UFC 2009 Undisputed Preview
Mixed Martial Arts is gaining huge popularity in the United States, especially with the sport of boxing slowly fading away from the public eye. Maybe it's the huge paychecks for the very top boxers, and maybe it's just decades of pomp and bloat that have built up, but boxing as a spectacle seems to have left most casual viewers behind. It doesn't help that other sports have pulled athletes that may have become great boxers away, either with bigger paychecks or the promise of less long-term injury over their careers. But MMA has been really gaining steam over the last few years, and it almost seems like the public at large is ready to look at two sweaty guys wrestling around on the ground without making uncomfortable jokes.
It's been a while since the first UFC game on the Dreamcast was launched, and since then we've seen controllers include more buttons and sticks, and the graphics of course have improved to the point where the fighters look pretty much photorealistic. So it's a good time for THQ to launch UFC 2009 Undisputed, as it's hitting the streets with the UFC never having been more popular.
The Principals and the Presentation
Undisputed includes 80 fighters (plus two extra from the Ultimate Fighter show if you pre-order from GameStop) across five weight divisions, sixteen each - and does a pretty remarkable job of simulating their strengths, weaknesses, fighting styles, looks, and signature things they do in the ring. As THQ's Neven Dravinski put it, most of the complaints the fighters had were more about adjusting what their skills in-game were (it should be no surprise that most fighters thought they were at least a little better than the game's stats system portrays) - there were very few complaints about the fighting system or the authenticity of the UFC presentation.
And that's what stands out at you the most: this looks like a real UFC broadcast. The trainers are there, three of the sport's best referees are included, the ringside action looks great, and the fighters look and move well at a sizzling 60 frames per second. The cuts and bruising in both the face and body look fantastic, and blood spreads its way around the ring fairly convincingly. Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg do the commentating just like at all the major UFC events, and the developers not only got these two guys into the booth for hours worth of new dialogue, but they also pulled sound bites from dozens and dozens of broadcasts in order to make the whole thing feel more real and much less repetitive. And overall, the commentating here is flat-out some of the best I've ever heard in a sports game; from the way they interrupt each other's history lessons to yell about a big hit, to the massive range of things they say about the game's 80-plus fighters, I really am impressed at the effort that went into this. For career mode guys you'll be called a nickname, which is probably about the best you'll get out of commentary, but even that still works better than the nickname-based commentary heard in Fight Night Round 3.
What happens when I press X?
Solid visuals and hours of commentary doesn't do anyone any good if it's no fun to fight, but luckily the THQ team has really taken their time to create a fighting system from the ground up that, so far, looks like it's going to capture the essence of MMA nicely. During the stand-up game, punches, kicks, knees, elbows, and everything in-between (the physics-based movements allow for glancing blows, whiffs, and more) feel natural, and the bigger hits generally give us something satisfying to watch in a slow-motion replay. And fighters can get very close without having their limbs pass through each other - you might have seen this feature in recent Fight Night Round 4 trailers, but it works perfectly here in UFC 2009 as well. But it's the depth of ways you can take your opponent to the ground, though, that make this more than just a kickboxing game. Shoots, throws, tackles, and more are here, and while the full arsenal of every fighting style's signature takedowns aren't all here, you'll find a nice range of ways to get on the floor if you want or get back on your feet if you can escape your opponent's grasp.
Speaking of fighting styles, Undisputed includes three striking disciplines (boxing, kickboxing, and Muay Thai) as well as three ground disciplines (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Wrestling, and Judo). That covers the basics, but MMA is a very freeform venue for fighting, and several styles that do get used in the UFC are missing from the game. Southpaw fighting is not included, stoppages from cuts never happen, and fighters' weights aren't really calculated at all in anything - any height will give you a specific weight and beyond that height giving you a certain amount of reach and that weight putting you into one of the five classes, adjustments in your weight don't affect your fighting at all. Overall, these are pretty big omissions for any serious MMA fan, and they'll probably be addressed in the next game, but even then, the features we're getting here should still wind up being pretty impressive for even the most dedicated of fans. You know how it is: the more realistic a game gets, the more obvious the remaining flaws become.
The actual fighting is a mix of the stand-up game and the ground game, with several ways to transition back and forth. Each one is almost like playing two distinct games, and while sometimes the differences are a bit jarring, the mix really makes the game feel pretty authentic. So while the standing game's physics system that allows, say, your overhand punch to land even if another one is coming in simultaneously but glances off because you landed first, well, none of that really works on the ground. But there is a system of improving your position on the ground, allowing fighters to transition between guard, half guard, mount, side control, behind the back, north-south, and more. All of them allow fighters to punch and knee to fight and retaliate, and in the same way you defend takedowns while standing, you can hold a direction on the right stick to block transitions on the ground. But you can never defend both strikes and wrestling moves at the same time, so it becomes a game of chess on the ground as you fight for position and try to improve your situation or at least kill your opponent's advantage. The ground fighting system isn't the most intuitive to learn as far as controls are concerned, and anyone who's gone through the training mode in the demo will tell you that you won't learn much from it directly, but experience will be your best teacher if no one's around to show you and the system is fun, fair, and satisfying to learn - even if the curve is a bit steep.
Once you learn the system and go up against someone who knows it as well, you'll find yourself playing mind games with your opponent, mixing up ground strikes with transitions to throw your opponent off of his timing, and tiring him out so that you're set up to lock in a solid submission move. That's when both players will try to force their will on the other, the aggressor by spinning the right analog stick and the one trying to break free either brute-forcing his way out of it with punches or also spinning the right stick to finesse his way out. It's kind of interesting to see two guys suddenly and simultaneously switch their grip on the controller, putting their palm on the right stick and spinning in a frantic "wax on, wax off" motion. This is the closest the game ever gets to making you do some repetitive motion, and so far I don't mind.
Not just Exhibition mode
Undisputed will be shipping with plenty of extras that add many hours' worth of fun to the experience. The Classic Fights mode invites you to take on either fighter (or both if a friend's nearby) in one of twelve classic UFC matches, and if you can beat the AI with the right guy and in the same way the real fight ended - TKO in the second round, or submission in the third - then you get to unlock a highlight video showing the actual outcome of the match. During the THQ event we got to see Quinton "Rampage" Jackson (yes, the actual fighter, and yes, he plays video games) grab a controller, play as himself, and do his fight against Chuck Liddell in classic mode. He was able to win it the same way he did it in real life - TKO in the first - and get the bonus video for us all to watch.
Beyond that, there's the create-a-fighter mode for making fighters to either port over into career mode or go directly into exhibition play or online matches with. While the level of detail in the actual character creation doesn't quite live up to a couple of THQ's wrestling games from the past, you can still fiddle with plenty of stuff to customize the fighter how you want. And if you go into career mode with him, you'll find a ton of depth here. You'll slowly build your fighter's skills, scheduling your matches and balancing time as you train and spar and use a calendar to manage it all, and gain credibility (an overall rating of your popularity in the UFC) to unlock gear and get invites to camps and learn new moves. At a glance, the career mode looks to be very compelling, and while there are a few small issues like seeing the same two guys fight over and over on the calendar - it seems like it'll add a ton of longevity to the single player game. Of course, a lot of things can go wrong in a system like this, so it's tough to tell before the final game is released if the fun lasts for many hours.
Training doesn't suck
One of my favorite parts of the career mode is that your training is done by setting up week-long blocks to build your fighter's base stats, and these are done automatically without any goofy mini-games, quick time events, button-mashing idiocy, or other exercises in futility that so many other games in similar genres impose on you. After you spend a week or two training your stats, then you rest to get back to full stamina so you're at 100% for your sparring match (the moves you do in that match affect the fighting skill points you receive) and then maybe a bit more training and then rest so you're 100% for fight night. What this means is that you're either planning your fighter's schedule on a calendar or you're in the ring with an actual opponent, not playing endless, ridiculous mini-games to improve your stats in between every fight. For anyone out there who would rather jump out of a window than punch another combo dummy in an idiotic Simon Says exercise for the millionth time, then at least part of you will be genuinely ecstatic with UFC 2009 no matter what.
The trash talk over the mic should be fun
Finally, there's the online play. THQ didn't really go full-out this time, as the online play is there and functional but rather barebones. You can fight people online, but there aren't any super-advanced modes, funky rules to mess with, replays to save and watch, or ability to spectate other players' fights. Hopefully at least some of this is considered for the future, but for now you can expect a solid online mode that lets you fight people.. and that's pretty much it. It remains to be seen what THQ has done to discourage those who disconnect in mid-fight in order to avoid a loss. I know what I'd do - record disconnections for each player and allow others to bail out of any fight, without penalty, before it starts if the disconnection percentage is too high, but I couldn't get any THQ reps to actually tell me that that's what the game does (even if they agree that it's probably the best way that's been implemented yet in the current console generation). So for me, that issue is still up in the air.
One thing I want to mention is that the game does have instant flash KOs, and these can happen at almost any time. They're not random; it's not like some back-stepping jab is going to send a dude with a good chin crying for his momma, but they do happen here and there with a good solid hit. It happens more often when someone is getting punched mercilessly while victim of a mount, and even if their health is good, raining down hammer fists makes it just a matter of time. But I've seen fights end in only a few seconds, and these instant fight-enders are probably going to be a source of huge frustration in multiplayer action. While no two fights seem to ever end the same in UFC 2009, it's not much consolation when you're carefully wearing a guy down, outsmarting him, and suddenly crash to the mat after receiving a single, lucky counter-punch. But anyone who watches the UFC with any regularity knows that this happens pretty often; it just remains to be seen how much it sucks to fall victim to it in online play.
"This Game is Right" - Quinton Jackson
For someone like me who's interested in MMA, has watched plenty of fights, but never really got into the personalities or the serious technical aspects of the sport, UFC 2009 Undisputed offers a hell of a lot. I get to learn some of the nuts and bolts of MMA fighting, get to participate in some fantastic-looking submissions and knockouts, and get to use an army of real fighters (as well as create my own) to participate in the UFC in a way that most fighting games - whether they're filled with boxers, wrestlers, or cartoon characters - rarely do. I fully expect UFC 2009 to be a success when it's released on the PS3 and 360 on May 19th and am looking forward to picking up my copy.
