Genre: SportsCompany: Midway
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Release date: September 16, 2008
Retail price: $10
For the better part of a decade there has been only one choice for those who wanted the pile-driving fun of a wrestling video game. Although a few number-one contenders have entered the ring and received a shot at the title, none have been able to dethrone the champ: WWE and THQ’s Smackdown series. Some deserved a shot at the spotlight — games like Ultimate Muscle, Fire Pro Wrestling and Def Jam Vendetta were well-developed and a lot of fun. Others were nothing more than glorifed jobbers — Legends of Wrestling and Backyard Wrestling: Don’t Try This At Home ended up being all hype and little substance. A few may have been critically or financially successful to some degree, but none were able to end Smackdown’s championship reign.
Midway stepped between the ropes in 2008 with the help of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling to try and bring down the champ. TNA iMPACT! for the Nintendo Wii was one of their attemps at World Title contention. Like many up-and-comers it had talent, but it might have been better off shooting for the Intercontinental belt instead.
As soon as you boot up the game you’ll see that TNA has some big names. Genuine stars like Kurt Angle, Booker T, Sting and Christian Cage are among their ranks, as are other world-renowned but lesser known personalities like AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels. There’s a total of 25 wrestlers to choose from and seven different venues to battle in, including The iMPACT! Zone, Japan, Mexico and England. The match types include Singles matches, Tag Team, Fatal Four Way, Submission, Falls Count Anywhere and the TNA exclusive Ultimate X match. For those unaware, Ultimate X is where you have to shimmy along one of two intersecting ropes to capture a giant red “X” suspended above the middle of the ring.
The game also features a story mode that allows you to take control of the masked wrestler “Suicide” on his quest to regain his memory, his life and his TNA world title. I wont spoil any more of the story because it’s worth playing and it’s probably iMPACT!’s best feature. Unfortunately this version of the game is missing the create-a-wrestler feature that the PS3 and 360 both have, but it doesn’t detract from the overall story.
The developers decided to take a quicker-paced, more casual approach to the gameplay. It focuses more on punches, kicks and high-flying moves and less on submissions and ground attacks. The controls have also been simplified to give iMPACT! a more friendly arcadey feeling than Smackdown’s simulation-style.
When a game goes multi-platform I usually go with Wii because I like the way companies innovate with the controls. It saddens me to say it but the Wii remote and nunchuck setup is a complete mess. Punch and kick are represented by A and B respectively, while C makes you run. The Z button is your “strong” button, leaving left and right on the D-pad to cover your counter buttons, with up as your block and down as an “action button”. Taunting requires you to use your third hand to hit the 1 or 2 button. On top of all of that, waggling the remote is used for grappling and shaking the nunchuck is used to perform an irish whip. It wouldn’t be so bad if the matches weren’t so fast-paced, or if they didn’t require you to use all of the controls all of the time. Luckily the game does support the classic controller — an absolute must-have for this game.
The graphics are one of iMPACT!’s more impressive features. The animations have a way of blending together very realistically and don’t suffer from the delays found between Smackdown’s moves. This is especially notable when trying to interrupt moves or when trying to do reversals. The character models sport a high level of detail, and while they don’t cause you to look twice to make sure you aren’t watching actual TV wrestling the way the more powerful systems do, their lifelike look easily rivals anything else on the Wii to date.
If you’ve grown tired of Smackdown’s approach to the sport or just want a more casual, arcade-like experience then TNA iMPACT! might be just what you’re looking for, just be aware that this is more of a mid-card contender. It definitely needs some more training and experience before it can truly contend with the World Champ, but it’s still a memorable first effort.
