TNA iMPACT: Cross the Line | Review (DS)

Hello there again my lovely readers! JynX here and I bring with me a review of recent release from developers Double Tap Games, published by out good friends at SouthPeak Games, TNA iMPACT: Cross the Line. This wrestling clobber fest was released for both the DS and the PSP, but not having a PSP (i wonder where the hell that thing went), I plan on giving you the run down on the DS version of this game.  So I don’t know about any of you but I don’t really watch wrestling anymore.. Don’t get me wrong I used to, a lot, but that was back in the days of the Ultimate Warrior and The Big Boss Man and even The Rockers. Give yourself a pat on the back if you recognized any of those. So after doing some research, sitting on my couch with some top ramen and a coke, I watched some of this TNA and realized that I still like wrestling. Sure it’s fake as hell! But I’ll be damned if it inst at least a bit entertaining, right? Ok ok. Enough about my awesome personal life, lets get on to the game shall we? Why yes we shall, and if you don’t like it.. Then tough… shouldn’t have clicked here huh.

Sporting an 18 character cast, players are able to select from such show favorites at Abyss, James Storm and even Mick Foley (he’s still alive!!???) Amazing. Each character comes with their unique finisher and a nice little taught to get the fans all riled up while your opponent lays on the ground. The attack set up is fairly basic, A throws a kick while B will punch. Holding the R button will modify these attacks giving you a strong kick or punch instead that will send your opponent flying to the ground. The X button will send your character in a run and using the d-pad will send you off in the direction of your choice and last but not least of your the Y button lets you grapple. Tapping any direction on the d-pad, except up, along with Y will perform a quick little grapple move to take your opponent down while adding in the R button performs a power grapple and lets you perform some higher power slams again using the D-pad and Y. Nothing horribly difficult here which was nice. If you’re a fan of submission moves then that it when you would use the Y button with up on the d-pad. This will bring up a little mini-game on the touchscreen that will have you press numbered buttons in order to do more damage and get your opponent to tap out. All the attacks perform the same functions if your opponent is on the ground and being by either the head or the legs of your victim will dole out different punishment. As I said, the control scheme isn’t all the hard to grasp, some of the moves seems like there are one to many buttons to press, to get up on the turnbuckle you have to press the direction of the buckle on the d-pad the R button and the X button, but when you do it you notice its really not bad.

The game offers three game modes for your enjoyment; the standard exhibition match, the Bound for Glory mode and the Victory Road mode. Exhibition is pretty self explanatory, you can select if you want a single or tag match and if you want victory by submission, pin or either. Bound for Glory is sort of the story mode if the game. You select one wrestler to play as and you are run through a series of matches that follow a vague story for specific to each wrestler. Now the stories aren’t very deep so don’t expect too much, though I hear on the PSP version this may be different. The way the stories are told is by dialog screens in between each of your matches. A character will come on and tell you whats going on and what will be happening next. That’s it. All the stories, though, culminate with your character winning the TNA Heavy Weight championship belt. The last mode up here is the Victory Road mode; this is a pick your belt category and make your way to the top. You have the Heavyweight belt, the Tag Team or the Ultimate X belts to choose from and each will run you through about eight matches till you get the belt. There’s no story between matches just a straight run through till you’re at the top. From the main menu you can select the Achievements option and view each wrestler and see how many win/losses they have and also which belts you have won with that character in any of the game modes.

I’d go on more about the game but really I’ve run you down everything there is to do. There is a tutorial mode, though its just screen with instructions, you don’t actually get to do the things the tutorial is teaching you until you are in a match. As far as graphics go I have no complaints there, the DS has never really done true to life graphics very well and this is no exception. The body models are a bit pixelated around the edges during the matches but its really nothing to gripe to bad about. The crowds around are simply some colored blobs that move up and down but you can tell that they did but some effort into making the backgrounds and arena areas look as good as they could. There were some other little foux pas I ran into, like our oppenent magically appearing on your shoulders when you went to do a powerbomb, or the fact that the grapple action doesnt work all the time even if you are standing right in front of your opponent. I dont see these as programming errors at all and chalk them up more to being limited by the DS itself

So really that about wraps it up. I’m wishing a but that I had access to the PSP version, if any of you readers out there have the oppourtunity to run through that version leave a comment or two and tell me some differences.

Wanna chat about some wrestling hmm? Drop me a line at JynX@roboawesome.com