UFC 2010: Our Wish List
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.
Stances
Every once in a while, the tide of a fight is turned (or its outcome is pre-ordained) just because of the use of a particular fighting stance. From going southpaw to protect an injured leg to Shogun's use of classic Muay Thai stance (in UFC 2009, the moves are there, but that particular stance wasn't) to almost defeat Lyoto Machida a couple months ago, it'd be nice to see an option to switch stances in mid-fight. Maybe the developers could have some system where you build up a number of fighting styles instead of locking a fighter into a striking and a ground system, and then let you swap between them in mid-fight. Overall, though, we've seen many fighters improve and change their fighting styles over the years and then implement these new tactics on the fly in the Octagon, and that element should be a part of a video game.
The Cage
One element that happens in many UFC fights that's simply not even remotely attempted in UFC 2009 is clinching against the cage. It's an important part of most fights, and it seems like fighters like Randy Couture - the hall of famer who's still headlining fights in the UFC - was passed over in the last game simply because his favorite way to fight - mashing someone up against the cage - wasn't included at all. I consider this one a must-have, and I think that along with simulating this, UFC 2010 could probably do a little work on the clinch system overall to make it feel as intuitive as the ground game. Speaking of that...
Ground Game
This one might be difficult for Yuke's to expand on, because it's just so difficult to simulate the tangle of arms and legs that happens when two fighters take it to the ground. UFC 2009's ground game isn't bad and it is a balanced and fun system, but it could use some tweaks - and maybe a few other postures and positions, especially when fighters are on the mat up against the cage.
Punish Disconnectors
Game developers don't like giving people a black mark on their record for disconnecting in mid-fight, just in case they're having actual legitimate connection issues. But to me, it's worth annoying those players so that everyone else can enjoy a game where those who chronically pull the plug once they start to lose can have something done to them. One issue is that the Xbox and PSN teams don't give publishers much in the way of tools to punish players, but I think it's reasonable to temporarily ban someone from a game's online play if they're constantly disconnecting every time someone gets the mount on them. I'm not saying I have all of the answers here, but something has to be done to keep people at least partially honest.
Better Interface
UFC 2009 has one of those interface problems that many console games do, where every menu option you choose induces a mind-numbing load screen and the end of every fight brings up multiple boxes that tell you the game's auto-saving, forcing you to wait for it to finish. We like auto-saves, sure, but make them happen in the background, and please make the interface a lot more snappy and responsive. It shouldn't take more than a minute to get from the "Press Start Button" screen to an actual quick-match fight, and the career mode shouldn't force players to spend more time staring at menus and loading screens than they do fighting in the Octagon.
While UFC 2009's presentation is very close to the PPV and TV broadcasts, I was thinking that maybe players should be able to flip an option to strip the whole thing down to its basics. Allow seasoned players to drop the ring introductions and horrible nu-metal music intros and just go straight into training and fights with minimal pomp. The guys at THQ and Yuke's have a fantastic fighting system, so letting players boil it down to the game's strengths would be great (if the UFC lets them, that is, which they may not).
What They Got Right
All of these little issues listed here make it seem like I hated UFC 2009, but that's not true - I loved it. The UFC is a really interesting fight organization, and its openness, along with the generally outspoken nature of its president, Dana White, really lets fans sink their teeth into it all. That gives the developers plenty to work with when making a game, and for a first game in the rebooted series, UFC 2009 delivers very well. The commentary by Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan in UFC 2009's fights is pretty great, especially when compared to that of other sports games, so expanding on that would be helpful - but may not even be necessary at all. And the overall balance of the fighting holds up to scrutiny, so I think that the development team should focus on maintaining it even while adding new features and moves. We rarely see a sports franchise get worse over time, but it has happened before, so it's important for the dev team to make sure that every change doesn't upset the balance elsewhere. Either way, I'm really excited to see what THQ has in store for us in 2010. It's great to see the UFC get some proper treatment in a video game!
