MONTREAL -- The UFC is holding its second event in Montreal and if the media turnout at Friday's official preview of THQ's new video game "UFC Undisputed 2009" is any indication, this one is going to be bigger than last year's.
Of course, having Georges St. Pierre and Dana White on hand doesn't hurt.
The game, which will be released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation, is set for a May 19 release -- which also happens to be St. Pierre's birthday.
I'm not a heavy gamer (I'm waiting for them to release a Wii version), but this thing looks spectacular. The action is pure, the moves are expansive, and the graphics… let's just say every part of the screen looks like an actual UFC broadcast that from a distance I'd swear you were watching the real thing.
"This game has been 2.5 years in development and we really wanted to make this the most real mixed martial arts experience you could get. It's not just two guys fighting. It's the submission guy against the Muay Thai guy and the cat-and-mouse game you play in an MMA fight. It's transitioning from guard to half-guard to side control, and so on. And this really comes out in the game play," game producer Neven Dravinski said.
Enough talk, let's see it in action. And St. Pierre and White weren't just there to be a couple of pretty faces. They squared off with controllers in hand in front of the packed room at the Bell Centre -- and the trash talk from the UFC president started right away. "I'm going to kick GSP's ass in his own hometown!"
St. Pierre played himself, while White appropriately chose B.J. Penn. The action went back and forth with both landing lots of punches and knees. (There was very little blocking as each showed their limited mastery of the game play.)
While GSP might have spent more time on his back during the match, he put a quick end to White's alleged perfect record with a thundering spinning backfist (and by thundering, I'm referring to the reaction of the onlookers) that put Penn on the mat for good and induced the announcement in a perfect Mike Goldberg voice, "It's all over!"
(Yes, both Goldberg's action descriptions and Joe Rogan's exquisite observations are packaged in the game and are timed actually quite well with the action. And, as the game producer eloquently put it, the graphic realism even extends to the Octagon girls.)
St. Pierre insisted afterward it was the first time he played it.
Did it help that he's actually an experienced fighter?
"No, I don't think so."
He rethinks.
"Well, I say no, but maybe a less a little bit because I know fighting, so I try to stay out range and when I would go to hit him I try to close the range and then pull out of it."
(Chuck Liddell, are you listening?)
Will he take the chance to fight Thiago Alves -- the game will have a roster of 80-plus fighters, all of whose skills and strengths are modelled after the fighters themseleves -- in the game before the real one in July in order to get a "feel" for that fight?
"Maybe. We'll see."
Onto real fighting, UFC 97 (also known as UFC in Montreal 2) gets going Saturday and it should be a great one.
And if Liddell happens to lose, maybe he can look into a career on the gaming circuit…
