Ringside Seats: A Look At Pro Wrestling Gaming - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 13 December 2009 / 2,659 Views
As the resident wrestling fan on staff, I always try to keep folks up to date with any news on wrestling related videogames. What I hope to do with Ringside Seats is keep folks up to date in an editorial manner and hopefully entertain at the same time. I might attempt to make this a monthly article, but we’ll see how that goes. With my normal browsing of some select professional wrestling sites, I finally noticed that Southpeak interactive and TNA actually officially announced the new TNA impact: Cross the Line for the Nintendo DS and PSP game systems. This is funny because pretty much everyone else knew about it months ago, as South Peak accidentally mentioned it at a shareholder meeting.
I’m still very bitter about how the last game in this series turned out after getting myself a bit to “pumped for it”. One of my very first reviews on this very site was somewhat of a demolishment of the sad state of the Wii version of that particular game:
“TNA Impact! for the Wii is an unfortunate mess that could have been avoided. Without the bugs that come from having huge chunks of coding ripped from the game and the exclusion of key features, this game could have been really fun. No matter how much I loved the gameplay, I still couldn't get over how sloppy this made the game feel. If I had my choice I would seek this game out on another system, where it has online play, create a wrestler mode, and downloadable content, otherwise you may be disappointed. While it was fun to play for a little while, this lack of features means you will bored of it within a few hours.”
Granted, this was for the Wii version, a game that as far as I could tell was not originally supposed to be made. I eventually did get a chance to play the “full” version on another system, but it was still repetitive and dull despite the amazing graphics and style.
So here I’ve been waiting and hoping for a good company to pop up and hopefully help carry TNA to the point where it can compete with WWE in terms of videogame quality. The problem was that once Southpeak announced the partnership I was a little bummed out. Southpeak isn’t a terrible company at all, but they generally handle ports and licensed games, a quality that doesn’t allow their creative qualities to really show. This was made much worse when I discovered the following screenshots:
One may notice that these look exactly like the character models and other assets from the first TNA impact game. I really hope that these are just placeholder graphics and not a real representation of the game for many reasons. First and foremost you will notice a wrestler named Eric Young who appears to be wearing his wrestling gear which features a Canadian Flag, blonde hair and other touches that he wore throughout 2007-2008, by the time this game comes out this look will be insanely outdated as he has not only turned heel, in the storylines themselves, but has a shaved head and an entirely different moveset. Sadly if this turns out to be a quick port of an old, poorly received game I will be utterly confused and angry.
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Eric Young circa 2007 (Right) vs. Now, pretty big difference in all ways
My main gripe with this is that wrestling games, and sports games in general, are always outdated upon release. With the advent of downloadable content, there is always a possibility to patch the game and make changes or sell add-on content to fix the problems, but that wouldn’t fix a game with years of outdated content. Staples of the last game like Booker T, Christian, Shark boy and Sonjay Dutt aren’t with the company anymore at all and others like Mick Foley, Matt Morgan, Desmond Wolfe and D’angelo Dinero would not be in the game. These folks are amongst TNA’s main event scene at the moment and would feel weird not being there.
TNA and Southpeak had this to say about the pairing on the official TNA website:
"Their unique take on professional wrestling has captivated a continually growing fan base of millions of people across the world," said Richard Iggo, VP of Marketing for SouthPeak. "We look forward to giving those fans the opportunity to go head to head with all their favorite TNA superstars on the go, on either the PSP system or Nintendo
DS."
"We are very excited to partner with SouthPeak to release these games for the handheld systems," said Steve Allison, Chief Marketing Officer for TNA Entertainment. "They have a great team that instantly impressed us with their passion and determination to work with us on these titles."
With Hulk Hogan jumping over to TNA programming, they need everything in their portfolio to line up well as to maximize the extra exposure that they will soon get. A slip up like releasing a game simply for the sake of it, will not go well, and may harm any future games they could do. It’s kind of like the problems WCW had “back in the day” with their games. When they kept releasing increasingly bad games for the Playstation, many began to not trust their games division at all, making it hard to really drum up interest. This was especially bad when EA decided to make a wrestling game that honestly did not feature a wrestling ring. WCW backstage Assault was as bad as you could imagine, as well as being a giant commercial for the now defunct soft drink Surge.
What TNA really needs to really do is somehow woo THQ over to their side once their deal with the WWE ends in January. With WWE officials trying to sever ties with Jakk’s Pacific, the toy line that once made WWE toys and will be making TNA toys from now on, it only seems obvious that THQ will probably not work with them anymore. These guys are also producers for the Smackdown vs. Raw series, and handled the motion capture for THQ. Basically, if the WWE continues to make games with THQ, they will also be making games with a sister company that makes toys for their major competitor, TNA.
This ill will is due to a series of Lawsuits that have plagued both companies for the better part of the decade that attempted to end the WWE exclusive deal contracts with both Jakk’s and THQ. This all stems from a fight that came about due to allegations of racketeering and other bad things that WWE tossed out against both companies. Another reason for my speculation is that WWE is mad at THQ for making a UFC related game, and wants to be their sole “wrestling” game. As many know the UFC is on the same network on American TV as TNA wrestling, so the pieces fit.
So hopefully The TNA impact: Cross the line game is fun, but I will not be buying it if it is a port of a game I simply hated. TNA in their position overseas, beating WWE in ratings in the UK and Australia regularly, should look for better offers, and attempt to get a big catch like THQ. It will only help their product, and get more folks into it.
Now I’d like to leave you with a terrible moment in pro wrestling history:
Special Thanks to Wrestlecrap.com for originally talking about this little gem a few years ago, and join me again next time!
And don't forget to visit our official thread on the forums here.
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TNA looks good. And the way they move looks more realistic then smackdown. But everyone is saying that is plays like crap. Not to mention the created wrestlers look like shit
All i can say is I hope to god that WWE severs this relationship permanently. The last 6 WWE games have been exactly the same and shockingly bad. its almost 2010 and if you do a suplex near the roeps both wrestlers still slide towards the middle of the ring..wtf..lazy THQ bastards.
The games could and should be so much better and competition from TNA games and UFC games might actually make WWE games fun again.
@ Savior X
it's just speculation, but WWE has soured on THQ, and many think that they are trying to hang out with EA, makers of that terrible backstage assault game...lol
I kind of knew beforehand that despite the amazing looks, the TNA wrestling game would be bad.
I didn't know that WWE was ending their deal with THQ though. I don't know who they would replace them with, but after a 11+ year partnership, it would be weird having someone else make the games.
OMG that video was amazing :-D
Wrestling games have gone downhill since the N64 era ended. No Mercy, WM2000, NWO, Day of Reckoning was the best attempt at getting back to those roots but nothing touches those earlier games.
i seriously thought this thread was about the console war.
