TNA: Impact Review. The Bad, The Bad, and well....The Bad

{This is an old review I wrote for Destructoid.com}

I had actual high hopes going into this game, that should have been my first concern. Hype = mostly bad, especially 4 years of hype. Let's start with the franchise product: TNA is a lack luster wrestling organization that takes a lot of cues from the WCW days by capitalizing on out of work 5 star wrestler acquisitions (I.E.: Kurt Angle, Booker T, and now Mick Foley). Owned by wrestler Jeff Jarrett, TNA's first match was in 2002, the company then consisting of mostly Indy circuit guys or people who didn't want to work for Vince McMahon. They also, contrary to belief used to have a 4 sided ring. Story: Top wrestler "Suicide" is beaten, bloodied, battered, brained, and any other bad word you can think of that starts with a "B". Waking up in Tijuana, Mexico, you don't know who you are. Two half wit (probably half degreed) doctors inform you that they ALSO happen to be Plastic Surgeons and decide to fix you all better in a day and send you on your way. NOTE:I never should have swallowed the worm. You slowly work your way back up to the TNA roster making friends, enemies, and frenemies. All whilst eventually trying to help Eric Young from becoming LAX's bondage doll. Controls: Wow, the controls are SO unresponsive. I don't understand how games today can still be this ba- oh wait this game is made by Midway. Seems the only thing you can reverse is your opponent picking you up off the mat. Seemingly the A.I. can reverse everything and your mothers’ birth. The grappling "system" really seems to not be there, but instead replaced by “rock, paper, scissors”. Making you pull off random ass moves, that just gets reversed anyway. Graphics: Honetly all I can really say is that it looks like a late last generation Xbox game. Soundtrack: The ONLY music in this game is the 10 second Intro samples of the wrestler's Gameplay: My overall experience with this game was very dull. There are a lot of problems with this game. Very glitchy hit detection is one of the major problems here and the lack of any kind of stat progression. The lack of stat's is so heart breaking because the A.I. becomes so difficult at times, seeming like all their attack's do 5X more damage than yours. Only one arena in the game is of real life, and they all want to give off this false sense of reality that every one uses 6 sided rings. The only weapon in each arena is the steel chair. There also is no label anywhere in the game that reads "No Holds Barred", but yet there are no rules at all, not even a referee cared to show up in this awkward at best game. The main thing that always caused me to lose in this game was the lack of a rope break and/or the stat problem. The choice of up to 26 wrestlers is decent for a launch title of a franchise, (I understand there will be more through DLC.) but none of them are up to date. Sharkboy doesn't have his Austin gimmick, Eric Young isn't "Super Eric", hell Christopher Daniels isn't even "Curry man" in this game. The "Create-A-Wrestler" is so thin that every single person you make looks Mexican, there isn't even much of a move selection even after you unlock a lot of them. The Good: The game is atleast a rent for the easy acheivement's 100GP just for beating Jeff Jarrett The Bad: The only BAD elements are probably the voice acting, they aren't good but they aren't ugly as well The Ugly: EVERYTHING