The Main Event: EA Sport’s MMA vs UFC 2010
it’s going to be an explosive fight, with the up-and-coming sport of mixed martial arts more popular than ever, the demand for the realism of the extreme sport has started to settle into video games, with the success of UFC 2009: Undisputed setting the benchmark last year.
2010 is set to be a great year for gaming with some of the most anticipated titles emerging, with God Of War 3, Halo: Reach, Aliens vs Predator, Bayonetta and MAG. Of course there is FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer’s competition, with PES looking to get back in contention after last years domination by FIFA 10. But there is one rivalry that no one is thinking about, except the hardcore mixed martial arts fans, such as myself. The main event. In the red corner: representing EA in there first attempt to bring the sport to the gaming world – EA Sport’s MMA. In the blue corner: the reining, defending champion – THQ’s UFC 2010 – the second in the successor the the brilliant UFC 2009: Undisputed.
UNCHALLENGED
UFC 2009: Undisputed was the first game to attempt to recreate mixed martial arts on a 3rd Gen console, and was a huge success, with clever grappling and submission systems and the incredible flash KO. Okay I admit it, the flash KO was annoying once you had spent two rounds pounding Anderson Silva and in the last minutes of the last round he lands a deadly flying knee out of nowhere and catches you with your guard down. Crack. You’ve just experienced a Flash KO. But it is that excitement, that unpredictability that the game solidly copies from the real sport, that unpredictability that finds you playing exhibition matches over and over again, that predictability that will have me awake until 6am this tonight watching UFC 108.
The main reason UFC 2009 was so successful was because there was nothing else to play that could replicate the realism of the sport, and not taking away the fact that they did a great job with it, but there was also a lot missing, a lot that they can improve on with the sequel this year, and a lot that MMA will improve if they don’t.
The career mode had no depth. You moved up the ranks, improved your fighter, won the title. But then what, you continue fighting the same five contenders for the rest of your career, with the only motivation a silver trophy for reaching the hall of fame. I also have to add that any game in which you can loose a fight on button-bashing has problems – for two reasons: I am rubbish at button-bashing and people cheat online with turbo-controllers.
With EA Sports’ MMA on the way, THQ have a major threat as any issue that they do not address could give MMA the advantage as let’s not forget, UFC 2010 will be expected to be better than last years which could be its ultimate downfall.
“MMA has one main issue, it’s not UFC”.
Although we are yet to see much from MMA yet, we already know that MMA has one main issue, it’s not UFC! UFC is the biggest organization in the sport, and which MMA using Strikeforce as its ‘Premier League’, it will miss many of the worlds best fighters. Sure, Fedor and Randy Coulture have been included, and Dan Hendo is considering a move to Strikeforce which I’m sure will land him a place on the game, but they are still missing people like Anderson Siva (the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world), Shogun and Forest Griffin, (fan favourites). It will be hard to see a mixed martial arts game without the UFC but I’m sure that EA will still pull off a fantastic game.
No matter which game ends up coming off best, it will still be fight of the night, but whether there will be a KO of the night, I’m not sure.
Mark Sweeney
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03 Jan 2010, 7:11 pm
Ok lets face it, the only reason that undisputed was good is because it had no competition what-so-ever, unless u wanna go back in time and play pridefc (which after a month of undisputed, i did lol)… the main flaw that ufc 09 had was EVERY FIGHTER MOVES/FIGHTS EXACTLY LIKE ONE ANOTHER!!! how can u put out an mma game (there’s a reason for the word “mixed” in mixed martial arts) when u have 3 different sets of strikes/grappling disiplines and every fighter fights exactly like one another that have those skill sets, brock lesnar was identical to nate mardquart, shogun rua was identical to kenny florian, and so on, all the had were different skins and VERY few fighters had some special moves… in ufc 09, online was a freakin disaster, and it took them 3 FKN MONTHS to patch the quitting issue, which these days is totally unacceptable.. ea mma will have individuality between every fighter, which means each fighter will fight like they do in real life and nobody will fight the same… there will be more than 1 organization, which will be awesome to bounce around and compete in different organizations in career mode… you’ll be able to fight in a ring or cage, they’re gonna have an updated version of gameface (so u can make an identical replica of yourself/your fav ufc fighter)… i think ea mma will blow undisputed away, thq doesnt have enough time to make the neccesary changes with it comin out 1 year later, and with a ufc game, its limited to ufc only… you’ll be able to travel the world and fight everywhere, which is definatly more appealing than stayin in 1 organization and fighting the same fighters over and over again