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TNA Impact!
Publisher: Midway Games
Developer: Midway Studios - Lost Angeles
Genre: Wrestling
Release Date: September 9, 2008
Platforms: Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii
Reviewer: Eric
 For the past so many years THQ has been dominating the wrestling game
industry. Year after year the Smackdown series has been great, even on an off
year the game was still good. Midway and TNA saw dollar signs because of the
high profits THQ gets every year so they decided to team up for the first and
hopefully last TNA video game.
Talk about disappointment. When I first turned this game on I was all excited
with the introduction, it got me pumped up. Once I started playing the game I
was crying to myself because I just spent $60 on a game that wasn’t beta tested.
I’ve said this before in my game reviews in the past but I defiantly mean it
now. TNA Impact! is one of the most broken games I have ever played on the Xbox
360.
Story mode is the key point to this game and in ways I think Midway made the
best wrestling story mode. There is only one story but it can last up to 10
hours. No I am not lying, if you suck at the game (more on that later) you will
take as long as it does for most modern games right now. Taking 10 hours to beat
a wrestling game is unheard of, yet at the same time the Smackdown series has
numerous storylines, making your experience feel different with each play.
The story starts you off with Suicide, a wrestler who was on top of his game.
After winning the TNA Championship LAX beats the living daylights out of you and
sends you to Mexico just because you didn’t throw the match. Suicide’s body was
so disfigured that you get to create yourself all over again and it also turns
out your memory was lost as well. With a set of four wrestling movies you have
to fight your way back to TNA and reclaim what is rightfully yours.
During the story mode you are treated to some funny cut scenes (Kevin Nash makes
the story experience much better) and some dialogue in-between matches. The one
thing TNA Impact! has is amazing graphics. All of the time put into this game
must have been with the graphics. Every character in this game looks lifelike,
it is almost frighten. Even the arenas you fight in look great too Midway didn’t
cheap out and reuse the same crowd member over and over again. Everything is
going to come crashing down now with the actual gameplay.
TNA is broken! The wrestling system is what you’d expect from past Midway games,
kick, punch, grapple, and a few other motions. There really are not too many
moves to do either, the developers only used 20 moves (it feels that way) out of
the 1000 plus they promised. Even the TNA superstars have little or no moves. To
make matters worse some of the wrestlers share the same taunts! Is this really a
wrestling game? I mean the gameplay can’t get worse, right? Oh it can and one of
my main problems are the finishers. All of them put your opponent into a pin
right away so all of those wrestlers with submission finishers are out of luck,
you are pinning now.
 Trying to win a match in this game is impossible. Your opponent will always
grapple and your moves do no damage at all, even when you are fighting a jobber.
You could literally do a hundred moves on your TNA opponent and they will win
because they’ve reversed every single one. I lost to Sting before after he did
four reversals. Trying to get out of a pin sucks because you have to jerk the
joystick back and fourth. It just does not work.
Reversing moves never works for you either. Simply by hitting RB you are
supposed to be able to reverse, even the training videos say this. But guess
what this doesn’t work either, the damn indicator never comes up either and you
are left to getting your ass handed to you. How in the hell could a company
release a game like this and expect people to pay $60? Oh wait I bought it….son
of a bitch.
Midway thought it would be a good idea to make gamers hold down the LB button
for almost anything. This caused major problems when doing certain moves since
the games says to press B + LB + Your Direction and when you do that nothing
happens. I could only do submission moves and pin my opponent when they were out
of breath. As hard as I tried nothing seemed to work in this game! Pinning an
opponent is supposed to be as simple as the B button but once again I had to
wait until my opponent was out of breath of if I did my finisher. The only good
thing about the gameplay is running in this game but that is not enough to help
things out.
Tag matches are just as bad. Half the time your partner never wants to come in
to help, leaving you wide open for a pin after a few reversals. When you are
outside of the ring your partner will get in your way, causing you to get hit by
the games only weapon, a steal chair. Isn’t TNA supposed to be known for
hardcore matches that have a ton of weapons? Not in this game, pick up the steal
chair and prey your opponent doesn’t block. If a chair were to hit you there is
no way to block which once again makes the game broken. NOTHING WORKS!!!
What does work is the fact that you have to play through story mode to unlock
characters. At first I liked this since it gave replay value but then the
difficult pissed me off to my point of pure hatred. I did find a few moves that
could not be blocked and I did cheat my way to victory. Midway also has promised
us downloadable rooster updates which have better be free if they want to make
people happy.
There are little things that are not included in this game too. Champions never
come out with their belt, making it almost pointless to even mention that they
are a champion. Introductions for your characters have to be viewed all the
time, but thankfully the loading times in this game are kept short. There is now
way to have the computer opponent fight each other, you know to have a self-made
PPV. I like doing this on the Smackdown games when I am bored and even the
budget title Fire Pro Wrestling had this as well.
This game also has a small selection of match types. Midway has promised us new
matches in the near future through Xbox Live and the Sony Store. Beta tester?
Yeah and the Ultimate X matches are not that great either. Clumsy controls and
the extra computer player always seem to go after you. Get ready to spend a lot
of time trying to win a single match and you need to play these matches in story
mode.
 Create-A-Wrestler is bad. There are about ten selections for each category,
sometimes less than that. You really can’t make a good wrestler and there is no
way to recreate current and old favorites. All you can do is make a high school
wrestler that shares the same height as everyone else. Oh yeah and the moves you
can give your wrestler are so small it is sad.
Online play is terrible! It constantly lags, opponents can leave a match and not
get penalized, and matches never seem to end! Since it is impossible to pin your
opponent you are spending most of your time beating your opponent and it just
gets old. This game has the worst online play ever, skip it!
Final Verdict
TNA Impact! is a complete waste of money. If you enjoy TNA and want the company
to beat out WWE some day then buy the game. Casual fans of wrestling games will
only be left with a $60 game that is only worth jack shit as a trade in. Midway
promised a lot with this game and they did not deliver, this game should have
been called TNA Beta Tester!
I did contact Midway with some of the problems and they told me they are fixing
the problems as we speak. Certain achievements can not be unlocked on the Xbox
360 because of programming achievements. I tried to get my money back and they
ignored that comment. If anybody has questions about this game please leave a
comment and I can compile a list for Midway and ask them more questions.
Rating
5 out of 10
TNA Impact! Trailer
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