[Rated Booyaka]

A new hands on preview...

Originally Posted by Videogamer.com

Wrestling games are, on the whole, either above average or just plain average. Once you get over the novelty of being able to mess about with huge character models of your favourite wrestling stars, and perhaps dabbled in the creation of your own oversized muscle bound freak, you're left with little more than a poorly made, clunky and repetitive fighting game.

So it is that TNA Impact! arrives on the scene, a new player not only in video game land but in TV wrestling land too. And while TNA Impact! lacks experience, it certainly makes up for it in confidence, with a promise to revolutionise the stagnant wrestling video game genre and pretty much destroy the WWE Smackdown VS Raw franchise. The big question, of course, is whether or not that confidence is justified? We oiled up and threw ourselves into the hexagonal ring with wrestling star Kurt Angle to find out.

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On the face of it there's little to suggest TNA Impact! will be any better than WWE Smackdown VS Raw, which has been getting poor review scores in recent years. You've got a 25-man roster, including Kurt Angle, Booker T, Sting, Jeff Tarrett, Christian Cage, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Rhino and Rick Steiner to name a few. You've got a story mode which allows you to create your own wrestler, customise him and embark on a career. You've got signature moves, over-the-top entrances, off-the-top rope action and online play. Everything you could want from a wrestling game in terms of features. But does it play well?

We had the opportunity to spend a couple of hours in the company of the Xbox 360 version of the game, playing some one versus one exhibition matches to get a feel for things. Unfortunately, this early build showed little to suggest the game will be any better than WWE Smackdown vs. Raw, which is a shame really, since there's definitely an opportunity to overtake it in terms of quality right now. It is worth stressing that the build on display was apparently a few months old, although we can only comment on what we played.


With Smackdown vs. Raw flagging, will TNA Impact! wrestle away top spot?You've got the big character models, as you'd expect, with sweat and fairly realistic reactions to attacks (like holding their back after a suplex). But controlling the beasts is clunky and feels like trudging through treacle. The graphics too aren't anything to write home about. Kurt Angle says the thing which will set TNA Impact! apart from WWE Smackdown vs. Raw is the tremendous authenticity. From what we've seem the game looks and feels pretty much the same except with a six-sided ring and different wrestlers. Good for fans of THQ's series but not so great for wrestling fans wanting something different.

The controls in TNA Impact! closely follow those found in Smackdown vs. Raw. You have a punch attack, a kick attack, a grapple attack, a run, a pin and a counter. What our matches boiled down to was a race to see who could grapple who first, and thus who could perform basic wrestling moves like pile drivers and suplexes. We understand that special moves do become available when your Impact meter fills up, displayed underneath the wrestler names at the top of the screen, but we couldn't seem to trigger them. The counter button allowed us to swivel around our opponent when we were grappled, but apart from that the actual fighting, which all wrestling games are judged on, was basic and at times frustrating.

Because we haven't had the chance to get our hands on the final game, we'll give Kurt Angle's trash talking the benefit of the doubt. He talks about the motion-captured wrestlers, realistic facial expressions and a crowd that reacts to what's going on in-ring rather than just cheering all the time. He talks about all of these things without going into the finer gameplay details though, which is interesting. We'll see how things turn out come the summer, when the game is scheduled for release.

Here's hoping the development team is hard at work polishing the hell out of it right now, otherwise we feel the opportunity to wrestle the number one spot from WWE Smackdown vs. Raw, an opportunity WWE publisher THQ has itself gift wrapped, will slip right through its oversized, oiled-up fingers. Wrestling fans are screaming out for a solid game to come along and challenge the WWE series, if only to force THQ into making changes. Only time will tell if TNA Impact! is the game to do it.

TNA Impact! is scheduled for release on Xbox 360, PS3, PS2 and Wii in Summer 20008.

Well considering how different this preview is to the other ones, it seems as if the early build atleast is a hit and miss. But meh, i'm buying the game, but I just hope it doesn't feel like SD v RAW 08'. Can't see the final version being like that, though.

Not much to go by, but Jeff Tarrett and Rick Steiner? It's obvious that they ment Jeff Jarrett... but surely they ment Scott Steiner?

[thatdambgood]

I hope they meant Scott.....but this preview is starting to confirm my fears, their focusing on making the graphics great, but their not focusing a lot on gameplay(The controls in TNA Impact! closely follow those found in Smackdown vs. Raw. You have a punch attack, a kick attack, a grapple attack, a run, a pin and a counter.),

The roster is what really pisses me off, the sheer amount of talent on the TNA roster is insane, but to only include 25(most of those being WWE rejects)...fucking sucks.


Going off this preview( I know it was an earlier model, but they won't make too many improvements, I can tell you that much)...I think this sentence says it all

From what we've seem the game looks and feels pretty much the same except with a six-sided ring and different wrestlers. Good for fans of THQ's series but not so great for wrestling fans wanting something different.

[Rated Booyaka]

Knockouts confirmed by Samoa Joe..

Tell us about your motion capture sessions.

Samoa Joe: It’s going to be a fantastic experience. If we’re going to the game right you’ve got to get the moves right. The best way to do that is get the guys who do it [professionally] to go in there and do the motion captures. It’s been a very fun process, a very fruitful process. Some of us got a little banged up in the process but it’s been a good time.

Is it as painful as the real thing?

SJ: Actually, we have mats so we can fake it. Through the magic of video game technology we can pull our punches a little. It’s been very hospitable to us.

How did you get your face in the game? Did you do face mapping?

SJ: No face mapping. They literally took digital photos of our faces and stretched them over the game models. So the skin that you see in there is actually my skin. And you know, some of the guys had pimples that day so you can actually see them. But we want to get ‘em on a clear day and get ‘em re-shot.

Is this your first video game?

SJ: Third. I was in two King of the Coliseums in Japan and this is my first stateside video game, and the first one I’ve been involved with. I’m very excited about it.

When you first saw yourself in those games and now in this – how did that feel? ‘Cause in TNA iMPACT!, the effects are unreal.

SJ: No comparison. The models in this blow away anything that’s ever been done before. You saw how smooth the guys move and stuff. It’s been a good process.

By the way you talk I assume you’re a gamer?

SJ: Absolutely.

What do you play?

SJ: We [the TNA athletes] have games together. Right now it’s Halo 3, but Gears of War was a big staple. When stuff really needs to be settled, when there’s a really big dispute between two guys, it usually comes down to a sport game. It’s usually Madden or NBA Street. I’m more preferential to Street, but that’s just me.

So you could be having this huge rivalry going on in the ring, and then you say, “Let’s play a video game”?

SJ: Yes. I almost wish we could do that for Pay-Per-View, but unfortunately we’re not at that point yet. It’s always a good time.

Have you followed the pro game competitions at all?

SJ: Yeah. In fact, I competed in the MLG in a charity event last year. Myself, a man named Gandhi, Kurt Angle, and Forrest Griffin. We [me and Gandhi] absolutely destroyed them. It was a fantastic one-sided affair. We led in kill counts and got a big $6,000 check for the Autism Society. It was a nice charity game, a lot of fun. It was just sad that I had to clown some top-league players like that.

Fatal1ty is going up against a couple of pro ballers at E for All. Would you like to be involved with something like that?

SJ: Absolutely. We’d be more than happy to. I think when E3 or any big show comes around it’d be great if TNA had a huge presence there. Show ‘em what we got.

Would you play as yourself in TNA iMPACT?

SJ: I’m well too self-absorbed to play anyone else. I’d definitely just be me. [Laughs]

Is your work with TNA iMPACT! complete?

SJ: Oh no, I wish it was done. We still got more to do. I mean, we’re building a wrestling library from scratch – every punch, every kick, every headlock. If you can imagine how many moves are in pro wrestling… We’re doing ‘em all. It’s a lot of motion capturing.

Are you doing your own moves? Are the other TNA stars doing their own moves?

SJ: For the most part. The basic guys who handle motion capturing are myself, Senshi, AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Jay Lethal, and Sonjay.

What about the women of TNA?

SJ: We’ll have the ladies in there shortly.

They haven’t done any of the motion capture work thus far?

SJ: They haven’t yet but I’m sure they will be shortly.

Any face scans yet?

Yes. You know it’s funny, the Midway guys took forever on those ones. For me it was a couple quick shots. But it seemed like every time Christy Hemme or somebody went in there it was like a two-hour session. She said she had to do some weird poses and stuff. I don’t know what that’s about.

Ha-ha.

SJ: I mean I ain’t sayin’ anything about Midway but it was kind of weird.

That’s all the questions I have, thanks for your time Joe!

Credit: CAWS.ws.

Great news, in my opinion. Even better news that Christy's in the game.

[mrchrisieclass]

Knockouts i would like in the game-

Gail kim
Awesome Kong
Christy Hemme
Velvot Sky
Angelina Love

I cant see them giveing anymore than 5 spaces on a 25 man roster

[Rated Booyaka]

Someone on CAWS.ws reported that there will be 53 wrestlers in the game alltogether now, but he had no source and I really don't believe him anyways.

I do think that they may go a bit over 25 though, with Knockouts now included. I know they said that there will be 25 max, but who knows what has happened with the game since then as it was an early build. I'd like to see Christy, Velvet Sky, Angelina Love, Kong and Gail. I think that the one's that will definately be in the game are Christy, Gail and Kong. Possibly Traci Brooks too.

[LegendofBaseball]

Traci Has to be there, I mean, she's been in TNA since almost the beginning ('03 I believe).

I really don't care how many wrestlers there are to choose from. In my mind, the less there are, the better they'll be. And if there's a CAW mode, then, you can go ahead and had a pretty substantial amount of wrestlers so that's always a plus.

As long as the main guys are in there and that the game can be somewhat reminiscent of the old days of WCW V. NWO Revenge or whatnot, I'll be happy.

Are there any words on how the controls (grappling wise) will look like (compared to previous games) ? I'm a big fan of the N64 AKI & THQ games but I can't stand the way the SmackDown! games made their style more "arcadish", to me, it was nonsense, I didn't feel I could control my wreslter enough.

[AIW]

If the Knockouts are in the game, the only real part about that I would be real stoked about is the possible chance that I can get to use Awesome Kong in the game. That idea in itself sounds worth to see some of them get put in.

[Namek]

TNA's video game will have a brand new feature never before seen in a wrestling game. Players will be able to use an in game tool to create their own entrance theme for their created wrestlers.

Sounds cool

[Rated Booyaka]

I wonder how that will work, then. I expect my Sister will get addicted to the game even though she dislikes wrestling, just because you can make your own theme, haha.

Is there any source for that though, Namek? Not saying I don't believe you as it's not impossible to put into the game. Nice feature, though. I think I also heard somewhere that they are trying to let you add Custom Soundtracks too, which I hope they get round to doing and I hope it's implemented better then SmackDown vs. RAW 2008.

[Taroostyles]

Originally Posted by Booyaka 619

I wonder how that will work, then. I expect my Sister will get addicted to the game even though she dislikes wrestling, just because you can make your own theme, haha.

Is there any source for that though, Namek? Not saying I don't believe you as it's not impossible to put into the game. Nice feature, though. I think I also heard somewhere that they are trying to let you add Custom Soundtracks too, which I hope they get round to doing and I hope it's implemented better then SmackDown vs. RAW 2008.

It's on Gerweck too, I'm pretty sure this is legit tho.