TNA iMPACT! Official Thread

I said it again because the last guy said they had no resemblence.

this game makes me feel less hyped for smackdown this year.

Woah, impressive. They actually gave AJ his heel look already!

Article From Game Tap:
Making videogames can be dangerous work. Don't believe me? Ask Sonjay Dutt--the Original Playa from the Himalaya almost turned into the Splat on the Mat during a recent motion-capture session at Midway's Chicago studio.

"I was trying a Sliced Bread off the top rope and landed sideways on my head and neck," Dutt told me at TNA's Bound for Glory fanfest in Atlanta. "I guess I learned the hard way about all the pain that goes into developing these games."

"He was trying the move on me, I was right there," adds fellow wrestler and mo-cap stuntman Senshi. "It was just mistiming, but it was a big worry because we're all very cautious about injuries. This is just for a videogame, we're not in the ring competing, so the intensity isn't there. We're actually trying to protect each other more during the videogame shoot, but the way he landed was scary. There was miscommunication, he slipped off and landed on his head. We ended up taking him to the hospital just to be safe. The guys at Midway said this was the first injury they've had at their studio, but like they say, we do more high-risk moves than anything they've ever tired to capture before."

"Our guys are really dedicated to doing everything right," says Samoa Joe, "and Sonjay unfortunately got a little too dedicated and took one in the head. He was on the shelf for a week or so, but he's really resilient and bounced right back. We all felt bad for him...for about five minutes."

Joe laughs, then shifts focus to how he not only helped out with the motion capture, but also played a key role in advising the creative leads of the game, Mark Turmell and Sal DiVita. Those are also the brilliant gaming minds behind such classics as NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and WWF Wrestlemania (Yokozuna threw salt in my eyes!), and Joe offered them advice on what the wrestlers themselves want to see in the first TNA videogame. "The wrestling videogames that are out now, they don't even feel like you're playing a game. It's like a bunch of canned animations thrown together. That's not fun. We wanted something that was really fast paced, really intuitive, and something that felt like what we really do out in the ring. TNA is all about not restricting its wrestlers, so we knew that would translate well into a videogame."

"In WWE, they won't even let their wrestlers perform piledrivers anymore. In TNA and in our videogame, we have a guy who does a flipping piledriver. That's just how crazy we are," adds the high-flying AJ Styles.

Playing an early build of TNA Impact (60 percent complete), it's that frenetic style, that quick pace, and those high-flying moves that really look to set the game apart, especially when it comes to one of the modes wrestling fans have been looking forward to most, the Ultimate-X match.

"Ultimate-X is great. It's a three-man match the way we have it configured right now, so there's a lot of bedlam happening all the time," says Turmell. "You have to get up to the X hanging above the ring, and there's a little minigame when you're holding onto it. People can jump up and rip you down from it, they can fly at you from the side, and there's just a lot of heated action."

The wrestlers are headed to Midway's new L.A. studio in the next couple of months for the first Ultimate-X motion capture session. Until then, producers will continue to fine-tune the gameplay. According to Turmell, TNA will feature approximately 25 wrestlers, with room to grow if a few top names decide to join the wrestling promotion. Eight venues will also be playable, including Japan, England, and of course, the Impact Zone in Orlando, Florida, complete crowd chants ("Joe's gonna kill you!") and blood stains on the mat.

"I think that blood is actually mine," laughs AJ Styles when he sees the crimson splotch in the game. "I've been known to get punched in the mouth pretty good by Joe."



AJ Styles heads to the ring.


At least if Joe kills you in the game, you can just hit reset.
Everything from the flying dropkick that sends your opponent flipping over the top rope to the Canadian Destroyer that leaves opponents motionless hits with that same type of Samoa Joe impact, and the reactions of the wrestlers getting hit really go a long way to help tell the story inside the six-sided ring.

"Selling the move is even more important than the move itself," explains legend Jeff Jarrett as he watches Christopher Daniels and "Black Machismo" Jay Lethal slug it out at the game in HD. "What we strive for is to be as realistic as possible. The entire world knows that what we do in professional wrestling is scripted entertainment, but at TNA we strive to make our storylines real and our action hard-hitting, and that's what you're going to see in our game. From what I've heard, the Ultimate-X match is going to be revolutionary in terms of wrestling videogames. We're excited because we look at the videogame as a way to introduce gamers to our product, and when they see things like people jumping from wires in the Ultimate-X match, they are going to want to tune into TNA to see if our wrestlers can do it for real. And we can."

Adds AJ Styles, "TNA is going to benefit so much from this game. Everyone plays videogames, everyone. There are going to be a couple million people out there who play our game and then tune into our show. Fans who might play as me or Samoa Joe or Christopher Daniels and already like them because of the moves they saw us do in the game. I know that's how it is with me. My favorite wrestling game of all time is Virtual Pro Wrestling 2. This has all the companies that Japan had, New Japan, All Japan, all these companies, and it even had some old-school guys in there like Abdullah the Butcher, Dory and Terry Funk, Kamala. It's so fun, and it's actually where No Mercy got its engine from. I just played [Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 again] last night, and that's the kind of classic I'm hoping we have with our game. The type of game even a few years after it comes out, you have someone talking about how they still play it and how that AJ Styles guy did some cool move off the top rope."

And in the end, that's exactly the type of experience Midway plans to deliver.

"We won't have the depth of features of WWE our first year," says Turmell, "but we plan on winning everyone over with our gameplay. One of the things we've always prided ourselves on is the pick-up-and-play aspect. You can start the game and immediately see some cool moves. I know when I play, I'm AJ Styles. I love his move set. He can not only spring off the top turnbuckle, but he does a lot of moves mid-rope where he jumps at you. In fact, every wrestler has custom moves and signature moves, and wrestlers are broken down into four fighting styles. There are brawlers, high flyers, technical, and submission experts, and that's our biggest challenge as we move forward--distinction of wrestlers. We want to bring more moves that are unique per guy. We want to have about 2,500 moves in the game, and we're at about half of that right now.

"I think it all goes back to gameplay, and that's our Trojan horse. Every WWE gamer is going to want to put their hands on these controls, they are going to have to give it a shot. Whether they are Kurt Angle fans, they rent it, they're just curious, whatever--once they put their hands on these controls and realizes how much better our game plays than the WWE titles, we're gold."

Laughs Dutt: "As long as my pain means that you're playing a better game, it was worth the headache."














From reading that it appears that Petey Williams is in the game because I belive AJ said we've got a guy in TNA AND in the game that does a flipping piledriver..

Agreed

To be completely honest, that doesn't prove anything. Yukes/THQ have actually been known to mixmatch eras/gimmicks of superstars. Midway might have just updated his "look" and not his gear.

Not badmouthing this game in the slightest bit, as the more I see (not hear) about this game, the more I want it. As of right now, looking forward to this much more than SmackDown! vs. RAW 2008.

- Triple S

I believe those have been posted. But they still look sweet.

I've been exicted for it since I learned it was coming.. even when people doubted it.

So the CD is officialy in YAY