TNA Imact ! cross The Line

We welcome the release of TNA Impact! on the PS3. We welcomed it because, while was hardly revolutionary itself, it provided some much needed competition to the bloated, dated monopoly of the Smackdown! vs Raw series. Or we hoped it would at least. The immediacy of the fighting system called to mind Smackdowns of yesteryear as well as the various AKI Engine titles that hardcore wrestling gamers will swear to you are the best ever. But where the Smackdown series shines – in its wealth of content and features – TNA Impact! was found severely lacking. There just wasn’t much to do and it got boring pretty fast. Had it been a PSP game then it would have been forgivable, and for that reason we felt entitled to expect the same volume of content in this handheld spin-off at least. But no, Cross The Line has been cut back even further.

We wouldn’t object so strongly to the stingy selection of modes, wrestlers and arenas if it weren’t for the fact that it doesn’t matter what you pick, every match feels almost exactly the same. Wrestling games aren’t known for exhibiting subtlety or requiring skill, this we accept, but you should at least be able to get creative. Different combinations of wrestlers, match types and situations should produce different results, so that there’s an incentive to keep trying stuff. That’s what wrestling’s all about, right? What would happen is this guy took on that guy in this lace for that title?
And “Oh my god, I can’t believe that happened!” That’s the side of wrestling that the SvR games cater to very well, and that Cross The Line entirely fails to address. Everything just feels the same. Not fundamentally bad, just exactly the flippin’ same every flippin’ time. The match types have different rules but essentially all require the same strategy – batter your opponent ‘til he’s thoroughly knackered then press CIRCLE – and worst of all every wrestler has exactly the same fighting style. The move sets are all pretty much identical bar the finishers, which have different animations but are all activated in exactly the same way, and all of the fighters are about the same size and same speed. The only way to tell them apart is by their appearance – the likeness are very good, by the way – and that really shouldn’t be the case.

Final Verdict

Scaled back to the point of submission, this is clearly the product of an ‘everything must go’, rock bottom sale at Midway, and not of any kind of effort. Decent looks and presentation can’t mask the absence of worthwhile content.
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