TNA iMPACT! (Xbox 360)

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The wrestlers look great

The face buttons are reserved for standard kicks and punches, as well as a grab and an action button (used to climb ropes and interact with weapons and objects). Combining d-pad presses with the grab button will perform traditional wrestling moves, like pile drivers and DDTs (unlike in the WWE, moves that impact on your opponent's head are allowed in TNA). Special, trademark finishers are also implemented this way, which change the camera angle and take control away from the player. These are only available when your Impact! meter, displayed in the upper corners of the screen, is full.

Impact! also has a few mini games that trigger during certain conditions. In an Ultimate X match, when the player is hanging out of the ropes and nears the X above the ring, a slider mini game triggers which requires players to time multiple presses of the A button to drag it down. When you lift your opponent and ready him for a spectacular move a quick time event will trigger which sees both wrestlers battle for supremacy. Press the face buttons in the correct sequence quickly enough and you'll trigger the move. If your opponent beats you to it he will escape from your hold.

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Impact! looks great. The wrestlers look as close to the real thing as we've seen in a wrestling game, with impressive facial animations and effective reactions to spine busting attacks. Much of this is to do with Impact!'s greater focus on authenticity. One of the features the wrestlers are keen to push is the motion capturing sessions they endured. The game features over 200 motion captured moves, filmed during several sessions with about five members of the TNA roster. It's a point of difference, for sure. As Kurt Angle pointed out the last time we chatted to him, there's no mo cap in SmackDown Vs RAW.

It's easy to be cynical about wrestling games. Compared with traditional fighting games they can feel clunky, uninspired and unsophisticated. But this misses the point somewhat. Wrestling games are in a genre all on their own. They're not to be taken as seriously as Virtua Fighter or Street Fighter 2. When played with an open mind and with friends there's plenty of fun to be had. And TNA Impact!, from what we've played, has this in spades. In many ways, I'd much rather pop a wrestling game into my games console when my mates come round for a few beers than Tekken.

TNA Impact! talks the talk, and soon we'll know if it walks the walk.

Whether Impact! is the game to drag the wrestling genre back into quality town, however, remains to be seen. We'll have to wait until September, when the game is due for release, to find out for sure. But what's certain is that TNA Impact! will draw first blood in this heavyweight wrestling video game bout. It'll have at least two months head start on SmackDown Vs RAW 2009, which traditionally releases in November. As the new kid on the block it's a confident move. TNA is laying down the gauntlet. It's saying to WWE: 'You've had it your own way far too long. Things have got stale, and we're here to shake things up.'

So confident is Midway in Impact! that work on TNA 2 is primed to begin. "They're going to take a couple of months off, and after that we go right back in the studio and start working on TNA Impact! 2," revealed Samoa Joe.

"What we didn't get in this game we're definitely looking forward to getting in the next game. One of the big things was Lockdown. We wanted to have Lockdown in this game, time constraints didn't permit it. But I know in the next game we will have Lockdown and tons of features we wanted to implement in this game but we were just getting used to the technology, the new Unreal engine, stuff like that. Now they're masters at using it and so we're eagerly awaiting to start working on the new game."

Trash talking is as much a part of professional wrestling as the wrestling itself, but soon the time for digs and insults will be over, and we'll see if TNA Impact! really will give THQ something to worry about.

TNA Impact! Is scheduled for release on Xbox 360, PS3, PS2 and Wii in September 2008.

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