TNA Impact!

Sep 30 2008

(X360), Midway

AT LONG last we have a rival to the undisputed heavyweight champion of wrestling games.

The fact that the Smackdown v Raw series won the title by default as there was no competition is neither here nor there, but just like the televised wrestling world, TNA is now a serious rival to the all-conquering WWE.

There can be no doubting that plenty of work has gone into giving this game a graphics package to be proud of and it never disappoints. Every grappler in the game is brilliantly rendered and the action gives the feel of watching the stars of TNA going at it in the six-sided ring.

The WWE games always felt a little contrived in story mode, and while TNA doesn’t conquer this completely, the one-player mode is relatively good.

But TNA does trail to its rival when it comes to creating your own wrestler and the actual roster of stars featured. There are no female stars on this game, despite many of TNA’s main TV storylines revolving around them.

However, there is one real complaint with this title as you get game hours behind you, and that’s the lack of variety.

Yes, you can play as different grapplers and use their different finishers, but the stock moves used by all characters are lacking in choice.

The game has its plus-points and arcade-style gamers will love the realism of the graphics, but wrestling die-hards will find the lack of longevity in the game a little tedious.

If it came down to a bout between the TNA and WWE wrestling games, it’d be hard to pick a winner. The end result? It’d probably be a double count out.

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