1UP Preview

[ALL STAR]

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3163684

A wrestling game not from THQ? And wait, where's John Cena, Triple H and the rest of the WWE crew? This isn't WWE, and getting it confused with the McMahon empire will only put you on the receiving end of a wrestling zealot's Canadian Destroyer. As the trademark thunderous voice tells you at the start of every broadcast, "This... is TNA."

For those who haven't followed TNA's progression, the wrestling company started in 2002 under the NWA flag, with PPV-only broadcasts, featuring names from both past and soon-to-be stars. After the WWE's purchase of WCW, there wasn't a high-profile wrestling company to compete with the monopoly that World Wrestling Entertainment had created. Five years and now a two-hour television show (on Spike TV every Thursday night) later, TNA is finally receiving the video game treatment, courtesy of Midway's TNA Impact!

Though Midway's sports titles have been typically over-the-top, the developers are taking a slightly more realistic approach with the TNA license. That's not to say the game will be encumbered with stamina meters and resting, however. Mark Turmell, Midway veteran and the game's producer, tells us, "We've opted not to slow down the wrestler when he's in pain. Coming from the coin-op world, which is my background, we never want to make the player feel worse. We always want to build, build, build. Your player will continue to fight as if he's fresh, but he'll get to the point where he's able to be finished."

Like in those coin-op titles, visual quality is a huge focus for the developers. "TNA allows us access to all of their wrestlers," notes Sal Divita, another of Midway's producers. "We were able to take photographs of them up close -- actual photographs of their skin, their bodies, their shapes. We had access to get 3D scans of all their heads, which we could shape to be just like they are in real life."

The best looking character models in the industry, though, wouldn't mean anything if they animated poorly (or at least they'd mean very little). Midway recruited the likes of Samoa Joe and AJ Styles, as well as Jay Lethal, Sonjay Dutt, Senshi and Christopher Daniels to help out with the motion capture, and that -- combined with the 60 frames-per-second gameplay -- looks to have paid off, as the game runs very smoothly.

The TNA superstars also apparently have been involved during the game's design meetings. "We hold No Mercy up as kind of a blueprint," says Turmell, "and when the wrestlers came in, they immediately said, 'Have you guys played No Mercy?' So we knew we were all on the same wavelength right off the bat."

As expected, the heart of the single-player game is the story mode, though the team at Midway has something different in store than the standard "go for the belt" scenario. "You wake up in a plastic surgeon's office in Mexico, and you have to figure out who you are and how you got there," says Turmell. "I would still classify it as a simple, straight-forward storyline, but there's a little bit of fantasy around why you're creating your character to begin with."

That's right -- you won't be taking the role of an established TNA superstar in career mode. And Kevin Nash will make an appearance to train and mentor your up and coming superstar. Though we weren't given many details on the game's Create-a-Wrestler mode, Midway assures us that it's a very important part of the game's development, as the story mode is based on it.

Wrestling game fans love to count the different modes and match-types, and thankfully, TNA Impact! has variety there. Aside from the usual exhibition and tag-team matches, Impact! will offer a "Royal Rumble-like" game mode, as well as TNA staples King of the Hill and Ultimate X matches (though the team is still working out how exactly the belt will be obtained in the latter). When asked about the chance of including the Six-Sides of Steel cage match, we were told it's "about 50/50 at this point." All consoles (even Wii) will incorporate an online mode, which will also allow two players on the same console to compete against wrestling fans across the country. In addition, all of the game's match types will be playable online.

The game, still a good eight months away from release, is already shaping up nicely. By simply watching the character intros (which are shorter than the current WWE fare) or looking at stills, you can tell it is pretty. But we're happy to report that at this early stage, it plays well too. While the majority of moves quoted for the final retail game (2,500 or so) were not yet available at Midway's press event, the ones at our disposal were very easy to pull off. The preview version only included 10 or so TNA superstars, though the final game will reportedly contain just about everyone under TNA contract as of January.

Though Impact! will be released on all major platforms, Midway only had the 360 version at its press event (which should be very similar to the PS3 game). Midway says the Wii controls have yet to be finalized, and the team is looking at making the game less complicated than its counterparts to make it more accessible to Wii owners.

After finally having the controllers ripped out of our hands by Midway security, we came away very optimistic. When you combine a team experienced in developing wild sports titles with the TNA brand, you end up with a game that has a big opportunity to mix up the wrestling genre, which has become set in its ways in recent years. And competition is always a good thing, right?

[Subrick]

I'll most definentely be getting this game for my home console of chioce. Since this game is gonna be big, quick question. How long has it been since the Smackdown games have had decent/serious competition?

[Spectre]

I think WWE hasnt really had and Competition only other wrestling games were BackYard Wrestling and Ruble Rose that all that come to mind, and they werent even good.