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A Little TNA On Your PSP
SouthPeak Interactive picked up the licence for TNA Wrestling from the now defunct Midway, and now we get to see what they are doing with it with screens from TNA iMPACT!: Cross the Line.
Here’s A Wrestling Game For You TNA Fans
Growing up in the mid-80′s, I was such a big pro wrestling fan that I had everything, including my styrofoam Hacksaw Jim Duggan 2X4 and my Brett Hart sunglasses. I thought I was such a badass. I eventually grew out if it, but like most, came back during the renaissance in the late 90′s. I was totally nWo 4 life brotha’. But I once more lost interest and haven’t watched wrestling seriously in about 10 years, so I had no idea what TNA was when I went to check out TNA iMPACT! today.
I’ve played most of the wrestling games from the Playstation/N64 era, so I think I can tell the good wrestling games from the bad ones. Like with the rest of the Midway games from today, I didn’t have a lot of time and go over every feature, so consider this some sort of lightning preview.
For me, what makes or breaks a wrestling game is the grapple system. It was great in the Nintendo 64 games, but not so much in, say, WCW/nWo Thunder for PSone (remember that game?). But luckily, the developers for TNA iMPACT! patterned their game after WWF No Mercy for N64, which is often considered one of the best wrestling game ever made, so that’s good to hear.
Midway Moves TNA Impact Team To San Diego
Midway recently combined its Midway Los Angeles studio with its San Diego one, a move the publisher says will help the TNA Impact! team work better with its other studios in Chicago, Austin, Seattle and Newcastle, UK. Midway looks ready to increase the focus on that studio, hiring more staff there as well.
Midway’s third-party production, licensing and quality assurance groups are also in San Diego, so it makes sense they’d want the development team to be nearby them… wait, all this time Midway’s quality assurance has been in a different city than its wrestling franchise development team?
…Hmm! Full announcement after the jump.
Midway Gamer’s Day ’08: TNA Impact
Despite my penchant for sweaty muscle men rolling around on the floor grappling each other, I’ve never really liked wrestling games. They are a little too slow for me and I much prefer the fast pace of a Soul Calibur over the lumbering likes of WWF. That said, what I saw of Midway’s TNA Impact left me walking away a fan and quite impressed.
Justify Your TNA Impact!
newVideoPlayer("TNAJustifyNew_gawker.flv", 475, 376);Can the makers of TNA Impact! justify their game? Only one way to find out…
TNA Impact’s Motion Capture
newVideoPlayer("TNA_MoCap_100807_FINAL_Wide_gawker.flv", 463, 260);
Along with the trailer and gameplay footage of their new wrestling game, TNA Impact, Midway also showed this featurette on the motion capture involved in creating the title. As you can probably tell from the video, the wrestlers are having one hell of a good time participating, though several of them mentioned in performing moves the generally only have to pull off during matches that run a half-hour tops for hours at a time was a bit on the gruelling side. I can only imagine.
TNA Impact! Wrestling
I went into Midway’s Atlanta TNA Impact! wrestling event fully expecting to be underwhelmed by the game. After all, the current and previous gen offerings haven’t exactly been the best the sport had to offer the video game world. I fully believed that wrestling games had reached their peak during the heyday of Wrestlemania 2000. Well after spending some time playing through Midway’s new baby on the Xbox 360, I am pleased to discovery that I might have been wrong on that point. The game strikes a very satisfying balance between gameplay, graphics, and animation that I’ve not witnessed in the genre for quite some time.
Kotaku Flowers and Burned Bones
To: Crecente From: Bashcraft RE: Crap
Wanted to thank you and the other Kotaku staffers for sending a bouquet* all the way to Japan. Working in virtual Kotaku Tower means that our daily environment is probably different from most people’s office experience. I was touched that things like tangible sentiment transcend an invisible work place. Thank you and the other writers for reaching out. We really appreciate it. (And of course! This being Japan, the flower company screwed up the spelling. Doh!)
TNA Impact Debut Trailer
newVideoPlayer("TNA_BFG_Trailer_V3-10-04-07_FINAL_Wide_gawker.flv", 463, 260); Over the weekend I attended an event in my own hometown of Atlanta, during which Midway unveiled what could very well end up being the best wrestling video game since the N64 days. I’ll tell you more tomorrow in my feature on the event, where I got up close and personal with both the wrestling talent and the game, but for now marvel at Midway’s TNA Impact, heading to the PS2, Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 next spring.
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