TNA: Impact! (PS2) Review #2

Posted by Drew Robbins on 09.28.2008

Midway promised us a good arcade-based wrestling game, one Russo swerve later, and we ended up with the worst wrestling game of all time.



TNA: Impact!
Publisher - Midway
Developer - Midway
Release Date - September 7th, 2008
Number One Contender, or Lifetime Jobber? - Brooklyn Brawler of video games…

*Screenshots are mostly taken from PS3/360 Version*

After WWE demolished the WCW, there was really no competitor for them. Not only in the world of wrestling television, but in the realm of wrestling video games. For the longest time, wrestling fans could only look to the Smackdown franchise to bring them the yearly “goods.” This year, a new challenger has stepped up to take on the kings of wrestling video games. How did they fare? Not well, not well at all…

Gameplay - The aim of this first effort by TNA was to change up the tired formula that Smackdown has been bringing to the table for several years now. When it was first announced, Midway said that this game was going to return to the No Mercy style of gameplay, and less of the simulation. I must ask, did they ever play No Mercy?

Part of No Mercy was the simplistic controls, which are partly intact with Impact. You have your two attack buttons, a grapple button, a strong attack button, and a reversal button. Each of these is extremely flawed in many different ways, so it is only natural that I devote an extravagant amount of time to each. First up are the attack buttons, which work fine and all…but almost everyone shares the same strikes. To make matters worse, the strikes don’t combo so if you press the button you just hit them in the face over…and over…and over again. This may not seem like too big of a problem at first, but just trust me, it gets annoying fast. Add to this that the strikes are almost useless, because the main function they serve is to damage opponents…and body damage has no effect.

Next up on this lineup of suckitude is the grappling system, activated by pressing the ‘triangle’ button (by the way, this is a TERRIBLE grapple button). Each character has 5 base grapples that can be performed in front of an opponent (and no, you cannot do back grapples), each corresponding to a direction. Much like with strikes, everybody shares the same moves here, which is a disturbing trend you’ll notice if you dare to pick up this steaming pile of garbage. The worst part is that, because grapples are the main form of offense, you will see the same grapples several times per match. I can’t even keep track of how many times I saw a superstar lift his opponent and do the backbreaker on him. The backbreaker is cool maybe three times at most, but twenty times? Holy crap, you are getting a little ahead of yourself there, Midway.

Grappling and striking may be abysmal, but the strong strikes button takes the cake for poor design. Every character, and I can 100% guarantee this, has the same two strong strikes. You either do the “300” kick, or an inziguri. The worst part of this button is the fact that is absolutely vital to performing a signature move. You have to press the strong button + the grapple button and then let go, and press the ‘circle’ button. Doing so rewards you with your character’s signatures…by the way, did I mention you can only do front-signatures? Yeah, no flying or back signatures, or even submissions for that matter. The game features no Ankle Lock, which is just flat-out ridiculous. Two years of development and you fail to include one of the most notable signatures of your brand’s number one star?

Last, but certainly not least awful, is the reversal button. This button is almost useless, as reversals are ridiculously irresponsive. It is impossible to tell what is reversible, as the game gives you no notification with its HUD when to tap down the R1 button, unless you have already been grappled. Even then, the function hardly works.

Unfortunately, horrible controls aren’t the only dark magic at work within Impact. The story mode in this game is a true work of evil, which only serves the purpose of boring you into an early grave. Our hero is Suicide, a generic looking masked wrestler that looks like my eight-year old brother designed him. Suicide is TNA’s rising star, but LAX doesn’t want him to go for the title, or they will make him pay for it. Being a complete moron by ignoring LAX (never a good idea), Suicide wins the title but gets attacked by Homicide and Hernandez, who proceed to transport him to some random hellhole in the middle of Mexico. When I first read this description, I glimpsed potential…but yet again, this is potential wasted. Instead of making some cool scenarios about the Mexican wrestling world, you are instantly entered into a gauntlet where the winner gets a free one-way trip across the border. This is completely unrealistic, and the fact that nobody at Midway thought it would be cool to do a section in the world of Lucha just baffles me. You go to a military base and…I quit. I draw the line here, I have never seen writing this bad, even in a wrestling game. The story makes no sense, and combine that to with fact that in this version you can’t even customize Suicide, and you have an almost unplayable story mode. Instead of playing through this horrible abomination, I thought up a better story, which I will share with you right now.



*Note: Not the Real Story* - Suicide, the king of the TNA roster, is close to his first ever title. *Another Note: During this cutscene, you never see the TNA ring and the amount of sides it has, this is important* Unfortunately for Suicide, LAX has strongly urged him to stay away from the title. Suicide, being an obvious moron, disregards this and defeats the champion. LAX doesn’t take kindly to this and beats the heck out of him, dropping him in Mexico. *Here is where I changed it…* Suicide has a strong case of amnesia, and he can’t remember anything. The doctors fix him up, and force him back into the real world. Suicide glances down at his suit and gains a small memory of what it is, and realizes that he needs to make a return to the ring. Unfortunately, his suit was damaged and beyond repair. Suicide discards the suit, except for his mask to remind him of his past. While on the streets of Mexico, Suicide meets Jose, a luchador who is low on his luck. Suicide offers to join his team, only if he can provide Suicide with suitable trunks. Jose and Suicide go on to dominate the Mexican tag team scene, UNTIL LAX catches sights of the two. When Jose is going back to his home, Homicide and Hernandez injure him to the point where he can never fight again, and Suicide can only watch on in horror, as he gets a sudden flashback to who these two horrible men are. He swears to Jose that he will find these men, and to do so Suicide enters a lucha tournament for large amounts of money. After winning, Suicide makes it to Orlando where he earns a tryout for the roster. He enters the arena, and sees the six-sided ring (his mind is blown, by the way, because up till this point he SHOULD HAVE only seen four-sided rings), and a man who is hidden by a flag. The man says “This ring has six-sides,” his voice raises, and he thrusts off the flag “but only ONE Angle!” You of course fight Angle…and I’ll leave the story at that…

I hope you enjoyed that, because it is at least twenty times better than the actual story. I may conclude it one day, but now is not the time.

The one part I’ve failed to mention up to this point in the review is the Ultimate-X match. I skipped it because, honestly, it is the only good thing about this game. However, as good as it is, you will tire of it quickly and is definitely not reason enough to purchase this game. Your other exhibition option are tag-team matches, which are just abysmal. Your partners are irresponsive, and won’t enter to help you unless you have been down on the mat for two seconds. By that time you are already doomed to lose the match. These might as well be solo matches, because your partner sure as heck won’t provide you with much help.



Graphics - When I first heard the outcry from people who had played Impact, I had thought that the graphics would at least be decent enough. Surprise, I was wrong, as this game doesn’t even look as good as Smackdown vs. Raw 2006, a game that came out three years ago. Your first glimpse of the graphics is with the intros, which must be prerendered because I know that the AJ styles I see dancing around on the stage is different from the one doing generic punches.

The character models look somewhat pixellated when you see them in a match, and the environments don’t look much better. All of the arenas vary in blandness, but all maintain the style of being extraordinarily bland. Whether you are fighting in the Mexican chicken coop (which, by the way, why does EVERY ring have six-sides? There are times when it is alright to be realistic, Midway.), or in a military camp, you will be greeted by bland textures, bland audience members, and characters who look mildly pixellated. It had been so long since I looked at a video game character and saw pixels, and then TNA came along and ruined my day. Thanks, Midway!



Sound - Remember back when you were playing No Mercy, and maybe you would hit someone with a chair, only to hear a generic female gasp from the audience. Congratulations, you have officially heard the audience noise of TNA: Impact. It was really like taking a trip back in time, which can be a good thing, but in this case it is a very bad thing. We are several years past the Nintendo 64, and to still use those sound effect is just…lazy.

Even worse than the crowd is the pair of announcers, Mike Tenay and Don West. If you thought they were bad on TV, just wait until you hear them talking up your matches in Impact. Every few seconds, one of them will interject a thought, and that thought is usually either inaccurate or just plain stupid, usually both. Luckily, you can turn off their senseless banter, in favor of the nonexistent background music. The game claims it to be there, but I certainly didn’t notice it.

To be nice, something I don’t like doing, the game’s intro music is fairly good. Christian Cage’s music is still epic, and Samoa Joe’s heel-like music still gives that sense that someone is going to receive a beatdown at the hands of the Samoan submission machine.



Fun Factor - It isn’t.

Lasting Appeal - After playing the game for an hour, I got the sense that I was pretty much done. The multiplayer had already proved lousy after *one* match, and fighting the computer will get old after you’ve seen every animation, which will take you all of two matches. So it looks like all you are left with is the game’s story mode, which as I’ve already explained, is god awful. If I had to choose between fighting Samoa Joe in a shoot, and playing the Story mode, odds are I would be beat within an inch of my life by the champ.

The 411 - I was once like you, reading reviews and thoughts by people who had played the game, wondering whether or not the game is worth it. Sure, the videos look fun, but let me assure you, the people playing the game aren’t enjoying themselves. They have seen the same moves over and over, they have seen horrible writing on offer in the story mode, and they have seen every person on the roster perform an inziguri. Don’t believe what you see in the videos, this is one of the worst games I’ve ever played in my life. And I’ve played WCW Nitro…just keep that in mind when you are at the store contemplating the purchase.

Graphics	5.5	The textures are bland, the characters are pixellated, and you will see the same animations repeated over and over...
Gameplay	4.0	If Ultimate-X wasn't here, there would be absolutely nothing good going for this game.
Sound	4.5	While the intros are nice, the announcers and voice acting bring this sound score way down.
Lasting Appeal	3.5	Beat the story mode and you are done.
Fun Factor	0.0	It isn't fun.
Overall	4.5   [ Poor ]

Screenshots
All 45 TNA Impact Video Game Screenshots