THQ and Japanese developer Yuke's took the gaming world by storm earlier this year with UFC 2009 Undisputed, the first mixed martial arts sports game in years. It was also by far the best one released yet, with past UFC and Pride entries simply not allowing enough of the variety of mixed martial arts to come through.
The career mode in UFC 2009 included a deep system allowing you to train and fight on a schedule you set up, and the stat-building was amazingly fun and engaging - even if it was a bit annoying to know that every time you screwed up a training session, your fighter was going to end up noticeably worse. The other modes allowed you to use your career mode characters often, but the stars of that show were the eighty-plus fighters that wound up as an excellent snapshot of the UFC when the game was released.
UFC 2009 is a blast to play, but there are still some holes in the game. The career mode was only playable with a created character, so there was no way to bring the attitude and style of a real UFC fighter into the game's career mode. Beyond that, create-a-fighters wound up being too overpowered for online play, as players learned to cheese and glitch their way into getting characters with ridiculously high stats. Finally, the developers simply had no answer to the players that'd disconnect their consoles from the network before recording a loss on their record, allowing them to keep a pristine record and robbing a win from the eventual victor. Sure, THQ eventually put together a patch to address these issues, but it was too little too late.
THQ has since released the trailer for UFC 2010, and while I'm excited for it, pretty much the only thing I can see that's different - so far - is the addition of new MMA sensation Kimbo Slice. With his victory over brawler Houston Alexander and his marked improvement inside the Octagon since his first loss on The Ultimate Fighter this year, I'm interested to see Kimbo in the game, but we better have a lot more than that.
Make the Real Fighters the True Stars
One of the best parts of being a UFC fan is in watching fighters improve and grow in ways that other sports just don't allow for. Because mixed martial arts is so free-form, we've seen fighters start out as straight-up boxers and turn into experienced ground-based or Muay Thai combatants. We need these guys to be the stars of the show, so give them more chances to show their unique style and attitude. That can mean ring entrances, introductory videos, detailed and unique career mode options for specific fighters, and more custom animations for many of the fighters' signature styles and moves.
Fighting Styles
The six styles we got in UFC 2009 (boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Judo) are by far the most prevalent seen in the UFC, and I think the developers can get away with still having just those six. But what they can work on is expanding the fighting styles and really working on making more attacks, combinations, and posture changes flow smoothly from one to another. It's probably too much to ask for Machida Karate to show up as a particular fighting style, especially considering only one guy in the UFC actually uses it, but if they're not going to, then they at least need to make Lyoto Machida fight a bit more like he really does.
Defense
Defending yourself in the ground game generally works well, in that you can block your opponent from posturing up or you can block incoming strikes but never both at the same time. The stand-up game is different, though, and the ability to block your head with one button or the whole rest of your body (both your midsection and legs) with the other feels a little awkward and strange. Trying to create a Fight Night-style defense system probably won't work, but at a minimum it would be nice to see some kind of animation for checking leg kicks. Maybe some kind of defense overhaul could be done depending on the control options available.
