to have their moves programmed into them. For instance, as I was playing as Booker T, his moveset was mostly Alex Shelly's. While it was fun to see Booker T do X-division maneuvers, it did leave me concerned. This game has been in development for a long time and I was surprised to see wrestlers still missing their moves. I thought the rest of the remaining time until release would be spent working on bugs, but there is still plenty of baseline work to do.

Not that the bugs are not lacking! More than once the game froze up on us. There were times I got stuck standing backwards on the ringside apron, a three count happened when there was no pincover, and the game fatally crashed quite a few times. Also, right now the load times between entrances and screens was running about a minute, way more than I would want to sit through on a regular basis. We were assured that these load times were being worked on, and that the load screens were being cleaned up (although I really didn't mind the graphics they had already chose), but I fear that as crunch time approaches some of these issues will still be lingering.

We only really had the chance to play the one-on-one fights, but other matches include tag team, Ultimate X, Full Metal Mayhem, Monster's Ball, Four Corners, Falls Count Anywhere, and Submission matches. Submission matches I'm not sure are going to be that much fun, though, from just want I saw with submission moves in general. When you get someone in a submission hold, you have to press a specific sequence of buttons. That is, each person has to do so, and the one that pushes them faster and in correct sequence determines if the submission move is successful or not. When these came up, it made me feel more like I was playing Parappa the Rapper instead of a wrestling game. Maybe people who are really into the Guitar Hero method of hitting button sequences will like this, but I didn't. I would have rather you just hit some button rapidly and whoever hits their button rapid enough determines if it is successful. Maybe I'm just too slow and old to deal with figuring out where all the buttons are, but it really took away from me wanting to apply submission holds.

But like I noted above, figuring out how to play was not hard. Even though I have barely any experience on an Xbox 360, I was able to defeat JT (an owner of an Xbox 360) in all of our matches. And it wasn't like I was using larger and more powerful wrestlers; it was just that even someone like me can pick it up.

With the wrestlers you do have to choose from, though, the game is starting to show its age before it comes out. I will let Jeff Jarrett slide as it makes sense having him in the game from a classic perspective, but already having the likes Christopher Daniels (no word if Curry Man will make an appearance, although our hosts at Midway had no idea what connection there could possibly be between Curry Man and Daniels), Abyss (who is coming back with a changed gimmick), Shark Boy (who is in his old Shark Boy gimmick), and other elements make the game look outdated. Of course, by the time many former WWE games came out wrestlers had left the promotion, so that is nothing new. Still, the longer the development goes on, the worse this gap is going to get.

But if you want to get some of the newer wrestlers in there (Consequences Creed is coming), you can always you the "create your own wrestler" feature to do so. We only saw one created wrestler named "A" which represented Reid. Well, the shaved head was about the same. The create your own wrestler will most likely work best with the storyline mode, although what that storyline is is still under wraps.

Beyond the known characters, there are a number of unlockable characters to pick up en route. Once again, these are all being kept under wraps, although I did push to find out if Dixie Carter was one of them. It seems like the answer is sadly "no". Right now, the budding Knockouts Division does not play a part either, but understandably so since that is just starting to take off in the last few months.

When you've had enough of playing the game by yourself or inviting people over, you can use the Xbox Live network and the PS3 network to play online. Much to my chagrin, there is no support for the Wii's network because, as Jaime described it, it is just too new to test out. Maybe there will be a future enhancement or something in iMPACT 2 to make this happen, but for now your best bet is to go with the Xbox 360 if you want to play online. Since JT and I live 1000 miles apart, this may be something I'll have to invest in.



All and all, TNA iMPACT is what the advertising has been saying: a major leap in wrestling game play. They take advantage of the environments, the different wrestler styles, and the six-sided ring. While there are limitations and certainly bugs to work out, when this game comes out it will live up to expectations and shatter some others. Although some are looking to this game to be a way too boost TNA's revenue stream, I am looking for this game to be the catalyst to introducing TNA to whole new potential market.

Power down



To wrap it all up…

Graphics: 9.0
The details on the wrestlers and crowd are amazing, and the movements are incredibly fluid all around.

Gameplay: 8.0
Even a weak gamer like me could quickly pick up how to play this game and pull off the cool moves. The submission system leaves something to be desired, though.

Sound: 8.0
The music is sharp for the intros and the crowd noise and moves make the bangs and bumps you'd expect. I'd almost like some play-by-play action, but that may be a later add-on.

Lasting Appeal: 7.5
This game will definitely last until iMPACT 2, and it is way ahead of the rest of the wrestling games out there. Still, the aging roster is going to make this game less vital in shorter span of time than anyone wants.

Fun Factor: 9.0
There is no other way to describe this game other than being a blast to play. It is like an RPG meets Wrestling game, giving you the freedom to do just about anything.

Overall: 8.3 (Very Good)


Lookout for Midway's TNA iMPACT Video Game, coming to you this Summer 2008!

Screenshots
All 45 TNA Impact Video Game Screenshots