Aspiring fighters and fans of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s Spike TV-fueled pop culture explosion will now be happy to know that, courtesy of THQ, they can now bring their favorite bloodsport to their current generation (PS3/Xbox 360) videogame console of their choice with the newly announced UFC 2009 Undisputed.
It’s an announcement that shouldn’t surprise anyone, given the recent success of the The Ultimate Fighter — Spike’s flagship reality TV series — and Mixed Martial Arts in general with the popularity of other leagues such as WEC and Pride. Nevertheless, THQ seems dead-centered on doing the franchise justice, with a press release promise to “be the most realistic fighting game to date.”
Anyone familiar with THQ’s history knows that they’re responsible for some of the greatest Wrestling games of all time, and by that I mean WWF No Mercy (seriously). Undisputed looks to utilize a similar structure to wrasslin‘ games of yore with a Create-a-Fighter system and the ability to incorporate different fighting styles — a feature which should be much more interesting this time around with…you know, actual fighting styles.
If that’s not enough to draw a lack-of-blood-to-the-brain knockout for UFC fans, they’ll be happy to know that online play is included as well — all within an engine that allows “amazing ripple effects across the faces and bodies of their fighters from the impact of devastating punches and kicks” and an improved collision detection system.
Given the clumsy playability of past UFC games on the PlayStation 2, we’re cautiously tiptoeing our way to our nearest game retailer to preorder a copy of this Spring 2009 title. Mapping organic moves to a few button presses still hasn’t been perfected in an intuitive way on most modern Wrestling games, and with MMA’s complexity of different fighting styles, pleasing fans while prioritizing playability may be a hard middle-ground to reach for THQ.
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