TNA iMPACT! Hands-On Previews and Video Clip

"So the gauntlet has been laid, and now it's time for us to play the game and have a look for ourselves. The most obvious thing that strikes us is that Impact! is a quicker, zippier game than THQ's. The wrestlers move about the six-sided ring extremely quickly, almost too quickly given their size. It's also a game that's less about grappling and more about counters. On the Xbox 360 pad the RB button is used for reversals and counters. Time it right and you can counter pretty much any move in the game, from punches to kicks to off the top rope attacks. Time it even better and you can counter a counter, leading to some spectacular multi-string reversals where the wrestlers spin about and shift position as they switch between having a move performed on them to performing a move on their opponent. This actually works well, and led to some enthusiastic 'whoas!' and laughs during our multiplayer time with the game."

"It helps that matches flow superbly too, with collision detection that's really spot-on. What's more, every one of your motion-captured moves can be executed with satisfying responsiveness. There's no hitting the punch button and watching your wrestler struggle into the correct fighting animation. It's immediate and, whether you're kicking or punching, the whole game feels faster and smoother as a result. The range of moves in iMPACT! is fantastic too, with Samoa Joe quoting the number of individual moves at around 200, meaning you won't get bored churning out the same stock grapple again and again."