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Slow, Tedious Flawed Game
posted by DaMikeSC (COLUMBIA, SC) Oct 4, 2008
Member since Jul 2007
33 out of 38 gamers (87%) found this review helpful
I'll start with the positives. This is, hands down, the best looking wrestling game I've seen. The models look really solid --- the usual problem of "sweaty" looking the same as "plasticky" is a problem I don't think anybody can ever fix --- but the models look a lot like their real-life counterparts.
That being said, NOTHING else is terribly good.
You have to create a guy for the story mode --- and you have really limited options. Now, if the list of moves was robust enough, this would be a minor concern, but the list of moves is both unbelievably shallow, have very few moves unlocked, and you can assign very few moves to your character.
OK, I admit to being a bit negative towards TNA --- but guys not having a lot of moves in their repertoire is NOT a problem for them. When you have Samoa Joe with, maybe, 10 spots, you have a majorly messed up game.
Even worse, the developers are known to have spent a lot of time motion-capturing thousands of moves --- but then decided to throw most of it out and your guys have similar moves. Kevin Nash, who hasn't left his feet this century, is pulling off missile dropkicks that look IDENTICAL to --- well, everybody else's missile dropkick.
The story mode has you facing off against random scrubs and TNA name guys. The biggest complaint is that the random scrubs are every inch as difficult as the TNA guys, and the TNA guys are laughably difficult. The computer will reverse 60% of the moves you do, bare minimum. And their timing for moves is nearly inhuman.
The game, in a nutshell, is bad. Quite bad.
That being said, NOTHING else is terribly good.
You have to create a guy for the story mode --- and you have really limited options. Now, if the list of moves was robust enough, this would be a minor concern, but the list of moves is both unbelievably shallow, have very few moves unlocked, and you can assign very few moves to your character.
OK, I admit to being a bit negative towards TNA --- but guys not having a lot of moves in their repertoire is NOT a problem for them. When you have Samoa Joe with, maybe, 10 spots, you have a majorly messed up game.
Even worse, the developers are known to have spent a lot of time motion-capturing thousands of moves --- but then decided to throw most of it out and your guys have similar moves. Kevin Nash, who hasn't left his feet this century, is pulling off missile dropkicks that look IDENTICAL to --- well, everybody else's missile dropkick.
The story mode has you facing off against random scrubs and TNA name guys. The biggest complaint is that the random scrubs are every inch as difficult as the TNA guys, and the TNA guys are laughably difficult. The computer will reverse 60% of the moves you do, bare minimum. And their timing for moves is nearly inhuman.
The game, in a nutshell, is bad. Quite bad.
Not a bad first attempt... BUT
posted by Droppo (HOUSTON, TX) Sep 17, 2008
Member since Dec 2006
17 out of 21 gamers (81%) found this review helpful
I find the controls to be the biggest problem with this decent looking game. They aren't very intuitive at all. Even after about 10 matches, I found myself having a lot of trouble just remembering the basics of the main buttons used.
The game runs on the Unreal Engine and uses the Havok physics engine so you know it will look good and people will fall down nicely. The animation is good and there are a few moves that surprise you from time to time, but this first TNA game sticks to the basics for the most part. There are a few variations of match type, but nothing nearly as deep as a WWE game.
And that's probably the biggest drawback here. If you've ever played a WWE game before, you have to feel a bit let down. But there is a foundation here to build on. If TNA keeps building every year, it won't take long for them to make a really great game. They definitely need to work on the control scheme though.
The biggest plus in this game for me was to be able to play as Sting. Sure, he's 48 years old now, but it just feels so old school to have a match between say, Sting and Scott Steiner. By the way, Sting won.
The game runs on the Unreal Engine and uses the Havok physics engine so you know it will look good and people will fall down nicely. The animation is good and there are a few moves that surprise you from time to time, but this first TNA game sticks to the basics for the most part. There are a few variations of match type, but nothing nearly as deep as a WWE game.
And that's probably the biggest drawback here. If you've ever played a WWE game before, you have to feel a bit let down. But there is a foundation here to build on. If TNA keeps building every year, it won't take long for them to make a really great game. They definitely need to work on the control scheme though.
The biggest plus in this game for me was to be able to play as Sting. Sure, he's 48 years old now, but it just feels so old school to have a match between say, Sting and Scott Steiner. By the way, Sting won.