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.

Something that still bothers me about a lot of games today is the animation, especially in sports games. I’m always down for better textures and more polys, but if the animation is sub par, then why bother? Not only do the wrestlers in TNA iMPACT! look great, they also animate realistically just as they should. Oh, did I forget to mention the game is 60 frames-per-second?

As for the controls, I found them to be very welcoming. Sloppy controls in a wrestling game are a no-no, but TNA got them right. They aren’t sluggish or unresponsive. There are three different types of attacks: grapple, kick, and punch, simple. But if you hold down the right bumper/R1, you can do strong attacks for each. You can also all the basic moves when the opponent is on the ground or in the turnbuckle. I didn’t play a ton of matches, but it passed my initial test.

The only disappointing part about the demo was finding out there is no battle damage on any of the wrestlers. No smeared face paint, no bumps or bruises. Nothing. I’m not asking for blood or Blitz 2-esque injuries, but a little something would have been nice.

I didn’t have time to get into anything else, unfortunately, such as the career or multi-player modes. That will have wait until another time. But it was a good first impression if I do say so myself.

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 to Combine Southern California Development Studios
Combination of Los Angeles and San Diego Studios Will Allow Greater Synergies and Coordination in Support of TNA Wrestling Franchise and Other Projects

CHICAGO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Midway Games Inc. (NYSE:MWY), a leading interactive entertainment publisher and developer, today announced it will be combining the operations of Midway Studios – Los Angeles, located in Moorpark, CA, with Midway Home Entertainment, located in San Diego, CA. The newly combined operations will be located at Midway Home Entertainment’s current San Diego facility. The majority of Moorpark employees, including the entire development team for Midway’s TNA iMPACT!™ franchise, are being offered the opportunity to transfer to the San Diego facility. Midway expects to complete the transition out of the Moorpark facility by September 30, 2008.

Combining the locations will allow the TNA iMPACT! development team to further leverage synergies with Midway’s other development studios in Chicago, Austin, Seattle, and Newcastle, UK, and work in close conjunction with the third-party production, licensing, and quality assurance groups that are currently in San Diego. In addition, the San Diego area has a strong interactive entertainment talent base that will greatly help fuel Midway’s future growth.

As part of this move, Midway expects in the near future to look for new talent in its San Diego studio. For a list of available positions please visit www.midway.com.

The thing that sets TNA Impact apart from other wrestling games is its pace. While not quite the frantic pace of a fighting game, it finds a nice middle ground that makes it comfortable to control. The other thing that really made the game spectacular was the graphics. Truly some of the best I have seen in a game like this. The backgrounds were fully 3D rendered, great dynamic lighting and character models so detailed that at times they seemed almost photographic.

As to the game itself, it contains over ten different modes including Full Metal Mayhem, Tag Team and the infamous Ultimate X which has players trying to grab a big red X that is chained over the ring by large cords. This mode was particularly fun because it gets the wrestlers off the floor and hanging off the giant cords above. While grappling the cords, the wrestlers can still kick each other off or if one is on the ground, he can reach up and pull his opponent down. Pulling off any wrestlers special moves will give you style points that can then be used later to unlock all sorts of goodies from clothing to special move sets.

Of all the things I saw from Midway, TNA Impact was overall the most impressive and you can expect to see it available for your PS3, PS2, Wii and Xbox 360 this summer. You guys can have your Lara Croft and Kasumi, just give me the beefcake.

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.

Ultimately the key for me here lies in the animation. I’ve played too many wrestling games were highly detailed portrayals of the sport’s superstars promise amazing action only to discover that they ultimately move as they are marionettes controlled by an arthritic puppeteer, jerking from one motion to the next. It’s like typing in a cursive font…everything looks pretty but nothing really connects. Midway has taken there impressive animation tools from titles like NBA Ballers and Blitz and applied it to the wrestling genre with pretty sweet results.

As far as control goes, the game is easy enough to pick up and play that I looked like an old hand at it by the time I played my third bout. Unfortunately my opponent looked like an even older hand, but I’ll chalk that down to the fact that he’d been drinking and I had not. Drinker’s luck is real I tell you. Characters were quick to respond to button presses…another pet peeve of mine from previous games taken care of.

The graphics, despite being not quite in a finished state, were quite impressive indeed. Along with the highly detailed players themselves, almost everything was rendered. Crowds, the ropes themselves, shadows…all dynamic. When a wrestler is launched out of the ring the lights playing over the crowd play themselves over the character’s skin as well, and as he climbs back in the ropes realistically part and spring back into place as he passes.

A few of the more acrobatic moves brought a little bit of slowdown, but the game is still being tweaked and for the most part runs at a lovely 60FPS throughout.

All in the only real problem the game faces is consumer familiarity, but with former WCW star Sting becoming TNA’s World Heavyweight Champion at yesterday’s Bound for Glory event (at nearly 50 years old no less!), buzz can only grow for the relatively young wrestling organization.

I feel really good about TNA: Impact!. Once all the moves are finished and the stadiums are complete, it truly has a chance at being one of the best wrestling video games of all time. However, winning critics over is one thing. Winning over fans is something else entirely.

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!)The funeral service was Friday. Under Japanese law, bodies must be cremated. Certainly, there are religious and cultural reasons as well. Before the funeral, I had a vague idea of how things would go down. The Buddhist priest from the wake would return, bang on the drum and chant. And then we’d take the body to be cremated. The end. Or so I thought. After the chanting ended, a trio of men in dark suits entered and began to cut all the flowers adorning the alter. These mounds of flowers were then put on silver trays. We were invited up to the alter.

Flowers were given to us. Fistfuls of them, still wet with moisture. We placed these in the wooden coffin with Mrs. Bashcraft’s grandmother. One of the three men holding a tray told us to cover the body completely with flowers. It all happened pretty fast, and all I remember was everyone crying and then being asked to help push the coffin on a trolley to a hearse. The coffin was heavy and smelled sweet.

The crematorium was all light brown marble. The incinerators were in a long hall with light blubs that illuminated when in use. Someone, perhaps an uncle said, “This is the last time you’ll see her in this form.” There were only a few of us at the service as Mrs. Bashcraft’s grandmother asked that only close family be invited. We all huddled around and watched as the wooden coffin was hoisted up and placed on a metal slab. A button was pressed, and the door to the incinerator was opened. The coffin was slid into place, and we were asked to come back in two hours.

We did.

The incinerator was opened, and the remains of her grandmother covered the metal slab: White bones. A young, clean-shaven man in white shirt shirt and wearing gloves told us to take a pair of chopsticks from a nearby table. There were two sets of chopsticks. One had a black dot on the top. The other had a white dot. We were asked to take one of each. The young, clean-shaven man then went through and explained what we were looking at. “This is her hip, her fingers. These are her legs. This is her knee cap.”

He then asked if he could start breaking up her bones. No one objected. There was an urn, and we were supposed to fill it with her bones. We picked up those bones one-by-one and put them in that white urn with the utensil we use everyday to bring food to our mouths and keep ourselves alive. No one cried, and I felt a tremendous sense of closure — even as that clean-shaven man cracked through skull.

What you missed last night
Costumes for cosplay
PS3 brain
Nintendo still rich
Elite selling out in Japan
TNA Impact trailer

*Flowers.