Like every Cheetos-fueled teenager, I partake in the odd video game now and again. I am a player of video games because my childhood dream is to shoot aliens in the face with overpowered machine guns from a first- or third-person perspective. Until that day comes, I highly anticipate this year’s release of the TNA Impact game for the XBOX 360 (360 is the number of times you can disappoint your parents by having computer-generated relations with computer-generated prostitutes), the PlayStation 3 (three is the number of steaks you can cook on the console at the same time), and the Nintendo Wii (I call my man factory my Wiiner). THQ’s Smackdown vs. RAW series stands king among next generation wrestling games, but Midway hopes to usurp the throne with Total Nonstop Action’s introduction into the video game fray.
Have you ever wanted to grab a large yet insignificant letter of the alphabet from cables suspended high above a hexagonal ring? Have you ever envisioned yourself as Rhino, war machining your girth into your opponents’ midsections? Have you ever seen Impact and said, “Hey, this show doesn’t confuse me at all. If only I could play this goodness on a glossy, overpriced machine”? If you have thought about any of these questions in your fruitful existence, consider yourself a buyer of TNA Impact: The Video Game. To be honest, I have grown tired of World Wrestling Entertainment and their entire video game series. Sure, they have passable graphics, but as a young man, I want video game man sweat to be as realistic as possible. Also, they may boast an impressive roster but I can only play as Michelle McCool for so many times before I question my life. This year, I’m ready to spread my wings of love for something new. Yeah, that’s right. I got myself some wings of love. What do you have? Nothing.
Popular video game sites will try to play up TNA Impact: The Video Game as the greatest wrestling title of all-time. On the other hand, this is The Swerved, the one site that tells it like it is. The last thing that this blog would do is lie to you; it would never even think of it. Just give The Swerved a chance to make you happy. The Swerved does not love you; it is in love with you. Now, take The Swerved’s hand into the meadow of happiness.
The following match types will make you go, “Wow, those are match types, all right."
Singles Match
Two grapplers battle it out amidst a group of clueless Universal Studios tourists.
Tag Team Match
Two teams fight for the right to tag team dissension.
X-Division Match
Two to sixty small guys trade flips for five minutes while Kurt Angle wanders backstage in his banana hammock with hilarious results.
X-Division Gauntlet
Two to sixty small guys trade flips for five minutes in an over-the-top-rope battle royal. The remaining two competitors get the opportunity to trade flips in a more intimate setting.
Xscape the Cage Match
Two wrestlers attempt to Xscape the steel cage which surrounds the six-sided ring. To “Xscape” a steel cage is a climb out of it with the assistance of a dirt bike and a bottle of Mountain Dew to the sound of non-threatening, high energy, royalty-free stock music.
Monster’s Ball
Four wrestlers hit each other with garbage cans and flimsy wooden tables to infuriate garbage can manufacturers and sensitive woodworking teachers from high school.
Reverse Battle Royal
Twenty to thirty wrestlers (X-Division or normal-sized) duke it out in an over-the-top rope contest. The two remaining wrestlers must say something nice about each other or they won’t get any ice cream after the show.
King of the Mountain
Do you love to put up Christmas lights in the freezing cold? The King of the Mountain ladder match allows you to climb a ladder and put a championship belt on a hook because it‘s the logical thing to do. Fun, right?
Reverse Cage Match
Ten wrestlers punch and kick each other at ringside in a sloppy manner. The first two wrestlers to climb up and over the cage wall and touch both feet on the canvas get to wrestle in a bout in which the first wrestler to escape the cage and touch both feet on the ringside mat gets to wrestle the wrestlers on the outside of the cage. Next, the next three wrestlers that can climb back into the ring and touch both feet on the canvas gains the opportunity to fight the loser of the first stage of the Reverse Cage Match. Then, the four wrestlers inside of the cage have to climb out of the ring and back fifty times. The first wrestler to do this task fifty times wins the chance to travel to the ends of the Earth in search of four golden pieces of the broken amulet of Aaarsgaard, the Norse God of Simplicity.
Reserve Match Match
Two wrestlers begin in the pinfall position. The first wrestler to exit the ring and walk to the back in a backwards fashion wins.
This fall or the next fall or the subsequent fall after that one, TNA Impact: The Video Game puts the wrestling fan in realistic venues around the world. Hone your grappling skills in North America; venture to the Far East and become an elite high flyer; take your bags to Europe and transform yourself into a feared submission specialist; or, go down to South America for a experimental change of gender. The choice is yours, Player 1 or Player 2.
Impact Zone (Orlando, Florida) *
The current home of Total Nonstop Action. Jonny Fairplay stops by sometimes. Just ignore him. Don’t turn on the lights. He will go away.
The Asylum (Nashville, Tennessee) *
The original home of Total Nonstop Action. Get nostalgic for the days when you had to pay ten dollars to see Jeff Jarrett.
Tokyo Dome (Tokyo, Japan) *
Don’t fear the silence of the passionate Japanese crowd. They are simply horrified at your American ways.
Gwinnett Center (Atlanta, Georgia) *
Taint the memories of WCW’s former fanbase forever with a visit to their stomping grounds.
Madison Square Garden (New York, New York) *
Madison Square Garden, I say? Don’t you dare question it. With TNA Impact: The Video Game, some woman named Madison will let you wrestle in her garden that is in the vague shape of a square. Enjoy.
*subject to change to non-existence
Midway’s TNA Impact: The Video Game boasts an enormous roster of twenty wrestlers. I don’t know even how to count to twenty. In school, when my third grade teacher would ask each student to count to one hundred for some reason, I would start to do The Robot after nineteen. At first, the teacher said, “What the heck are you doing?” In response, I continued to do The Robot. Eventually, the teacher gave me an A and unlimited use of the Apple II. In other words, twenty wrestlers is a lot of wrestlers.
Take this roster and love it, Smackdown vs. RAW. You may have Shawn Michaels, Triple H, John Cena, The Undertaker, Edge, Randy Orton, Batista, Big Show, Umaga, Chris Jericho, JBL, Finlay, Finlay’s son, Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, MVP, CM Punk, Kane, and the immortal Michelle McCool, but TNA Impact: The Video Game has Eric Young. Suck on those suckers, suckas.
TNA Impact: The Video Game Official Roster:
- Kurt Angle (Finisher: Angle Slam)
- Karen Angle (Finisher: Angle Slam)
- Kira Angle (Finisher: Canadian Destroyer)
- Samoa Joe (Finisher: Muscle Buster)
- AJ Styles (Finisher: Styles Clash)
- Tomko (Finisher: Angle Slam)
- Christian Cage (Finisher: Unprettier)
- Rhyno (Finisher: Canadian Destroyer)
- Homicide (Finisher: Gringo Killer)
- Hernandez (Finisher: Canadian Destroyer)
- Alex Shelley (Finisher: Being in Doghouse)
- Chris Sabin (Finisher: Cradle Shock)
- Petey Williams (Finisher: Angle Slam)
- Scott Steiner (Finisher: Canadian Destroyer)
- Jay Lethal (Finisher: Top Rope Elbow Drop)
- Jeff Jarrett: 'Bringing TNA to Hulk Hogan' Version (Finisher: Absurd Claim)
- Mike Tenay (Finisher: Shouting)
- Don West (Finisher: Shouting)
- Jeremy Borash (Finisher: Having Bug Eyes)
- Jumper: The Total Nonstop Kangaroo (Finisher: Canadian Destroyer into Angle Slam into Canadian Destroyer)
Midway’s TNA Impact: The Video Game has revolutionary controls which rival those of the most popular games today. As a wrestling video gamer, you might enjoy such luxuries as manual camera control and the ability to move your wrestler out of the ring, but TNA Impact: The Video Game is years ahead of its time. Be prepared for the “Super-Fixed Camera,” a camera which gives you the action continents away from the almost-appears-to-be-a-stop-sign circle. Let’s pretend you have selected to wrestle at the Impact Zone. Once you choose your wrestler and your opponent, the super-fixed camera will position itself in Cairo, Egypt rather than the bland Impact Zone. Why know what you’re doing on the screen when you can watch sand blow over more sand in a dry climate for hours on end? In addition, “In-Ring Play” constricts the match within the six-sided ring. You don’t want to go outside anyway. It’s not that interesting, really. According to numerous research sessions held by TNA representatives, video game players don’t want to roam anywhere they wish. If anything, they prefer claustrophobic spaces (TNA’s research concluded that the best multiplayer map for Halo 3, Bungie Studios’ megahit shooter, was a crawlspace). Since Midway and TNA desires to give the fans what they like, TNA Impact: The Video Game lets you compete as if you are stuck inside of a crawlspace.
In addition, TNA Impact: The Video Game utilizes various control schemes that are specific to each next generation console. Whether you own an XBOX 360, a PS3, or a Nintendo Wii, TNA Impact: The Video Game has the controls for you. Just so TNA is aware, you don’t mind having multiple surgeries to fix future carpal tunnel injuries, do you? You don’t? Great.
For the benefit of those with high quality speakers, TNA Impact: The Video Game is brought to you in both mono and stereo (where available). Get ready to hear the realistic bone-crunching, hard-hitting sounds of TNA. You will never hear a pin drop with TNA Impact: The Video Game for TNA’s fantastic announce team will make sure to narrate the pin drop for you. Hear the deafening boos, the boisterous cheers, and the toe-tapping rhythm of TNA’s entrance theme catalogue. From the white noise of the Motor City Machine Guns to the angelic anthem of Sting, Midway’s upcoming release has just what the doctor orders you to listen to in his sketchy doctor’s office. Will your doctor prescribe TNA Impact: The Video Game for all your aural needs? If they won’t, get a new doctor. Seriously.
Trust me on this one, loyal readers. The graphics for TNA Impact: The Video Game are outstanding. The three-dimensional wrestler models are the best that professional wrestling video games have to offer in the next generation. The wrestlers look the part, act the part, and most of all sweat the part. While you’re playing, it will feel as though you are watching an actual TNA Impact broadcast. You know how editions of TNA Impact have adequate production values but still look like they occur in the haze of a smoky alcoholic’s basement? If you can’t get enough of TNA’s upbeat atmosphere, TNA Impact: The Video Game duplicates the unique aura with precision.
Before you line up to buy a game that doesn’t come out for another four to five months, let me warn you that at this point in the production, the trail blazing graphics for the Midway title are incomplete. Although the game is not finished, don’t worry. Video game developers and publishers prefer to frequently delay for minor tweaks and upgrades. For instance, TNA Impact: The Video Game has only been delayed two to three times. You may think that’s two to three times many, but don’t worry. When the game comes out, you will be content. You will not be suspicious about the delays, nor will you be skeptical about the noticeable absence of finished footage available to avid players right now. Go out and spend a day in the sun. By the time you come back, TNA Impact: The Video Game will be ready and waiting for you, unless it is delayed again. Though, don’t worry. I’m sure Midway is up to amazing things.
I’m not going to sugarcoat the early reception for Midway’s gam, so I will declare the following: initial reviews claim that TNA Impact: The Video Game is the cure for every incurable disease known to modern man. If you find yourself in a life-threatening motor vehicle accident in the near to distant future, play TNA Impact: The Video Game and your crippling neck, back, and head injuries will subside. If you are in dire need of a kidney or heart transplant, put TNA Impact: The Video Game in your console and a fully functional kidney and or heart will start to grow inside your body. If you are in great debt in the hundred-thousand-dollar range, TNA Impact: The Video Game can’t help you. For your edutainment, TNA Impact: The Video Game is not a miracle worker.
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