The few positives first: graphically it’s basic, but competent, and there’s a decent roster selection.
The negatives are everything else.
There are things that are out and out missing, like match commentary, or pretty much any sound effect at all. There’s no in-match music, and I hope you like the first fifteen seconds of the theme song as you’ll be, bafflingly, hearing it on a ear-achingly annoying loop in every menu, including the create-a-wrestler mode.
The otherwise reasonable CAW mode hints at the other problem with the game, as you select the two (yes, two, as in one more that one) moves that your wrestler can perform in the normal course of things. Two? C’mon, folks. I suppose it’s accurate for Hulk Hogan, but it’s lobotomised for everyone else.
Things are no better in the ring, with no atmosphere, sluggish movement and super-dodgy timing leading to missed moves aplenty. Which, actually, might not be a bad simulation of an actual TNA match, but it makes off a disastrously poor video game.
Marvel at the number of times you ponderously attempt to stomp on someone halfway through a standing up animation. Wonder at the number of times the AI decides the best thing to do is run away from you, off the ropes, and let you get a free drop kick in, which has such dodgy hit collision you can practically perform on the other side of the ring and still see the other dude fall over. Thrill to DDTing a guy ten times in a row because, as Pulp teaches us, there’s nothing else to do.
We’re only scratching the surface here, folks, but if you want to waste your cash on a catalogue of disappointments then this is the game for you. This is an embarrassment to all concerned, and I worry about the number of 5 star reviews this had. They must be fraudulent, as I cannot fathom the mind of anyone who could claim this is competent, let alone enjoyable. Even at the current sale price, it’s a total rip off.
Dreadful.