This afternoon I drove to Agoura Hills, California for a demonstration of the new UFC game at THQ headquarters.  We were treated to a presentation by Neven Dravinski, a Q and A session with all of the developers, and free reign to play the final product.  I probably played about 10 different fights, including one classic fight.

I remain extremely impressed by the game.  As Brock I was able to take Mir down at will, with Demian Maia I was able to pull off a sub on Chris Leben, and as BJ Penn I knocked out Karo Parisyan.  BJ Penn's jab is captured beautifully in the game, Anderson Silva has some really cool kicks, and GSP's wrestling is almost unstoppable, as it should be.

The career mode lasts 7 years total, it is not long, it will take between 6 and 10 hours to complete a career.  The career mode in total is only about 40 fights, they believe people will run through it multiple times to create characters to bring online, and do it across numerous divisions.  Online play will be available in ranked and unranked leagues, as well as leagues that allow created fighters and leagues that ban them.  If you have a very successful career your created fighter could end up with better stats than many top stars.

When you start the career mode, you have a certain number of points to allocate in different areas.  For example, you allocate points to speed, strength, and cardio, and obviously you have to pick and choose where you want to focus.  Over time you can build these during your career.  You gain more and more points to distribute as you train, but at higher levels it takes more points to improve your skills.  The returns diminish as you get better.  Along the way, you might train with BJ Penn to improve your BJJ, or Mark DellaGrotte to improve your muay thai.   

A lot of the career mode is about management.  You decide who to fight based on their skills, record, and how famous they are (measured in "cred" points).  The cred points operate as a kind of currency, allowing you to purchase gear and other things that will improve your character.  You also spend a lot of time making sure your stamina stays strong, because your training is less effective when you train with low stamina, and it obviously has a negative effect on your fights if you gas.

As far as modes for a second iteration, they are considering a lot of things.  They chose to really focus on the fighting engine, the physics-based collision system, and the graphics for this one.  I floated the idea of a "Pride" mode with a ring in Japan with Pride rules, and they did not shoot it down.  They were open to it, but made it very clear that it's the UFC's call on things like that, and there may be reason they don't want it.

They were a little disappointed at all the complaints online about individual player stats.  Scoring on a 1-100 scale of skills is very hard, their goal was to make the overall way a fighter plays similar to the way he fights, and they think they've done a great job with it.  I agree.

They are well aware of some of the issues (lack of southpaw, cage work, etc), but the bottom line is they had a certain timeframe and manpower and they decided to focus on getting the fighting engine down.  I think it was a good call, because they now have a strong base to move forward with.

On another note, I met a reader from the site who won the mini tournament we had amongst the people covering the event.  THQ actually invited some of their active forum members to come out and test the game, which was a very fan-friendly and impressive thing for them to do.  The developers were great with answering any questions.

I got a taste first-hand of the learning curve in the game.  I thought I was good until I played one of the developers, who was faking submission attempts to goad me into defending before he cancelled and moved into mount before I could do anything about it.  These guys never accidently go to north-south or back into side control, they get it every time.  They said the general key is to calm down, make sure you push the stick all the way to the outside, and then do the motion.  Once I did that, I was getting it almost every time too.

Thanks again to THQ for extending the invite, and from what I've played so far, I highly recommend buying the game on May 19th.  For a game that would have been so easy to screw up, they did an amazing job.