THQ and WWE will no longer be the only contenders for wrestling fans videogame dollars, as Midway brings Total Nonstop Action Wrestling to your system in May 2008. We got the chance to preview the game and speak with several of the wrestlers who are contributing to the creative process the night before TNA's Bound for Glory pay-per-view event.
The game as it stands now is sparse on the game features and wrestlers, the only playable mode was 1-on-1 matches. In spite of that, iMPACT! still is able to impress as Midway hasn't skimped a bit on graphics. Six months out from its May release date and the graphics are already gorgeous and HDTV ready for your living room. Wrestler models also look accurate and detailed, with several wrestlers commenting that their real-life battle wounds will be on display.
"The frame rate is 60 frames per second," said Sal DiVita, creative director on the game for Midway. "It will give you a much more fluid and responsive gameplay experience."
One feature DiVita and Midway are making a priority is load times during the game. "We designed his game specifically to eliminate load times as much as possible," DiVita said. Similar to the Halo series of games, some features are designed to load in the background after you've started a match.
"We don't want you sitting and watching the game load," said DiVita, remarking on one of the major complaints fans have with the Raw vs Smackdown franchise.
Now all the technical and press release sounding stuff aside, how does iMPACT! play? Pretty damn good for a game that's only a little more than half finished. We were struck by how simple the controls were. Playing on the Xbox360 you have your standard punch, kick, grapple and action buttons. Pressing the action button after a quick tie up, and we have Samoa Joe snap-suplexing Scott Steiner. It was also a snap to execute a torture rack submission followed by a pin attempt.
The controls seemed easier and more intuitive to us than any other wrestling game we'd ever played, which is not an accident according to AJ Styles, one of TNA's homegrown stars, who did much of the motion-capture work for the game.
"We want a player to be able to pick up a controller and play the game, instead of picking up the instruction manual," said Styles. "It'll be easy to play, hard to master."
A reversal feature is already in the game, a well-timed tap of the right bumper and Sting reverses a waistlock on AJ Styles for a back suplex. Those reversals will also be able to reversed, adding deeper skill to the gameplay.
In addition to the controls being intuitive, what's also impressive is the game speed. After a quick load time, the game moves fast, very fast. The TNA Wrestling promotion is built on high-speed and highflying action, and that is already incorporated into the game.
As with any good wrestling game iMPACT! will have multiple game modes, including tag team matches, four-ways, weapons/hardcore matches, tables, cage matches, create-a-wrestler story mode, online play and a concept exclusive to TNA Wrestling, the Ultimate X match. In an Ultimate X match, wrestlers fight to win a championship belt suspended high above the ring similar to a ladder match. Instead of using a ladder, wrestlers must climb or crawl across cables stretched high across the ring to reach the belt for victory. The Ultimate X has been a wild success for and produced some of TNA's most memorable matches, and while not in the demo I got my hands on, Midway developers assured me it will be in the finished product, as well as other considered options.
The story mode will have the wrestler you create start off wrestling on small shows and in National Guard Armories, the same way many of the wrestlers in the game started their real life careers. The storyline will have dramatic twists and turns but is still a work-in-progress.
At least 20 wrestlers will be playable characters in iMPACT!; already modeled and playable in the demo game are Kurt Angle, Sting, Christian Cage, Rhino, AJ Styles, Senshi, Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, Jay Lethal, Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner, Abyss, Eric Young, Sonjay Dutt, Homicide, Hotstuff Hernandez and Chris Sabin.
In order for Midway's TNA iMPACT! to make it's, ahem, impact in the videogame world it will have to break the virtual monopoly held by THQ and WWE. The last Raw vs Smackdown game was embraced by gamers and reviewed well. What Midway is excited about is that the participation of TNA's wrestlers is not limited to wrestling, many of them are in their mid-20s and are gamers themselves. "We're all part of the video game generation," said wrestler Senshi. "We know what we like in games, what we don't, and help the designers in the process."
Styles, a lifelong gamer who still plays WWF No Mercy on the Nintendo 64, has drawn upon his lifetime of gaming and wrestling to help make iMPACT! a unique experience. "You're going to be able to do things in this game you won't in any other game," Styles said.
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