Gaming and MMA are two things that I not only follow, but write about, so it’s a bit frustrating at times to see how those things don’t overlap very well when it comes to stuff like EA Sports UFC. The details that we are getting from the gaming world on EA Sports UFC is terrible, to say the least. We are two months out from EA Sports UFC and know nothing, literally zero about how the game works. We don’t know how the striking will work (other than it being face buttons), we don’t know how the ground game will work and we haven’t seen the game in action yet. Just pre-rendered stuff.
The gaming media has no clue what questions to ask, so I’m kind of thankful that we have a dude like our own Jason Nawara to talk to these guys and ask real questions. Jason asks some tough questions over at MiddleEasy about the game and what we walk away from is having a list of cool features that were in previous MMA games that aren’t in EA Sports UFC, or that might be really scaled back. We implore you to go and read the whole damned thing, here is what they had to say about the game being a simulation or arcade game:
We’re certainly looking for a middle ground. The most important thing is that the game is enjoyable to the most amount of people. While that means some simulation aspects are lacking, there’s a payoff in the end for them, because if there are a million or two million people playing it, there are more people to enjoy playing it with. If it’s too hardcore of a simulation, such as that it only appeals to a small group of people, then what is the future of the franchise and how many people are online to play against anyways? We wanted to perfect the look and feel of the UFC, but to be perfectly honest, there are so many nuances about MMA that, to make a really 100% authentic simulation, that would be the labor of several decades. I mean, just think about being like, “Hey, I’m up against the cage, can I move my head so I can get underneath my opponents chin, then fake the double leg and stand back up to ram into his jaw?” Those are techniques that fighters use that are so prevalent but so nuanced and opaque to 90% of the viewership… It would be a fruitless endeavor into simulating that.