UFC 2009 Wishlist

April 9, 2008 - With the ascension of MMA and, in particular, UFC into the mainstream, the public has been clamoring for a UFC video game for some time. 2004's UFC Sudden Impact represents the last UFC game to hit the marketplace. That game was developed by Opus, but its main competitor, the PRIDE FC series of games, was produced by THQ. It's the latter company that will be responsible for the upcoming UFC game, tentatively titled "UFC 2009".

The PRIDE game was seen as the superior of the two at the time (Jeremy Dunham gave PRIDE FC an 8.0, while he gave UFC Throwdown, the last UFC game reviewed on the site, a 7.2. Neither, though, is up to the standard that fans will expect of the first UFC game in four-plus years.

So, enter us. We've been MMA fans for about ten years now, going back to when we had to go to Blockbuster and rent UFC tapes on VHS because they were still banned from pay-per-view. We've seen MMA shows from five continents, watched shows live at 3 AM, and avoided spoilers for a month. We've also played seemingly every MMA game that's ever come out, so we feel pretty qualified to present this list of features we think the upcoming UFC game has to have to make it a worthwhile experience.

• MMA, not Pro Wrestling. Although THQ did produce the PRIDE FC game in 2003, we're afraid they're going to try and use some of the events and logic they use in Smackdown vs. Raw. SvR is a successful series, and pro wrestling is similar to MMA, but the two things are different animals. MMA fighters don't have movesets or finishers; they don't move around the ring like pro wrestlers, and their matches don't start and finish like pro wrestling matches. Using the story and code from one to represent the other is disingenuous.
  
  
• One life meter, not two. Mirko Cro Cop's legendary high kick ended fights in PRIDE out of nowhere. In the PRIDE video game, it took seven or eight Cro Cop high kicks to finish off a fighter. A game where you can't win a fight with one well-timed strike isn't a realistic one. Instead of having life meters for each fighter, let's move out of the Mortal Kombat era. If we really need a life meter in the game, have one life meter and make it a momentum meter. If you rain down 10 or 12 strikes in the mount, then the momentum meter should make the fight over -- if you spend 30 seconds circling, the meter should retreat to the middle. PRIDE FC was all about timing in its reversal and grappling systems, but we'd like to see that extended to the UFC game's striking as well.
  
  
• Shoulders and sticks, not button combinations. Speaking of that timing mechanism, fighting on the ground shouldn't be a button combination system. Hitting B and X to put a triangle choke on isn't logical by any means. Instead, we'd like to see a shoulders and sticks combination. If you're in your opponent's guard and want to go for a leglock, push the right stick down to go for the right leg. Want to attempt to do an armbar on the left arm? Push the left stick up. Strike the face with the left or right trigger, and strike the body with the left or right button.
  
  
• Not every move should be successful. In PRIDE, hitting an armbar combination will immediately put an opponent in armbar position, with timing and energy meters determining whether you actually get the move or not. Instead, it should be an effort to even get in that position, let alone securing the armbar. Make passing the guard, improving position, and securing submissions difficult to do -- if reversals happen every time a move is attempted, it cheapens the spectacular nature of a position switch.
  
  
• A tournament mode with damage from previous fights. UFC doesn't have tournaments anymore, but PRIDE did, and in PRIDE FC, the tournament mode brought you through a sixteen-person tournament with damage retained from the previous round. This UFC game should have the same feature, even if just for co-op action.
• Have a career mode that starts in The Ultimate Fighter. Basically, your fighter's career should look like Forrest Griffin's. Start on The Ultimate Fighter as a relative nobody. Go through drills. Win a few fights on TV. If you're successful, compete in the finale, which allows you to advance to fight tougher fighters. If you're good at that, then get invited to train at better gyms (e.g. Xtreme Couture). If you're good at that, then you get a title shot, and if you win, then you become the coach on The Ultimate Fighter, while defending your title and continuing on.
  
  
• Show the highlights of fights that would affect you in career mode. Remember in the early EA NHL games, when you'd see highlights of out-of-town games during intermission? That cool feature hasn't been implemented in anything since, and it would add tons of replay value to career mode. If you have to face Georges St. Pierre in your next fight, there should be a montage of St. Pierre destroying people in the game, along with the mandatory shot of him looking stern under a hose.
  
  
• Fighters with different styles should fight differently. Anyone who's seen Karo Parisyian fight knows that his style looks different than, say, Matt Hughes. In video games, though, they play the same way. That's simply unrealistic, and makes the experience more generic with each new fighter and fight. It's often said that "Styles make fights", but in this case, styles should make fighting games. We said earlier that fighters shouldn't have movesets, but fighters should do things within a particular style. Matt Hughes doesn't use judo throws, and Karo Parisyian wouldn't pick up someone and run them halfway across the ring before slamming them down. Fighter AI also needs to work towards their strengths as opposed to simply doing moves. Matt Serra should attempt to take people down or pull guard to get in his best positions; Houston Alexander should attempt to stand up and bang every chance he gets.
  
  
• Cheick Kongo shouldn't be fighting BJ Penn. In every game of the past, weight class has not been an issue. If you want to have that be a feature of the game, well, there should either be an "Arcade" version of the game or it should be realistic; Penn should run around Kongo and virtually any Kongo punch should send Penn to sleep. In the career mode we've mentioned, guys coming up or down a weight class is reasonable, but you should've have to beat Kongo to claim the lightweight title.
  
  
• Make a KO feel like a KO. PRIDE FC's celebration when you won a tournament was fantastic -- when you won a fight, though, it wasn't that exciting. We want to see the crowd freak out when there's a KO. People should be jumping around in the ring. You should be on top of the cage celebrating. Doctors should be in the ring to make sure the KO'd guy is still alive.
  
  
• A healing/cut minigame. Sometimes, a fight can come down to whether a cut man can keep a wound sufficiently closed to allow the fighter to continue. A Bioshock-y puzzle game designed to close up a cut might be a little too complex and out-of-the-flow of a MMA game, but something similar would turn an understated part of MMA into a underrated part of the video game.
  
  

Blood stoppages. If blood's going to be in the game, it should be realistic; PRIDE FC featured blood sprayed onto the camera, which was a cool effect, but had no bearing on the outcome of the fight. Kenny Florian's career can attest to the dramatic impact a well-placed elbow has on a fight. A cut should impede a fighter's vision, decrease his power, but increase his desperation and intensity.

What else do you think should be in UFC 2009?