-
Welcome to "The New" Wrestling Smarks Forum!
I see that you are not currently registered on our forum. It only takes a second, and you can even login with your Facebook! If you would like to register now, pease click here: Register
Once registered please introduce yourself in our introduction thread which can be found here: Introduction Board
http://www.fightlinker.com/the-deets...mma#more-12034
I was at the UFC 2009 world premiere in Las Vegas back in June 2008. In fact, I was the only European MMA journo invited to that event. Without treading over too much old ground, I – along with everyone else – was pretty bloody impressed with what was on show.
We got a canned presentation and a trailer featuring a fight between Rampage and Forrest, with both fighters in attendance. Then a couple of Yukes guys hopped on an early build of the game and had a Jackson versus Griffin throwdown, which ended when Rampage snatched the pad from the guy controlling his digital doppelganger and (very conveniently) hit a knockout punch out of nowhere for the win. (Check that **** out on youtube)
Last week, I was once again the only European MMA journo invited to the official world premiere of EA MMA on Chicago (although I’d actually already spent about an hour with the game behind closed doors at a secret location in the UK). Suffice it to say, I had visions of my Vegas trip dancing around in my head and the EA guys were going to have to pull out something pretty special to impress me, especially since I’m a massive fan of UFC 2009 and all things UFC in general.
I’m pleased as punch to say that, at the same point in the game’s development cycle, I’m actually more impressed with EA MMA than I was at the equivalent event for UFC 2009. Indeed, even comparing this early build of the EA game to the finished UFC product, it staggeringly illustrates just how limited the THQ title really is, in many respects. There are no southpaws, you can’t switch stances, knockouts are complete dice rolls, there’s no interaction with the cage, the clinch and counter mechanics are hugely limited, fighters are all template-based and feel the same…
Don’t get me wrong; I really do love UFC 2009 to bits. It’s awesome, and I invested a ****load of hours in it. But I think we, as fans who have had to deal with largely ****ty MMA videogames over the years, were so stunned and blinkered by the things that UFC 2009 got right – or even the simple fact that we finally had an MMA game that was actually good – that we overlooked a great many things that it got wrong.
But whichever version of events you believe (Dana White’s “EA ****ing ****ed us and has always hated MMA†or Peter Moore’s “No, I was supporting MMA since the first UFC game on the Dreamcast, when I worked at Segaâ€), one thing’s for sure: the guys at EA Sports didn’t overlook a goddamn thing. In fact, they were taking diligent notes about the successes and failures of THQ’s product, and directly fed that into the development of their game.
EA MMA is being produced by EA Tiburon, the studio behind games like Madden, NCAA Football and Tiger Woods. The team is working in conjunction with the Fight Night Round 4 team at EA Canada, with whom they have been working closely to customise the fantastic boxing engine to apply to MMA combat. As a point of note, Fight Night and EA MMA will release on alternate years, rather than as annual updates (so EA MMA will hit in 2010, Fight Night Round 5 will be ready in 2011 and so on).
There’s a lot of stuff that simply can’t be talked about without EA’s lawyers pounding on my door, but those familiar with Fight Night’s controls will feel right at home in EA MMA. The fluidity of the control scheme will be consistent through all facets of combat; so, for example, you’ll use the pad to execute strikes in the same way on the floor as you do on the feet, or even in the clinch – an aspect that has the depth of War And Peace compared to the Marvel Comics clinchwork of UFC 2009. In the THQ game it was simply a procedure whereby you could throw strikes or get a takedown from a different position, in EA’s game it’s a fluid, dynamic system where you’re constantly pummelling for over-unders and double-underhooks to get dominance.
The same thing goes with numerous other aspects, such as the three-tier defensive system (where you can now, among other things, catch and counter kicks without automatically falling down to the ground, which was obviously a disadvantage for stand-up fighters in UFC 2009), and the constant dynamism of close-quarter and ground fighting (where both fighters can throw and trade strikes simultaneously, rather than having to wait for the other’s strike animation routine to finish).
As you’ve undoubtedly already heard, EA announced a deal with Strikeforce to feature in the game, which will form the bulk of the presentation bells and whistles through the commentary team of Frank Shamrock and Mauro Ranallo, and ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. Other alliances with non-UFC promotions are also signed or in the works and, since the game features rings as well as cages, it’s not unreasonable to assume that there may be some Japanese promotions featured in the game as well (we know of one big-name star who has yet to be announced, but fights in Sengoku, for instance, and of course there’s Strikeforce’s cosy relationship with Dream as well).
There’s literally so much stuff that I could talk about that I could write pages and pages and pages on this game. Sadly, various restrictions and embargoes prevent me from going into too much detail here and now. It seems like soulless shilling, for which I apologise, but if you want to find out more about things like the implementation of ring restarts, Unified Rules, Pride rules, the real story behind the UFC-EA feud, specifics regarding the control system, the truth behind whether women’s MMA will be in the game, announced and unannounced fighters, interviews with fighters and game designers and all manner of other stuff that hasn’t been covered by anyone else (which I know for a fact, since the Tiburon guys I spoke to behind closed doors told me that nobody else had asked certain questions), please check out the upcoming issues of the two magazines I write for, FSM (Fighting Spirit Magazine) and 360 Gamer:
www.fightingspiritmagazine.co.uk
www.360-gamer.com
<script src="http://player.ooyala.com/player.js?embedCode=ZyN2t5OujLibf5GgQlljWraj-ENXiHrs&height=360&width=480"></script>
EA Sports MMA Preview
PlayStation 3 Xbox 360 Preview
by Christian Donlan
"I think everybody can agree the visuals are very pretty," says Hedrick "Rocky" Rivero, one of the designers on MMA, as he presents the game. Are they? You think? Flowers are pretty. The Chrysler Building is pretty. Unicorns and waterfalls and that Florence lady out of Florence + the Machine is pretty (just me?). MMA, chock full of sweaty biffers with stubbly faces and tight pants, simultaneously giving each other a lamping and a shoeing - these are the official terms - isn't really pretty is it?
What it is, though, is staggeringly convincing. EA's yet to let anyone outside of the development team pick up a pad for themselves, but to see Fedor Emelianenko and Brett Rogers zip about the ring with a faultless frame-rate, pin-sharp textural details and unnervingly realistic animation provides another one of those rare moments in games where you almost can't believe your eyes.
Compared to the lean forms of boxers like Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, MMA fighters often look like a couple of tanked-up builders laying into each other after a few beers at that pub on Coronation Street, but the work EA has put into making the characters duck and weave and step in and out with that unlikely swiftness the best in the business seem to possess, bodes well for the rest of the game. The actual modelling isn't bad either - when Rogers went to the studio recently for character creation, his new tattoos were still a little puffy, and you can genuinely see that in-game.
Each fighter, we're promised, will behave convincingly throughout. EA is focusing on the personalities and characteristic quirks and flourishes, so Fedor nimbly moves into position with his fists up and a nervy spring in his step as he bounces back and forth on the balls of his feet, while Rogers is more flat-footed and likes to keep his arms relaxed, but unleashes heavy strikes to the centre rather than trading in Fedor's looping punches.
It's hard to tell just how those blows will really feel when you're playing - the animation seems good, and the collision detection is perfect, as it has to be, but the visual feedback and blood is missing from this build - but already the fighters are reacting to each other based on where they currently are in the ring, raising their fists automatically, and moving more precisely as they get in close.
MMA builds on the physics platform of Fight Night Round 4: pre-canned animations are out, and punches and kicks - and the damage they inflict - are calculated on the fly. On top of that, EA's been extensively mo-capping the game's stars to make sure everything is as authentic as possible.
"The fighters would come in for mo-cap, and we wouldn't just capture them," says Rivero. "We'd sit down, talk to them, take notes, find out what they were really all about. And we take feedback. Jason Mayhem Miller said, 'Oh, when you go in for the catch-kick, you've got to still be able to deliver a punch,' so boom! It's in there, it's in the game." (Does anyone know if the producers get tipped for using EA's catchphrase?)
While Fight Night could mainly make do with a close-up viewpoint, MMA brawls, with their bigger rings and awkward cages, not to mention their kicking as well as their punching, mean the camera has to work a bit harder too, zooming in and out of the action as fighters move across a larger game space. Luckily, so far the engine can handle everything the bouts ask of it, and, in debug mode, the developers can move from a full-ring view straight in to see the individual pockmarks on Fedor's face. Not that Fedor has pockmarks, right? (Play along. He might be reading this.)
It's not just the legacy of Fight Night that hangs over MMA, of course, there's the fact that THQ made a pretty good UFC game recently: a polished and surprisingly physical effort filled with star power and the sport's queasy glitz.
EA is confident it can compete, however, pointing out that MMA isn't tied to a single league, which opens the door for the differing strategies of ring matches as well as cage fights, while also ensuring that the game's an ideal vehicle for solving those eternal playground arguments over who would win in a scrap against who if their respective organisations ever allowed for a meet-up. EA also wants the game to work as a primer for the sport - something that will encourage new fans to take a closer look and learn the surprisingly complex nuances of MMA's particular brand of face-pummelling.
The team wants to make sure the ground and pound controls work "similarly" to the stand-up moments, so it doesn't feel like you're playing two different games. With Photo Game Face and Create A Fighter slotting in alongside career mode, but even without the ability to play as Yehudi Menuhin or the family tortoise, MMA is looking extremely promising at the moment. There's a lot EA's not willing to talk about yet: it's mostly quiet on the roster, although it is willing to reveal the team's going for a fan-favourite mix of legends and rising stars, with Frank Shamrock, Randy Couture, and Gegard Mousasi already announced, and there's very little clue as to how the ground game is going to work (the greater game itself will allow for either stick or face button controls as with Fight Night), with the developers announcing only that they're currently iterating on several different approaches, and that the winner will be chosen via a kind of beauty contest at some point in the future.
So we're back to prettiness again and, as Rivero, a self-confessed hardcore fan, who has even managed to get his wife to start following the sport, stares at the screen, controller in hand, his face does seem to have the rapt expression of a man in love, so maybe his original phrasing was bang on the money after all. There's a lot of waiting to be done until it will be clear whether EA has what it takes to floor THQ, but if what the team's currently showing is anything to go by, MMA will certainly be able to put up a decent fight.
November 11th is here, confidentiality agreement is officially over, now I can tell you what we all saw at the EA MMA first look press conference. The demo we saw ran on an Xbox 360. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to actually play the game (leave it up to two EA geeks to do that). When they unveiled the game for the first time, everyone in the audience sort of gasped at the quality of the game and the absolute photo-realism of everything. You've seen the screen shots and video so all of you are familiar with the level of awe this game has woven into it.
First off, everyone has to give it up to UFC Undisputed for being the first game to 'revolutionize' MMA games. I was the first guy in line at my local Gamestop to be made fun of by local kids while I waited until 12:01 to grab my copy. If you were with MiddleEasy back in May, then you know the level of excitement that I had for this game (and consequent frustration at the magical Fabricio Werdum armbar that is impossible to prevent). UFC Undisputed is an amazing game that dominated May-June 2009 sales figures. It brought THQ out of a huge deficit and it's constantly been lodged inside my Xbox 360ever since it dropped in May.
With that said...EA Sports MMA is light years ahead of UFC Undisputed.
It's hard to even compare the two games, they almost look like they were designed for two completely different consoles. One of the most amazing thing about the game was the sheer character fluidity. As you approach your opponent, your hands go up, your fighter stance is more aggressive and control appears to be vastly more responsive. If you back-off from your opponent, the hands go down, you sort of jump around and get more comfortable with the cage. Also, the one thing that really had everyone salivating was the announcement that each fighter has their own unique stance, strikes, submissions and defense. That means every fighter throws a right hook differently. When you catch your opponent's leg, not every fighter goes for the take-down. Some will spin your leg around and just deck you in the face...others will go for the sweep and slam you to the ground. Someone in the crowd asked 'Well wouldn't this take a lot of time from the developer's standpoint to program different moves for every fighter?'. The lead developer said 'It's worth it, we want to make EA Sports MMA as realistic as possible'. In UFC Undisputed, all fighters were modeled from the skillset of Kickboxing, Boxer, Wrestler, Muay-Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This essentially meant that all moves looked the same and could be executed by any fighter that had those skillsets. This is not the case with EA Sports MMA. Each fighter has moves that they are historically known for doing. You won't see Fedor going for some flying heel-hook (Imanari style) but you will see him going for his wild overhand right (which we saw land and drop Brett Rogers).
In UFC Undisputed when fighters get in the clinch, movements seem very mechanical and only one fighter is allowed to hit at a time (something that we obviously never see in MMA). EA Sports seemed to capture the sporadic nature of being in the clinch, both fighters were struggling to get out while both trade blows simultaneously. Fingers were being extended to try to peel away the other fighter's grip while elbows were being thrown at the same time. Keep in mind, while this was going on sweat was building up on their skin and with each hit you could literally see the sweat come off their face and onto the mat. Speaking of mats, EA Sports MMA has a lot of different venues to fight in.
From the demo, we saw Muay-Thai rings, Brazilian grappling dojos, British boxing rings, a circular cage that looks exactly like what they used in YAMMA pit fighting, six-sided cages used in Strikeforce and I believe I remember seeing just an open area in the middle of a jungle. In fact, the locations were so remarkable that someone in the crowd asked if they could them again on the monitor.
EA Sports also announced Strikeforce as a premier league within the game which obviously leads us to believe that there will be other leagues (King of the Cage, Sengoku, MFC, DREAM, XFC) that will have their own fighters who each obviously have their own unique stance, movements, strikes...etc.
This game is going to be huge. Massive. Bigger than what we speculated when we wrote our 'It's time to get amped up for EA Sports MMA' article in September. I'm pretty sure I left a lot out so feel free to comment on the article and I will try to answer every question.
I was at the UFC 2009 world premiere in Las Vegas back in June 2008. In fact, I was the only European MMA journo invited to that event. Without treading over too much old ground, I – along with everyone else – was pretty bloody impressed with what was on show.
We got a canned presentation and a trailer featuring a fight between Rampage and Forrest, with both fighters in attendance. Then a couple of Yukes guys hopped on an early build of the game and had a Jackson versus Griffin throwdown, which ended when Rampage snatched the pad from the guy controlling his digital doppelganger and (very conveniently) hit a knockout punch out of nowhere for the win. (Check that **** out on youtube)
Last week, I was once again the only European MMA journo invited to the official world premiere of EA MMA on Chicago (although I’d actually already spent about an hour with the game behind closed doors at a secret location in the UK). Suffice it to say, I had visions of my Vegas trip dancing around in my head and the EA guys were going to have to pull out something pretty special to impress me, especially since I’m a massive fan of UFC 2009 and all things UFC in general.
I’m pleased as punch to say that, at the same point in the game’s development cycle, I’m actually more impressed with EA MMA than I was at the equivalent event for UFC 2009. Indeed, even comparing this early build of the EA game to the finished UFC product, it staggeringly illustrates just how limited the THQ title really is, in many respects. There are no southpaws, you can’t switch stances, knockouts are complete dice rolls, there’s no interaction with the cage, the clinch and counter mechanics are hugely limited, fighters are all template-based and feel the same…
Don’t get me wrong; I really do love UFC 2009 to bits. It’s awesome, and I invested a ****load of hours in it. But I think we, as fans who have had to deal with largely ****ty MMA videogames over the years, were so stunned and blinkered by the things that UFC 2009 got right – or even the simple fact that we finally had an MMA game that was actually good – that we overlooked a great many things that it got wrong.
But whichever version of events you believe (Dana White’s “EA ****ing ****ed us and has always hated MMA†or Peter Moore’s “No, I was supporting MMA since the first UFC game on the Dreamcast, when I worked at Segaâ€), one thing’s for sure: the guys at EA Sports didn’t overlook a goddamn thing. In fact, they were taking diligent notes about the successes and failures of THQ’s product, and directly fed that into the development of their game.
EA MMA is being produced by EA Tiburon, the studio behind games like Madden, NCAA Football and Tiger Woods. The team is working in conjunction with the Fight Night Round 4 team at EA Canada, with whom they have been working closely to customise the fantastic boxing engine to apply to MMA combat. As a point of note, Fight Night and EA MMA will release on alternate years, rather than as annual updates (so EA MMA will hit in 2010, Fight Night Round 5 will be ready in 2011 and so on).
There’s a lot of stuff that simply can’t be talked about without EA’s lawyers pounding on my door, but those familiar with Fight Night’s controls will feel right at home in EA MMA. The fluidity of the control scheme will be consistent through all facets of combat; so, for example, you’ll use the pad to execute strikes in the same way on the floor as you do on the feet, or even in the clinch – an aspect that has the depth of War And Peace compared to the Marvel Comics clinchwork of UFC 2009. In the THQ game it was simply a procedure whereby you could throw strikes or get a takedown from a different position, in EA’s game it’s a fluid, dynamic system where you’re constantly pummelling for over-unders and double-underhooks to get dominance.
The same thing goes with numerous other aspects, such as the three-tier defensive system (where you can now, among other things, catch and counter kicks without automatically falling down to the ground, which was obviously a disadvantage for stand-up fighters in UFC 2009), and the constant dynamism of close-quarter and ground fighting (where both fighters can throw and trade strikes simultaneously, rather than having to wait for the other’s strike animation routine to finish).
As you’ve undoubtedly already heard, EA announced a deal with Strikeforce to feature in the game, which will form the bulk of the presentation bells and whistles through the commentary team of Frank Shamrock and Mauro Ranallo, and ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. Other alliances with non-UFC promotions are also signed or in the works and, since the game features rings as well as cages, it’s not unreasonable to assume that there may be some Japanese promotions featured in the game as well (we know of one big-name star who has yet to be announced, but fights in Sengoku, for instance, and of course there’s Strikeforce’s cosy relationship with Dream as well).
There’s literally so much stuff that I could talk about that I could write pages and pages and pages on this game. Sadly, various restrictions and embargoes prevent me from going into too much detail here and now. It seems like soulless shilling, for which I apologise, but if you want to find out more about things like the implementation of ring restarts, Unified Rules, Pride rules, the real story behind the UFC-EA feud, specifics regarding the control system, the truth behind whether women’s MMA will be in the game, announced and unannounced fighters, interviews with fighters and game designers and all manner of other stuff that hasn’t been covered by anyone else (which I know for a fact, since the Tiburon guys I spoke to behind closed doors told me that nobody else had asked certain questions), please check out the upcoming issues of the two magazines I write for, FSM (Fighting Spirit Magazine) and 360 Gamer:
www.fightingspiritmagazine.co.uk
www.360-gamer.com
<script src="http://player.ooyala.com/player.js?embedCode=ZyN2t5OujLibf5GgQlljWraj-ENXiHrs&height=360&width=480"></script>
EA Sports MMA Preview
PlayStation 3 Xbox 360 Preview
by Christian Donlan
"I think everybody can agree the visuals are very pretty," says Hedrick "Rocky" Rivero, one of the designers on MMA, as he presents the game. Are they? You think? Flowers are pretty. The Chrysler Building is pretty. Unicorns and waterfalls and that Florence lady out of Florence + the Machine is pretty (just me?). MMA, chock full of sweaty biffers with stubbly faces and tight pants, simultaneously giving each other a lamping and a shoeing - these are the official terms - isn't really pretty is it?
What it is, though, is staggeringly convincing. EA's yet to let anyone outside of the development team pick up a pad for themselves, but to see Fedor Emelianenko and Brett Rogers zip about the ring with a faultless frame-rate, pin-sharp textural details and unnervingly realistic animation provides another one of those rare moments in games where you almost can't believe your eyes.
Compared to the lean forms of boxers like Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, MMA fighters often look like a couple of tanked-up builders laying into each other after a few beers at that pub on Coronation Street, but the work EA has put into making the characters duck and weave and step in and out with that unlikely swiftness the best in the business seem to possess, bodes well for the rest of the game. The actual modelling isn't bad either - when Rogers went to the studio recently for character creation, his new tattoos were still a little puffy, and you can genuinely see that in-game.
Each fighter, we're promised, will behave convincingly throughout. EA is focusing on the personalities and characteristic quirks and flourishes, so Fedor nimbly moves into position with his fists up and a nervy spring in his step as he bounces back and forth on the balls of his feet, while Rogers is more flat-footed and likes to keep his arms relaxed, but unleashes heavy strikes to the centre rather than trading in Fedor's looping punches.
It's hard to tell just how those blows will really feel when you're playing - the animation seems good, and the collision detection is perfect, as it has to be, but the visual feedback and blood is missing from this build - but already the fighters are reacting to each other based on where they currently are in the ring, raising their fists automatically, and moving more precisely as they get in close.
MMA builds on the physics platform of Fight Night Round 4: pre-canned animations are out, and punches and kicks - and the damage they inflict - are calculated on the fly. On top of that, EA's been extensively mo-capping the game's stars to make sure everything is as authentic as possible.
"The fighters would come in for mo-cap, and we wouldn't just capture them," says Rivero. "We'd sit down, talk to them, take notes, find out what they were really all about. And we take feedback. Jason Mayhem Miller said, 'Oh, when you go in for the catch-kick, you've got to still be able to deliver a punch,' so boom! It's in there, it's in the game." (Does anyone know if the producers get tipped for using EA's catchphrase?)
While Fight Night could mainly make do with a close-up viewpoint, MMA brawls, with their bigger rings and awkward cages, not to mention their kicking as well as their punching, mean the camera has to work a bit harder too, zooming in and out of the action as fighters move across a larger game space. Luckily, so far the engine can handle everything the bouts ask of it, and, in debug mode, the developers can move from a full-ring view straight in to see the individual pockmarks on Fedor's face. Not that Fedor has pockmarks, right? (Play along. He might be reading this.)
It's not just the legacy of Fight Night that hangs over MMA, of course, there's the fact that THQ made a pretty good UFC game recently: a polished and surprisingly physical effort filled with star power and the sport's queasy glitz.
EA is confident it can compete, however, pointing out that MMA isn't tied to a single league, which opens the door for the differing strategies of ring matches as well as cage fights, while also ensuring that the game's an ideal vehicle for solving those eternal playground arguments over who would win in a scrap against who if their respective organisations ever allowed for a meet-up. EA also wants the game to work as a primer for the sport - something that will encourage new fans to take a closer look and learn the surprisingly complex nuances of MMA's particular brand of face-pummelling.
The team wants to make sure the ground and pound controls work "similarly" to the stand-up moments, so it doesn't feel like you're playing two different games. With Photo Game Face and Create A Fighter slotting in alongside career mode, but even without the ability to play as Yehudi Menuhin or the family tortoise, MMA is looking extremely promising at the moment. There's a lot EA's not willing to talk about yet: it's mostly quiet on the roster, although it is willing to reveal the team's going for a fan-favourite mix of legends and rising stars, with Frank Shamrock, Randy Couture, and Gegard Mousasi already announced, and there's very little clue as to how the ground game is going to work (the greater game itself will allow for either stick or face button controls as with Fight Night), with the developers announcing only that they're currently iterating on several different approaches, and that the winner will be chosen via a kind of beauty contest at some point in the future.
So we're back to prettiness again and, as Rivero, a self-confessed hardcore fan, who has even managed to get his wife to start following the sport, stares at the screen, controller in hand, his face does seem to have the rapt expression of a man in love, so maybe his original phrasing was bang on the money after all. There's a lot of waiting to be done until it will be clear whether EA has what it takes to floor THQ, but if what the team's currently showing is anything to go by, MMA will certainly be able to put up a decent fight.
November 11th is here, confidentiality agreement is officially over, now I can tell you what we all saw at the EA MMA first look press conference. The demo we saw ran on an Xbox 360. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to actually play the game (leave it up to two EA geeks to do that). When they unveiled the game for the first time, everyone in the audience sort of gasped at the quality of the game and the absolute photo-realism of everything. You've seen the screen shots and video so all of you are familiar with the level of awe this game has woven into it.
First off, everyone has to give it up to UFC Undisputed for being the first game to 'revolutionize' MMA games. I was the first guy in line at my local Gamestop to be made fun of by local kids while I waited until 12:01 to grab my copy. If you were with MiddleEasy back in May, then you know the level of excitement that I had for this game (and consequent frustration at the magical Fabricio Werdum armbar that is impossible to prevent). UFC Undisputed is an amazing game that dominated May-June 2009 sales figures. It brought THQ out of a huge deficit and it's constantly been lodged inside my Xbox 360ever since it dropped in May.
With that said...EA Sports MMA is light years ahead of UFC Undisputed.
It's hard to even compare the two games, they almost look like they were designed for two completely different consoles. One of the most amazing thing about the game was the sheer character fluidity. As you approach your opponent, your hands go up, your fighter stance is more aggressive and control appears to be vastly more responsive. If you back-off from your opponent, the hands go down, you sort of jump around and get more comfortable with the cage. Also, the one thing that really had everyone salivating was the announcement that each fighter has their own unique stance, strikes, submissions and defense. That means every fighter throws a right hook differently. When you catch your opponent's leg, not every fighter goes for the take-down. Some will spin your leg around and just deck you in the face...others will go for the sweep and slam you to the ground. Someone in the crowd asked 'Well wouldn't this take a lot of time from the developer's standpoint to program different moves for every fighter?'. The lead developer said 'It's worth it, we want to make EA Sports MMA as realistic as possible'. In UFC Undisputed, all fighters were modeled from the skillset of Kickboxing, Boxer, Wrestler, Muay-Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This essentially meant that all moves looked the same and could be executed by any fighter that had those skillsets. This is not the case with EA Sports MMA. Each fighter has moves that they are historically known for doing. You won't see Fedor going for some flying heel-hook (Imanari style) but you will see him going for his wild overhand right (which we saw land and drop Brett Rogers).
In UFC Undisputed when fighters get in the clinch, movements seem very mechanical and only one fighter is allowed to hit at a time (something that we obviously never see in MMA). EA Sports seemed to capture the sporadic nature of being in the clinch, both fighters were struggling to get out while both trade blows simultaneously. Fingers were being extended to try to peel away the other fighter's grip while elbows were being thrown at the same time. Keep in mind, while this was going on sweat was building up on their skin and with each hit you could literally see the sweat come off their face and onto the mat. Speaking of mats, EA Sports MMA has a lot of different venues to fight in.
From the demo, we saw Muay-Thai rings, Brazilian grappling dojos, British boxing rings, a circular cage that looks exactly like what they used in YAMMA pit fighting, six-sided cages used in Strikeforce and I believe I remember seeing just an open area in the middle of a jungle. In fact, the locations were so remarkable that someone in the crowd asked if they could them again on the monitor.
EA Sports also announced Strikeforce as a premier league within the game which obviously leads us to believe that there will be other leagues (King of the Cage, Sengoku, MFC, DREAM, XFC) that will have their own fighters who each obviously have their own unique stance, movements, strikes...etc.
This game is going to be huge. Massive. Bigger than what we speculated when we wrote our 'It's time to get amped up for EA Sports MMA' article in September. I'm pretty sure I left a lot out so feel free to comment on the article and I will try to answer every question.
J
Guest
YES THANK GOD KASSIDY IS BACK~! I CAN USE IWF AGAIN FOR AWESOME VIDEO GAME NEWS~! WELCOME BACK AND THANKS FOR ALL THE GOOD INFO ON THE GAME~! I CANT WAIT FOR IT~!
xtremebadass
Guest
So I hear Lashley is in the game, anyone got updated roster?
If this is for PS2 that outdoes the UFC game!
If this is for PS2 that outdoes the UFC game!
Wordlife
Guest
Beer Money Army
Guest
Kizza
Guest