By James Caldwell, Torch columnist

TNA's first video game will be released in the spring after more than three years of dedicated work on the project between TNA and Midway Games. Mark Turmell, one of the video game designers at Midway, talked to wrestlinggamers.com about the main features and how the project came together. The focus is more on establishing gameplay flow rather than packing too many features into the first TNA title.

Turmell said the Create-a-Wrestler mode is the heart of the video game, as it goes hand-in-hand with the "Season" mode. It's a very, well, unique concept: "The Story Mode begins with a man who's been beaten to the edge of death, had his body dumped in Tijuana Mexico, and awakes in a Plastic Surgeons office not knowing who he is or how he got there.

"From there the player must re-establish his identity, recover his memories, and fight back to gain was rightfully his in TNA. The player has many choices as he creates his wrestler, expands his move set, and attempts to become a TNA Champion."

Related to the overall gameplay, Turmell said the screen will be limited to only four players on the first TNA video game. They wanted to maximize the graphics without crowding the screen with more than four wrestlers.

Comparing the interface to WWE's current video game model, Turmell said, "They (WWE) are a strong force with 10+ years of constant development. However, we are not big fans of the moment to moment gameplay that the Smackdown Vs Raw games provide. Controller responsiveness and crispness is just not there. And we believe that is a key component of fun gameplay. So we've focused on that and are happy with our direction. It's more similar to the old N64 No Mercy game than anything else.

"So from a feature standpoint, our first TNA Impact videogame will not match up against Smackdown Vs Raw, but from a gameplay and in-ring entertainment standpoint we will shine. Competition is great for videogames, and I suspect our TNA Impact game will have an effect on future WWE titles."

In a feature that's not far from reality, Turmell said there will be refs for the matches. They also "went overboard" in capturing moves that can be performed, and didn't limit moves strictly to TNA, but pulled moves from WWE wrestlers such as the Pedigree and Sweet Chin Music. Gamers will be able to download additional content that's not available in the packaged game, but an online e-fed is not planned for this first video game.

- More details from interview link.

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