To the outside world, there probably isn't much of a difference between TNA and WWE. Both are filled with hulking athletes, beautiful women, and unbelievable storylines. However, if you were to try and convince a TNA fan that their favorite federation was the exact same song and dance as Vince McMahon's show, they'd have three words for you.
Ultimate X Match.
A standard of the X Division, the Ultimate X Match suspends a red X or TNA title belt 15 feet above the center of the hexagonal ring. Four posts have cables draped between them to allow combatants to shimmy out to the center of the ring, grab the prize and win the match.
But it's never that easy. Remember the double-stacked huricanrana from Final Resolution 2005? Remember Homicide hitting AJ Styles with the Gringo Cutter from one of the suspension ropes? Remember the leaps for the titles, the midair punches, the massive bumps -- Ultimate X is TNA, and it's only fitting that the match will be front and center when TNA iMPACT! ships this September for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (the match is in the PS2 and Wii versions of the game, too, but we didn't see those).
Before we get into the backbreaking, high-flying action that's synonymous with Ultimate X, we should give you the basics of TNA iMPACT! The first TNA brawler from Midway, iMPACT! promises 60-frames-per-second action that walks a fine line between being a fighter and being a grappler. The action is fast, fierce and focused on bringing something new to the world of professional wrestling videogames, which has traditionally been dominated by THQ's WWE Smackdown vs. Raw franchise, according to Mark Turmell, Midway design director.
"We know we can't compete with Smackdown on features," Turmell said while visiting the IGN office recently. "We really, on this first go, are trying to hang our hats on gameplay."
From our hands-on time with iMPACT!, that focus shines through. Whereas the THQ WWE games have moved to a joystick configuration for both movement and grappling, Midway and THQ have opted for a more traditional wrestling game feel. Although it could easily change by the time the game hits stores, your shoulder button/triggers control your running and blocking while the face buttons govern your punches, kicks and the 25 unique grapples of each wrestler.
While you're pulling off these super-fluid moves -- seriously, we've seen Homicide wail on Styles in the corner, get put into a belly-to-back hold, reverse a German suplex, and end AJ with a Death Valley Driver without any hiccups -- you're filling up an iMPACT! meter. When the meter is packed, you can press in the sticks and kick off iMPACT! Mode, which allows you to pull off your character-specific finisher. The silhouette to the right of the HUD lets you know how damaged a wrestler's head, midsection and legs are. Beneath that iMPACT! meter and next to the color-coded body is the character's name superimposed over his stun meter. This little rectangle fills with blue as the fighter is beaten. When the beatings stop, the character is stunned for as long as it takes the blue line to dissipate.
It's a welcome addition for those of us who are sick of climbing the top rope, launching into a frog splash and catching a knee to the gut from a recovered opponent.
iMPACT! also changes the way most people think about submission moves. Rather than pounding buttons at random or swirling sticks, Midway chose to give both people involved with the move a series of buttons to press in sequence. If you've got someone in an armbar and pull off your button presses flawlessly while the other guy flubs it, more pressure is applied. If the opponent pulls off the taps and you screw up, he'll escape.
Now, Midway's admittance that it's focusing on gameplay rather than options shouldn't be taken like the company is throwing in the towel when it comes to bells and whistles. iMPACT! will pack create-a-player, a story mode for your created brawler to go through, tag matches, fatal four-ways, online brawls, and -- as we ranted about earlier -- Ultimate X.
Because we just got a taste of what iMPACT! will truly be like, we're not 100 percent sure how Ultimate X will come together when you're talking about unique moves and character-specific tactics, but as a whole, the match seemed to capture the frantic feel of the real deal. When we took Samoa Joe up against AJ Styles, we saw a number of different ways we could be pulled, slammed and thrown to the ground. We'd climb the turnbuckle, turn toward the X, and begin the hand-over-hand shuffle out to the center of the ring. Styles would grab our feet and spinebust us to the mat. If we were both hanging from one of the cables -- which sag as the wrestlers put their weight on them -- AJ would kick Joe in the gut and send him plummeting face first to the floor.
With our Joe jobbing the night away, AJ's victory was pretty much in the bag. To get the prize down, the character hanging above the center of the screen has to tap a button as the arrow in a small meter goes back and forth in and out of a sweet spot. Stop the arrow in the sweet spot enough, and you'll pull down the X and become king of the castle. Or the ring. Or the mountain. Or the whatever.
When you get your hands on TNA iMPACT! this September, you'll have at least eight arenas to take your opponent to task in -- including the iMPACT! Zone in Orlando, an armory and an outdoor ring in Mexico -- along with 25 in-ring technicians to take to the top. So far, 18 of those brawlers have been announced including: AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Jeff Jarrett, Sting, Kurt Angle, Abyss, Rhino, Christian Cage, Scott Steiner, Booker T, Tomko, Jay Lethal, Christopher Daniels, Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley, Eric Young, Hernandez and Homicide.
After an hour of playing iMPACT! and listening to Turmell talk old school wrestling games as well as his team's 14-hour days trying to perfect TNA, it's easy to get excited about the product. There are little in-game touches such as how wrestlers drape their arm over a barricade just after being whipped into it and Kurt Angle's American flag-draped entrance, but the big picture we took away from the session was just how good the title looks. It's almost hard to put into words, but the way the sweat on their bodies mixes with the shadows in the ring makes for some truly breathtaking moments.
We were taking Sting up against some computer-controlled shmuck, and there were points when we'd throw a punch to the face or kick a guy in the gut and the game would look like TV footage. It's not perfect -- in the build we were playing, legs were going through the apron when the action spilled outside the ring, the lighting would randomly break, and a number of other preview build visual bugs popped up -- but when things were clicking and guys were doing back flips off of the ropes and into neckbreakers, TNA iMPACT! looked really, really good.
There's still seven wrestlers to announce and five months until the game's release, so keep on checking IGN for updates on iMPACT!.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/866/866807p1.html
Gameplay videos:
http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/814/814947/vids_1.html
New screenshots:
