First play: UFC Undisputed 2010 demo

After a days worth of shenanigans thanks to THQ deciding that
"We're sending out demo codes Thursday" actually means "maybe
Thursday night, probably Friday" in addition to all day maintenance
on the Undisputed community Web site, I was able to download
the demo this morning. It probably would've been better to preface
this all by saying that the demo of "UFC Undipusted 2010" is
coming out next week and those who signed up to the Undisputed
community website got special codes to download the demo early.

Booting up the demo, the first thing I noticed was that, thankfully,
the main menu music is no longer too-loud/grating/awful metal and has
a much more epic/ominus sound. But I'm sure that's hardly what you
came here to read about.

First off, there are two modes - Exhibition and Tournament. I didn't
try tournament but I'm sure you can probably figure out what it is.
There are four fighters in this demo, Lyoto "Dragon" Machida,
Mauricio "Shogun" Rua, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, and "Sugar"
Rashad Evans. The demo would've benefitted immensely from including
a training mode since there are numerous additions to the gameplay
that you'll need to figure out on your own. There's a move list that
can be accessed during fights and changes depending on your position
but even that isn't enough at times.

Once I got into a fight, I noticed that the character models look
fairly similar to those in 2009. They're slightly more detailed in
2010, but overall look pretty much the same. But now, onto the real
meat of my preview - the mechanics. This could take a while.

If you played Undisputed 2009, you know how complicated the control
scheme was. Every button on the controller served a specific function
and 2010 is even more in-depth. Undisputed 2010 features expanded
ground grappling transitions (moving from guard, to side control, to
mount, etc.) as well as greatly expanded clinch grappling and
grappling against the cage. Thankfully, clinch grappling is now
handled by the same control scheme as ground grappling. Grappling
and transitions are now more of a chess match than ever, as choosing
the right time to try and manuever can be the difference between
better positioning or getting countered.

Transitions and submissions now seem to be more difficult to pull off.
Though I noticed Lyoto Machida seems able to transition easily and
at will, transitioning effectively seems to take more effort now
and hopefully eliminates being able to get someone in full mount
in the first few minutes of a fight. Honestly, submissions
aren't exactly my style so I didn't try many of them. Which way you
spin the stick (while attempting to lock in a sub) seems to be
important this time, but without a training tutorial, I'm just not
sure.

The biggest addition to your fighting arsenal in "Undisputed 2010"
is the ability to sway. In 2009, it was fairly dangerous to stand
and trade shots with another fighter. All you could do was block
or hope to counter the strikes thrown by your opponent and required
you to stick and move if you wanted to have a stand-up war. Swaying
changes all of that. While holding the high block button, a flick
of the left stick will cause your fighter to sway in the appropriate
direction, very much the same way you would see a boxer dodge and
weave. It's still not a good plan to stand in front of your
opponent and just trade punches and kicks, but swaying allows you
to perfect the art of counter-striking.

Joing the six fighting styles of "Undisputed 2009" are karate,
greco-roman wrestling and sambo. Light-heavyweight champ Lyoto
Machida uses karate's counter-striking style to great effect
while greco-roman wrestling and sambo will undoubtedly allow for
ridiculous throws.

The fighting and movement of each fighter looks and feels much more
fluid in this demo than in "Undisputed 2009." Movements no longer
feel or look as robotic or pre-determined and look much more natural.
The more natural movement of the fighters also allows for even
crazier/brutal looking knockouts - something I've unfortunately
been seeing a few too many of for my taste, however.

Granted it's just a demo and there is most likely some fine-tuning
that still needs to be done, but every match I've played so far has
ended in a knockout or submission - I haven't seen the judge's
scorecards once yet. It's impossible to say for sure, but I honestly
wouldn't be surprised if THQ somehow turned up the instances of
knockouts for the demo to perhaps try and appeal to the casual fan
who likes knockouts more than the ones who appreciate 15-minute wars.

In addition to the number of knockouts I've been experiencing,
I've also noticed fighters seem to get cut fairly easily now.
Hopefully this gets tweeked as well, being that matches can now end
by TKO due to cuts or injury in the same way as real fights.
But perhaps my biggest gripe is the difficulty. The demo starts you
out on Beginner, which is laughably easy, but the next level,
Experienced (I think) is way too hard. I've only managed a few wins
on Experienced, with the majority of my fights ending with me out
cold on the mat. You could chalk it up to inexperience with the new
mechanics, but with two difficulty levels above Experienced,
it's my feeling that the overall difficulty could be turned down
slightly.

With online tournament support from THQ, an expanded roster, new
fighting styles, new fight mechanics, and the ability to create
online fight camps with your friends, "UFC Undisputed 2010" is a
game I and every MMA fan should definitely have their eye on.
"UFC Undisputed 2010" releases for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and
Playstation Portable on May 25. It should be noted that the PS3
version features three exlusive fighters, Royce Gracie, Jens Pulver,
and Dan Severn, as well as a number of exclusive classic/ultimate
fights. GameStop is also offering four fighters as pre-order bonuses
- Ultimate Fighter contestants James McSweeney, Marcus Jones, Brendan
Schaub and Ultimate Fighter Winner Roy Nelson.