TNA is a fairly popular name amongst wrestling enthusiasts so it isn’t surprising that they extend this franchise to a game for the PS3 and Xbox 360. I played the PS3 version of the game titled TNA Impact. Rest of the review after the jump.

Installation
My first impressions of the game came from the installation, it is probably one of the longest installations I have had to sit through on the PS3, heck multi DVD PC games install faster than Impact did. But I thought to my self, “Hey maybe it’s like a PC game installation, once I do the full install everything runs off the hard drive, allowing for better load times and seamless cut-scenes.”
Wrong! TNA Impact also has the worst load times ever and if you happen to play a tag team match ready to have at least 15 minutes wasted on load times for intro videos that you can escape only after they load, all of course rendered in real time. On hind side gimme the good ole mpeg/bink videos any day, better load times with the same result.

Game Modes
The game has two game modes Story and Exhibition. The difference is obvious, the story mode has a story to go by with your exclusively designed character. It lets you unlock new characters and moves which you can use in both the modes. While Exhibition mode lets you test the different venues, characters and match types without playing the story mode. However, without the story mode Exhibition mode is very limited.


Story Mode
There is no point in describing the Exhibition mode since most of the featured game modes come in the Story mode.
You start out as a world class TNA wrestler who is asked to take a dive during the world championship belt match. You don’t and you go on to win the belt, only to be met by goons outside the TNA campus. The goons beat you to a pulp literally and you are somehow saved and land up in a Mexican hospital. Which for some strange reason has the worlds greatest plastic surgeon who can make you look like you want to and I mean the works. Not to mention, all this surgery is done for free. The premise is very Hindi movie like, but I liked it that developers said hey lets give a back story where we somehow get a new face and body thanks to expert plastic surgeons. Perfect.

The gameplay
Unfortunately the game itself is far from perfect. I loved the character studio it let me really configure my player just the way I wanted it. Immediately after the “reconstruction surgery” you realise you might be a wrestler by profession. So you take part in a wrestling match that will take you to America. YEY!
For me this match was the longest wrestling match I have ever played on a game. There are several moves you can execute and the fight looks a lot more vicious than it does on TV both of which are good. But the reason I was playing it for long was not because I was enjoying mind numbing violence, but the fact that I couldn’t figure out how to end the damn thing. Simply because there was no tutorial within the story mode that lets me learn the keys. Thanks midway. Needless to say I didn’t manage to win the match and all my efforts to escape getting pin down were in vain.
After the first match I exited the story mode to search for a tutorial, which I found inside Extras. Yes thanks I was expecting the tutorials to be hidden in extras. Now the tutorial is unlike most tutorials you will experience in a normal game, because it’s a freaking video. And if you are stupid enough like I was to click a button you will have to watch the video from the beginning. The tutorials helped me with the game but not as much as an interactive one would have.
Continuing with the game I managed to defeat the opponents and reach the shores of America, where I was immediately given a chance to join TNA. A few matches later you are introduced to tag team matches with a new side kick. With no instructions on how to get him in to the ring, back to the tutorials.
This back and forth through the tutorials continues every time there is a new mode introduced. There are nine types of matches you can have standard, tag team, free for all, Ultimate X, Ultimate X FFA, Submission, FCA match, FCA match tag and Handicap. My personal favourite is Free for all even though there is a lot of confusion every hit counts.
The game is fun to play multiplayer, but the story mode has much to be desired, it does nothing other than spew a Bollywood style story and unlock stuff.
The graphics of the game is really good but there are a few places where things merge in to other things causing a few graphic glitches. These can be annoying but ignorable when playing against a human opponent.
But the most annoying problem however is the focus of your main character changing from the immediate opponent to the one outside during tag team matches. It causes a lot of confusion and usually ends up in your character being beaten senseless.

Bottom line or lines
I like the game its fun, it’s brutal, with too many moves to count, some of them so violent you will stand and cheer. Impact is also a lot of fun to play against friends with a couple of beers. But the annoying learning curve and a non interactive tutorial make it hard to enjoy the first time around. Despite the bad points the game is still a good one to have for TNA fans.

Rating: 2.5/5
Price: Rs 2,899
Distributed by: Milestone Interactive

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