Mobile Game Review of "TNA Wrestling"

TNA Wrestling (AMA) is a full Wrestling RPG based on TNA Wrestling outfit (yes, it's a real wrestling league with its own stars, not as famous as WWE, but interesting enough). It is one of the best games I've played on a mobile phone, and that's saying a LOT.

The graphics are primitive, but well animated. Start by creating your own wrestler by choosing from a series of portraits, then customize like skin tone, outfit color, armband color, and so on. Later when you are signed as a pro you can add a shirt and further color customizations.

You then get to talk to a variety of characters, and the conversation choices you make will affect the # of points you get. You can gain face points (good) or heel points (evil), and sometimes, some of both. For example, when talking to Gail Kim, you can choose "face" answer like "You can count on my help", or a heel answer like "Absolutely babycake. How about dinner?" Basically, you can be nice, or be obnoxious. Depending on the points you got, you can get face or heel powers once you accumulate enough. This makes this game an RPG with unique good/evil skill trees.

The face and heel powers are collectively known as crowd powers. Basically, the more the crowd is pumped up, the more powerful crowd power you can unleash. Some of the more serious powers includes "fury", which DOUBLES your action points (from 8 to 16!) and "iron hide" which renders you immune from damage altogether for 1 full turn. However, these can only be unleashed in the ring.

As the new wrestler, you need to play two matches, one against another contender, another against a veteran wrestler. Win both, and you'll be signed by Jim Cornette himself as a rookie. After that... sky is the limit! Can you win the tag team chapionpship, the X Division Championship, AND the Heavyweight Championship? You'll have to basically beat everybody else in the league... and learn a lot of combo moves and finishing moves along the way.

In the ring, graphics are good. Elbow drop looks like an elbow drop. DDT looks like a DDT. And so on. Simple direction pad chooses your actions, and each choice leads to further choices on a chain. Initially you are given four choices: pump the crowd, use crowd power, engage opponent, or leave ring (rest up). Once you choose to engage, you get choices like strike, kick, lock, or (back yourself against rope and use the bounce). Lock will lead you to more choices. Some moves use up action points, others don't. Some use up more than 1 point (up to 3). Thus, the moves you can do is limited by your action points. You can chain moves together into a combo move. If you can drop the enemy's stamina into red zone, you can go for a pin. If you drop enemy's stamina to zero, pin is automatically successful.

You and your opponent take turns attacking each other. When you're defending, you have four choices: do nothing (let the guy hit you), avoid, counter (do him some damage in return), or reverse (end his turn prematurely). All can be used only once (and when you learn crowd power, they can be recharged once each). Thus, saving them for special moments are critical. Using them at the wrong time would be wasting them, but not using them at all would be worse.

Sound is basic crowd noises, but when combined with simple yet effective animation, it's just what'd you'd expect at a wrestling match: over the top "good" vs. "evil". You can even throw your opponent out of the ring and club them over the head with a chair. Yes, you can do that. You can also do dives from posts, in or out of the ring. Face rakes, eye gouges... it's all here.

I must say this is one of the best mobile games I've played. Yes, I've made it all the way to heavyweight champion. You can too.

Overall rating: 9 out of 10 (!)
Pros: all wrestling, full RPG, lots of moves, lost of skills/powers
Cons: not enough documentation, can use better music and graphics