Latest Info on TNA iMPACT!: The Video Game

[Bad Boy]

looks pretty damn good, and the characters look real enough, and for the CC character, it looks amazingly real... this might turn out better than SvR in looks, but the less roster might play an imp factor

[Flair Country]

Here are 2 new screenshots that I found while surfing around of Samoa Joe & AJ Styles:

[Big Evil]

I don't know, every time I see new info on this game, I get more psyched up for it, and think less about SvR 08! This game is going to be the best possible product for it's first outing, and that's always a great thing! I'm willing to deal with perhaps a basic version in 08, because seeing what they are doing, I think it will blow away the current game.

The actual characters look amazing, and the best part is that they will stay that way! Not only that, but completely customizable? AWESOME! 20 guys to wrestle with is a great amount when you think of the space it takes to make them customizable! The best SvR can do is have alternate attires, and even then the characters don't look half this good!

THIS GAMES LOOKS AWESOME!

[Flair Country]

Confirmed Roster now updated!

[gator]

hopefully this will light a fire under wwe and thq asses

[Flair Country]

Here is an in-depth preview of the game done by Fighting Spirit Magazine:

Much as it’s impossible to discuss Total Nonstop Action without mentioning World Wrestling Entertainment, so it’s impossible to discuss the TNA Impact! videogame – due out in Spring 2008 on the PlayStation2, PlayStation3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii – without mentioning WWE SmackDown VS Raw. In both cases the latter is the standard-bearer for the former, with WWE providing the yardstick by which former, as WWE is the yardstick by which any TNA endeavour is measured. So just like its TV namesake, Impact! is going to be compared to SmackDown; the question is, what will the verdict be?

Well, in our humble opinion, comparing the 60 per cent complete version of TNA Impact! to the finished version of SmackDown VS Raw 2008, we’ll take the TNA game. In a heartbeat. Because even with half the roster missing, most of the moves not yet in the game, a bunch of graphical miscues and more glitches than your average version of Windows, TNA’s game is still a million miles more fun to play than WWE’s. Seriously, it’s not even close.

The problem with SmackDown is that it’s essentially a seven-year-old game that’s had successive layers of spit and polish slapped on top of it each time out. In fact, if you go back to original Toukon Retsuden on the PlayStation (the New Japan Pro Wrestling game from which the SmackDown series was adapted), it’s actually a 12-year-old game that’s been constantly rehashed and reworked – and it was never really a classic to begin with.

For many gamers – whether they’re hardcore nuts who’ve been following the series since Toukon Retsuden or have just joined with this year’s rendition – no amount of clever new options or slickly-implemented gimmicks can make up for SmackDown VS Raw’s clumsy core mechanics or flamboyant, style-over-substance gameplay. Which is exactly why many gamers to this day are still playing another seven-year-old wrestling game that really was a classic: WWF No Mercy on the Nintendo 64.

UM, ISN’T THIS A TNA FEATURE?

We know, we know – we’ve spent the first page harping on about every game on the planet except the TNA one, but there’s a method to our madness. You see, for the past seven years, No Mercy – along with its superior Japanese counterpart, the All Japan-licensed Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 – has been held aloft as the Holy Grail of wrestling videogames.

Developed by former THQ partner Aki Corporation, the N64 game didn’t have unique fighting styles, analogue control or online play – in fact, it had blocky graphics, tinny sound and was even occasionally plagued with slowdown. And yet, it remains to this day an infinitely better, more playable and more fulfilling experience than the latest SmackDown title. Why? To save us all from getting dogged down by discussions about the subtle nuances of play mechanics or brilliance of game design, we’ll just put it like this: because it was fun.

No convoluted control scheme. No pretentious gimmickry. No overindulgent technical aspirations. No quantity-over-quality features or match types that no one ever actually played, and thus only served to take valuable time away from the core, clean, instinctive game engine. SmackDown is too preoccupied with providing a highfalutin experience; No Mercy was just a f**king good game. So why have we devoted the last seven paragraphs to a game that isn’t even available any more? Because that game is the benchmark that TNA and Midway were aiming for.

When the developers sat down and asked, “How do we make a great wrestling game?” they looked at No Mercy and said, “By doing what these guys did.” Not by adding more polygons to last year’s game. Not by adding more modes that nobody actually plays. Not by adding more useless bullet-point features to pad out a press release while the core gameplay remains broken. Instead of trying to turn a Jackson Pollock into a Leonardo Da Vinci, they went and studied the Mona Lisa to figure out exactly what made it so great in the first place.

GREAT ARTISTES

TNA had been in discussions about developing a videogame for some time. As AJ Styles alluded to us, at one point it was even in talks with the mighty Rockstar (of Grand Theft Auto fame), but the problem was that nobody got it. When developers met and spoke with the likes of Styles – himself a hardcore gamer and a proponent of No Mercy/VPW2’s brilliance – they never demonstrated any understanding of what they were getting into or where they would go with the deceptively difficult wrestling game genre. And after digital atrocities like WCW Thunder and Backyard Wrestling, the potentially disastrous consequences were plain to see.

But then along came Midway – a company with its roots firmly planted in classic, arcade-style playability, with a resume boasting everything from Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam to Space Invaders and (ironically, given Adam Jones’ recent TNA involvement) Pac-Man. A gameplay-focused group with a tradition of tradition, when the Midway team sat down with the likes of AJ, Samoa Joe and Senshi all gushing like fanboys over No Mercy, their eyes lit up. Rather than dismissing this seven-year-old game on an obsolete console, they relished the opportunity to recreate the magic that had made it so revered among gamers and wrestling fans alike.

Midway had the perfect track record for TNA. The Mortal Kombat series demonstrated that the company knew what it was doing with fighting games, while the likes of NBA Jam and NFL Blitz were proof positive that it could take a complex, specialist sport and refine it into pure playability. In fact, Midway even had prior experience with wrestling games; its cult classic WrestleMania: The Arcade Game, while understandably OTT for some fans, still holds up today and is the perfect example of how much fun a wrestling game can be when you do the polar opposite of the SmackDown series.

What Midway has done with TNA Impact!, therefore, is to take stock of all the factors we’ve mentioned over the past two pages to cook up what may prove to be the greatest wrestling game since No Mercy: take the slick visuals of SmackDown VS Raw, add the pick-up-and-playability of NBA Jam, stir in the genre-busting combat instinct of Mortal Kombat, throw in the undeniable personality of WrestleMania Arcade and mix with the endless depth of NFL Blitz, all while following the freeform recipe written by Aki Corp.

The result, of course, is completely gestalt – the TNA game no more plays like Mortal Kombat or WrestleMania than Fight Night 3 plays like Punch Out!!, but in describing the essence of the game’s genetic makeup, their influences are undeniably (if, at times, unconsciously) felt. In actual fact, TNA Impact! feels and plays like no other title that’s ever been on the market; it’s so much more than just a rip-off of this or an homage to that. It’s a completely unique, one-of-a-kind wrestling game – but one inspired by every moment and nuance that made you say “Wow!” when playing any other.

NO ONE CAN TELL YOU WHAT THE MATRIX IS…

So far, we’ve done a pretty awful job of conveying how Midway’s supposedly awesome new game actually plays. That’s because there really isn’t a straightforward explanation; to dumb it down into “these buttons do so-and-so” and “those buttons do such-and-such” would be to betray the visceral, ethereal beauty of what is shaping up to be the masterpiece we’ve been waiting for so we can finally throw away our N64s. But, since we can’t avoid it any longer, what the hell.

The Xbox 360 version that we got to grips with was simply sublime to control. The left stick, unsurprisingly, moves your character around the screen. Of the face buttons, Y is used to grapple, X to throw a punch, A to launch a kick and B for action (climbing the turnbuckles, pinning, getting in and out of the ring and so on). Up top, the right trigger will make you run, the right bumper is for countering and the left bumper is your shift/modifier to perform alternate moves.

You’ll notice that kicking and punching each have a dedicated button, rather than a general “strike” command. That’s because striking and combos play a bigger part in this game than you might be used to from a wrestling game. Don’t be nervous, though, videogame alarmists – remember, Fire Pro Wrestling has the same thing. This isn’t at all some clumsy attempt to shoehorn in a pseudo-Mortal Kombat mechanic, and nor is the execution anywhere near as bombastic as WrestleMania Arcade.

Really, the striking imperative is no greater than it is in the THQ games. The difference here is that not only does it amount to more than the tedious ‘punch-punch-kick’ routines that plague SmackDown slugfests, but the deceptively subtle gameplay actually rewards players who intelligently chain of strikes and grapples, rather than them being the sole preserve of clumsy noobs and aggravating button-bashers. And while it far from makes the game your typical beat-'em-up, it definitely hooks into the fighting game Zen to the point that your Virtua Fighter-loving friends will feel right at home, even if they’ve never laid eyes on a wrestling game.

The modifying left bumper allows you to unleash your complete arsenal; under different position- and ring-specific contexts, it allows you to do everything from performing more powerful strikes to delivering more elaborate grapples, springboarding from the second turnbuckle to firing off whip attacks and, of course, executing signature and finishing manoeuvres. It’s all simple stuff, kept as clean and uncluttered as possible to make for the most intuitive, instinctive grappling gameplay. It works like an absolute charm and, while the learning curve stands at about five minutes, true mastery is going to take weeks and months to perfect.

MORE TO COME
As aforementioned, the build of the game we played was only 60-something per cent complete, meaning that there are still some control elements that have yet to be introduced. The D-pad, for example, is subject to a number of possible additions. A directional stab could summon a run-in from your stablemates or interference from your manager. It could activate a special move or some dirty tactics. We even heard rumblings that, much like WrestleMania: The Arcade Game, it could be used to give your character a Second Wind, allowing for a last-minute comeback when all hope seems lost.

Implementation of D-pad controls might be one of the areas of the game specific to each console – and speaking of console-specific controls, there’s the Wii to consider. As you know by now, THQ made the bold decision to craft a version of SmackDown VS Raw 2008 specifically for the Nintendo platform, with the result being a somewhat hit-and-miss motion-controlled game that can often cause frustration. Aware of those drawbacks, Midway is conscious of taking advantage of the Wii’s unique interface while also offering a conventional control system. However, the company hasn't confirmed anything specific just yet.

We mentioned that the left bumper is a context-sensitive modifier. Well, taking a cue from one of SmackDown’s successful innovations, TNA Impact! will also feature context-sensitive hotspots, allowing you to interact with elements in and out of the ring including the turnbuckles, ring post, steps and guardrail. However, while you can take the fight to the floor and brawl around ringside to your heart’s content, you won’t be able to battle into the crowd, up onto the entranceway or into any backstage areas.

While this may seem like a criminal oversight to feature-hungry fans, bear in mind that this is Midway’s first wrestling game in over a decade. Between motion capturing 2,500 moves, constructing character models and sets, building a brand new game engine and creating as many worthwhile matches and modes as is possible within a very limited development cycle, something had to give. For our part, we’d much sooner lose a limited crowd brawling mechanic if it means that the team can focus on making the main gameplay as razor sharp as it needs to be. And don't forget, this is only the first game – there’s plenty of time to introduce these features down the road…

In the meantime, you can content yourself with the fact that TNA Impact! possesses all the important options and a fair few other features that should get your pulse pounding. Obviously, singles, tag matches, three-ways and four-ways are covered, as are online matches (confirmed for the 360 and rumoured for the PS3 and Wii). And if all goes to plan, you can also look forward to battling inside The Six Sides Of Steel, breaking backs in a King Of The Mountain Match and, best of all, defying gravity in an Ultimate X Match. Suddenly, sacrificing the backstage areas doesn’t seem so bad, does it?

CAPTURE THE FRAG

As you’ll have noticed, there are images around these five pages of various TNA stars wearing strange black track suits with little white ping pong balls on them. As we’ve been harping about, many TNA wrestlers are very much members of the videogame generation and were creatively involved with the project from the start. But more than just giving their creative input as both wrestling gamers and pro wrestlers, guys like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Sonjay Dutt, Senshi, Christopher Daniels and Jay Lethal actually lent their in-ring talents to the motion capture process.

Motion capture is a technique used to record movement into raw computer data so that it can be translated into animation. When all is said and done, TNA wrestlers will have spent some three months in Midway’s mocap facility performing every wrestling move, strike, grapple, bump, stance, submission, pose and taunt that you could possibly imagine – and these exact movements are what you will see in the finished videogame. So when you pull off a Spiral Tap, it’s AJ himself performing the move. When you go for a Huracanrana only to be countered with a high-angle powerbomb, it’s Sonjay Dutt’s suffering that you’ll see. When you hit a Muscle Buster, you know that Joe killed a real human being for your entertainment.

To have this degree of involvement from the talent is unprecedented. While THQ has used WWE superstars in the past to conduct motion capture sessions, the company only ever sent developmental talent like Aaron Stevens, Casey James and a pre-Simon Dean Mike Bucci. But some of TNA’s biggest stars and best workers have been giving up their time – and in many cases their own dime, dropping by the studios on their off-days – to make every chop, slam and suplex as rich and authentic as possible.

With the version we played being a long way from completion, not all the moves were in there yet and most of the characters shared the same temporary movesets and animations. And not every TNA star was able to get into the studio to participate in the mocap; while we were being talked through the game by Midway’s Sal DiVita he pulled off some patented offence using Sting, leading AJ Styles to heckle, “Sting owes me a nickel!”

But with so many sheerly talented wrestlers and masters of physical mimicry (such as Jay Lethal, who’s already shown just how perfectly he can recreate someone like Randy Savage’s mannerisms), this is absolutely as close to the real thing as you can get. And more importantly than making sure that each individual wrestling move looks great, this access to the wrestlers meant that animators could ensure that the transitional moves look great, too.

One of the biggest flaws in SmackDown is that you can execute niftily animated moves once you’ve locked up, but the in-between movements are awkward and the blending between each canned animation routine can be shaky. In TNA Impact!, if the animation going from a standing position into a running dropkick isn’t 100 per cent smooth, the animators can just pull Joe or Daniels or Senshi to one side and say, “Hey, can you give me this part of the movement again?” The result is animation and playability that's absolutely fluid and silky smooth – no more jerky, robotic movements here.

THE DETAILS

There will be 25 TNA stars in the finished game, some of whom will be unlocked as you progress through Story Mode. Names already present in the build we played were Abyss, Kurt Angle, Christian Cage, Hernandez, Homicide, Jeff Jarrett, Rhino, Chris Sabin, Samoa Joe, Alex Shelley, Scott Steiner, Sting, AJ Styles and Eric Young. The cutoff point for adding new characters to the game is January, so anyone who joins the company before that time should technically be able to be programmed in.

There will also be seven arenas in the game. Starting off with the Universal Studios set, you’ll unlock the rest as you work through the story – expect to see a number of modern venues along with rings and sets from the company’s past five years. As you’ll have noticed, the visuals are nothing short of breathtaking, with the deeply detailed character models that at time putting the gorgeous SmackDown graphics to shame. But the aesthetic attention extends to the arenas as well; not only do TNA’s elaborate laser lights scan across the individual members of the crowd, the ringside surroundings and the wrestlers themselves, but the digital canvas even sports the same bloodstains you’ll see on the ring at Universal Studios – the level of detail is just immense.

There will, of course, be an extensive Create-A-Wrestler facility, although the goal is once again to take the CAW process back to being an enjoyable one – not the long-winded, time-consuming, frustrating exercise it has become in recent WWE games. There is also commentary in the game but, while it seemed a lot less repetitive than Ross and co’s incessant prattling, to be honest we were too caught up in the in-ring action to pay it much mind.

The Story Mode will be exclusively for created wrestlers – you won’t be able to use existing TNA stars. But the foundation for this idea is sound; rather than just throwing together a haphazard succession of matches masquerading as some sort of “season”, the Midway game will offer a much more structured, progressive story for players to participate in. The idea is to create your own star and nurture his career as part of the TNA universe, so every storyline twist and turn will be your own.

If you want a shot at the top, you’ll need to make sure that you’re running with the right faction to back you up. But you’ll also have to make sure that you’ve got the coolest entrance and the slickest ring gear to build up your reputation and get the crowd behind you. Hiring the right manager is crucial to your success, too – different managers specialise in different areas, so while one might be better suited to interfering at ringside, others might be able to teach you new moves and abilities backstage. And with a number of training mini-games that allow you to unlock various extras for your CAW, you’ll definitely need to pay your dues if you want to stand a chance against TNA’s big boys.

It’s so easy to get overexcited about the possibilities of a new wrestling game only to set yourself up for a fall – we do it every year with SmackDown. And with a game that’s still got 40 per cent of its development cycle left to go, maybe we’re headed for disappointment yet again. But while THQ sets out to make a better game than last year’s SmackDown, Midway has set out to make a game better than No Mercy – and therein lies the difference…

[J-man]

WOOO thanks FC!

[Flair Country]

New info posted! Tons of confirmed stuff now, this game is sounding better day by day.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Hmm. Interesting. I might pick it up...

[Flair Country]

I found some new pics around the web today, including one that confirms Booker T to be in the game: