Wrestling games are weird. While actual professional wrestling places a lot of importance on the stories and feuds between wrestlers that set up the actual matches, most of the wrestling games we’ve seen over the past few console generations have been little more than clumsy fighting games with deliberately-obscured health meters. Midway’s TNA Impact might not be the crazy wrestling action-RPG that still sits in the back of my mind, waiting to be made, but after having played an unfinished version of it at Midway’s annual showcase for the press, I can say that it certainly doesn’t feel clumsy.
It doesn’t feel sluggish, either. The first thing you notice when you pick up the controller is that TNA Impact is fast. It makes sense, considering that TNA’s more exciting matches revolve around what they call the X Division, a group of sometimes-smaller guys that can flip out and go absolutely nuts in the ring. But the game doesn’t seem to sacrifice all of the depth you expect from a wrestling game in favor of raw speed. The controls feel responsive, and they make sense, with buttons for punch, kick, grab, and an action button, which is used to leave the ring, climb turnbuckles, and so on. The left bumper on the 360 controller is used as a modifier to give you regular and “strong” versions of most actions, and the right bumper is used for blocking and countering.
TNA’s single-player takes the form of a story mode, where you create your own wrestler, insert him into the world of TNA and fight your way to the top. There will be multiple match types in Impact, including the basic rule set variations, tag team matches, and so on. At the recent Midway event where I got to play the game, I was able to see the Ultimate X match, which is sort of like a ladder match without the ladders. Instead, a large X hangs from a chain that’s tied to two cables that cross each other high above the ring. So you’ll have to hop up onto a turnbuckle, shimmy your way up some metal rigging to reach the cables, and then make your way out over the center of the ring to try and grab the X and win the match. There are plenty of ways to stop your opponent from reaching this goal, such as climbing out there yourself and grabbing hold of him, or if he’s close enough, a drop kick from the top turnbuckle can also do the trick. If you get out to the X, a little timing-based minigame pops up to make grabbing the X something that takes a bit of time to accomplish.
The game seems to do right by the TNA license, with graphics that accurately reflect the look of TNA, from the Orlando-based Impact Zone to the character models and ring entrances. 25 wrestlers will show up in the final product, including Kurt Angle, Sting, Booker T, Christian Cage, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Rhino, Christopher Daniels, Eric Young, Homicide, Hernandez, Tomko, Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley, Jay Lethal, Abyss, Jeff Jarrett, Sonjay Dutt, Robert Roode, Petey Williams, and Scott Steiner. Interestingly, the team at Midway LA is also planning to add additional wrestlers as downloadable content, which could really help keep the rosters up to date. Additional locations to wrestle in and more moves to use with your created wrester are also in the planning stages as future downloads.
On top of showing all this stuff about the game, Midway also took the opportunity to give the game a new release month. It’s now on for September, which replaces the late-June date that had been floating around previously. After playing the game for myself, it feels like the developers are on the right track to provide a solid alternative to the WWE-licensed games we’ve been seeing recently, which seems about right, considering that TNA is providing a solid alternative to WWE on television and pay-per-view.
Ryan and I will further discuss Midway’s upcoming games and its recent Las Vegas-based event on next week’s podcast. In the meantime, here’s Curry Man!
34 Comments
First comment
^well done?
Never been into wrestling games for some reason…
lol at curry man
The dude in the one screenshot with the Japanese flag on his pants leg has the worst mustache I’ve ever seen.
I’m looking forward to checking this out, as I’m getting really tired of the endlessly-recycled Smackdown engine and mechanics.
I really am looking forward to this game. Hopefully it will better define wrestling game standards.
Meh.. i’m waiting for more info on UFC 2009
This game is just looking better and better.
I really hope this game is good enough, and sells enough to make the WWE Smackdown Vs Raw series developers rethink releasing rehashed versions of the previous years game over and over.
Pro wrestling my border on the absurd at times, but the Curry man video link you posted is a good example of why it is also so great.
Looks interesting, this is like SKATE and Smackdown seems like THPS
I would love to actually see how “fast” it is.
Oh yeah one more thing, at least this Midway produced title looks to be heading in the right direction.
Don’t get me wrong, while the new mechanics they are adding in MK vs DC such as fighting while falling look great. Adding characters from the DC universe to the mix, and toning down the content of the MK series really does not sit well with me.
Ed Boon may be a genius game developer and well respected in the world of video games, but even a genius can have a stroke of stupid.
I really would have preferred the new Mortal Kombat to stay true to what it is. We could have had the new game mechanics without toning down the violence and the involvement of the DC universe…
Maybe Curry Man will be like, an alternate outfit for Chris Daniels ? Because lets face it, Curry Man makes everything better.
Ugghh….September? Dam!…I need to play this game now!!!
As long as I can play as Hot And Spicy aka. King Of Spice Aka. Curryman aka. The Fallen Angel aka. Christopher Daniels this game is great!!!
Lookin’ good.
mmmm…Curry Man
Looks good…for a wrestling game.
i’ve been following this game since it was originally announced . when they said that No Mercy was the blueprint for this game i got excited . to know how much they’ve expanded upon it to make it unique , give me i hopes for this one . this will be the first wrestling game since No Mercy for the n64 that i will buy .
He’s hot, He’s Spicy, He Tastes Great!…
I’ve been a fan of Curry Man since his old Japanese run. I’m glad they finally got Daniels to do the gimmick in TNA.. if you ask me he has a million times more charisma as Curry Man than he does as “The Fallen Angel” character.
Game looks decent. Needs some work. But, they have till’ september now so.. polish it up Midway.
Haha… Daniels is the curry man?! LOL.
I haven’t watched wrestling in years.
I hate wrestling so much, and when it comes to wrestling games my hatred rises to infinity levels.
I haven’t enjoyed a wrestling game since the Nintendo 64. Games like WCW vs. NWO: Revenge and WWF No Mercy did the right stuff for wrestling games.
Perhaps Bioware needs to get to work on a wrestling game. Their branching dialog trees would be prefect for between matches story type sequences. That’s a wrestling game I’d play.
I don’t like wrestling, but I certainly enjoyed the golden age of wrestling games on the Nintendo 64. WWF No Mercy is the first game that nearly got it right. Just when I thought they were going to be thoroughly entertaining, they screwed everything up with the Smackdown series. Boring, boring, boring.
A wrestling game that focused on old school wrestlers like in Legends of Wrestling with a very in-depth character creation process with turbo-speed fighting mechanics from No Mercy and a crazy, interactive storyline with five hundred possible endings. Now that would be fantastic.
Curry Man = only good thing about TNA
However, I will give this game some credit, it does look to be shaping up pretty well, which is a good thing since the SVR 2008 (WWE Smackdown! vs. Raw 2008, for those abbreviation-challenged people) was not very good at all. It’s also good to see that TNA is not trying to make a highly technical wrestling game and just aiming for a fun, fast experience. Because that’s what professional wrestling is suppose to be right?
Hopfully its NOTHING like SVR, also, it may be because its not even done yet, but i hope those arent the final graphics, there ok, but nothing ground breaking
Glad to see some Curry Man respect from Jeff.
I heard No Mercy for the N64 in part inspired this game, and that was a very fun game, so I hope this one follows suit.
I use to be into wrestling like 3 years back, and I always like the WWE games, expect for the last few which really went downhill. I only played the demo for the last WWE game but it was madd slow and sluggish. It’s good to hear this game will be fast and hopefully responsive. I’ll give it a try even though I have never really seen TnA, all I know is it looks like alot of WWE wrestlers have made the jump there, which is funny.
Bah. I can’t imagine this beating the best wrestling series (WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW).
You know what? Curry doesn’t actually taste that great.
Curry man? Are you fucking serious?
I havent been heavy into wrestling for about 10 years…..
It is because of characters like this.
Seriously, WTF?
Im so happy that we can go back to things like curry man, because really wrestling takes itself way to seriously. The days of over the top wrestling attire and characters is making a return.
The fact that this game will be supported with DLC is awesome, I just it’s frequent enough to keep the rosters up to date and inexpensive enough to make me wanna buy it. SPOILER ALERT: Curry Man and Christopher Daniels are one in the same, think they’ll add CMan as an extra wrestler? Only time will tell!!!
I have only played one wrestling game in my life and it was for the Nintendo 64. I don’t remember the name of it, but me and my friends played the hell out of it.
That Curry Man video is hilarious.
curry man the best