Sports games have one thing in common, they heavily rest on the notion of franchises almost every year to catch hold of their core audience. After Vince McMahon purchased almost all the proprietary wrestling brands in the market and added it to his own circus of clowns, it lead to THQ and Yuke’s Smackdown Franchise (which comes re-titled as “SmackDown Vs Raw” now) as the proprietary wrestling game in the market.
However with the launch of TNA Impact, the wrestling soap opera seems to be moving towards one more epic showdown. TNA Impact, the videogame, was handled by Midway games, who decided to use the power of Unreal to render a hyper-realistic wrestling game. Sadly it fails on numerous accounts as it provides users such a horrid aftertaste that they shall be averted to the game forever.
TNA impact gives players the opportunity to wrestling freaks to smash 27 of their on-screen stars with the usual sauce of being able to craft your own character in the game’s ridiculous story, which charts out the course of a guy named “Suicide” and his little tryst with hooliganism which leaves him scarred and beaten up at the bottom half of the rung. So it is upto the player to rein on this opportunity and bring his days of glory back.
The game’s exhibition mode has nine modes to mash through, as seen in your traditional wrestling shows. The only exception to these modes is the Ultimate X battle that is unique to the TNA franchise. Here players are put inside the hexagonal shaped ring with a steel structure constructed at the corners with a X hanging in the midst of it all and the object of contestation is the player/opponent grabbing the X first. Now as exciting as it may sound, the execution is rather horrible since most of the times it just rests on mashing your opponent with the lone piece of chair lying ringside and then climbing up to grab hold X by engaging in a timed button mash.
QTE are the page on which most battles in TNA Impact are scripted on, submission moves require a specific button mash to execute and counter, wriggling out of a pin also require a hefty callous waggle, recovering from a stun meter also requires a similar technique to be executed, reversals also rely on pressing buttons at the opportune moment to strike back at your opponent. The reliance in the use of button combos is fairly low in the game, rather the only arena where the buttons shine is when you desperately to run away from your opponents.
The game also lacks a certain sense of magnanimous ops that are usually present in the WWE franchise, the entrances are rather bland, the crowd feels inanimate when it comes to cheering or booing. There is only one object that is littered all across the game which is a rusty old chair that fails to provide any spectacular animation despite of the utilization of the Unreal 3 engine. The computer controlled opponents have a laughable stance providing almost no sense of competition, prancing around the ring and a few blows here and there are sufficient enough to fill up your Impact meter which ultimately leads to the much dull finisher that just refuses to garner any attention. TNA Impact also features an online mode which is filled with an insurmountable amount of lag and torture so it is best said to be avoided.
Final Word: The problem with TNA Impact is the low quality production values that seem to be so glaring in almost every aspect of the game, the only place it actually shines is the character models which are sharp and detailed. However it falls so seemingly short in all other aspects that avoiding it perhaps the best possible solution that can be given. Pick up any version of SmackDown which probably will provide more for your buck than this horrible game. Midway needs to bring back the glory days of WWE No Mercy which still stands as the best wrestling game on the planet.
Graphics: 5/10.
Gameplay: 2/10.
Sound: 3/10.
Budget pocket: 1/10.
Overall (Not on an average): 1.5/10.
- By Neelesh Mukherjee