THQ is shipping UFC 2009 Undisputed to retail stores tomorrow for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and while you wait for our review, we have three interviews lined up for you. The first features game designer Omar Kendall. Enjoy! Check back tomorrow for another interview.
Jiu-jitsu and ground fighting is often described as a physical chess game. How hard was it to capture the essence of that in the game? It was hard. There’s a mix of trying to make a game that is going to appeal to people who know the sport in and out, are on the forums everyday, watching every Pay Per View, watching on Spike. But there is also the guy who has never seen a mixed martial arts event or a UFC fight or the guys who boo when the fight goes to the ground. We also have to make a game that appeals to them as well. It was pretty tricky to combine those two groups and try to make a game that they will both enjoy. The ground game is very nuanced. The striking game, from a visual stand point, is easy to see and you know what’s going on. How proud are you at how the transitions and jiu-jitsu turned out? It’s my proudest achievement. About a year ago, there was a much more simplified version of the ground game that we showed off in Vegas back in June. We made a call then that we just weren’t happy with the way it was playing. So we made the choice to add some strategy to it, add some depth, add some layers. We made a more nuanced control but we felt it better reflects the complexities that happen on the ground. So we think it served the ground better and we think people are digging it so that is also gratifying. Who did you use as consultants for jiu-jitsu? We had access to Marc Laimon who is a trainer at the Cobra Kai dojo in Las Vegas. He’s been playing the game ever since we had a playable version. He’s always giving tips on different sweeps we could do from different positions, different submissions, arm positioning, leg positioning – placing the shin there as oppose to the ankle there. He’s really happy with it and he’s a huge gamer. He has both of those sides and he continually contributed and offered advice. It was really helpful. I’m sure the striking aspect of the game wasn’t neglected either. How the development of that system progress? We made a call – we figure that most people who play the game are going to pick up and play striking first. For the casual guy and for the casual UFC fan, it’s the most immediate thing. It’s just the face buttons – if you have played a fighting game before its pretty familiar. We knew we had to make it very satisfying and very easy to understand. But also reach into the sport deeply enough to encapsulate everything we wanted to with the game. Couple that with an all new Havok Collison Physics System where we’re doing really impressive things with the way punches and reactions work. We wanted to create something that was both visceral and deep. I think we nailed it. The game has a lot of stats and number crunching going on in the background. How do those numbers translate into actual gameplay? We thought the game would be best served by being objectively accurate to the fighters and to the sport. We didn’t want to go in there and say, “Well, Rampage [Jackson] is very popular,” so we’re going to skew him in a certain way that he isn’t. The game reflects tons and tons of resource gathering, watching a lot of fights, and saying, “This is what this guy is good at and this is something he is not so hot at.” We also tried to be as accurate to the modern day fighter. A lot of people we like, “When Shogun was in Pride he was this monster.” Well, what I’ve seen of Shogun in the UFC…that’s the fighter I have to recreate. A lot of people are complaining that Chuck [Liddell] is a little too strong in the demo. Well, we recorded Chuck’s stats up until February. We didn’t see his last fight. If we had, we might have tuned him a bit differently. However, we still feel it’s pretty accurate as to the Chuck that was fighting up until February of this year. How do you feel about the reaction the game got once the demo hit Xbox Live and the Playstation Network? We’re actually surprised at the reaction the game had with different fan bases. The MMA guys and the guys on MMA forums had a lot of misgivings and reservations. They didn’t think we were going to nail the ground game. When the demo hit, all of that changed so it was like, “Cool, we got those guys.” We went on to a general gaming forum and we were totally unprepared for the reaction they had. There were fighting game enthusiasts and there were guys who had never seen the UFC before. They were like, “Wow, if the UFC is as cool as this game, I’m going to start watching the UFC.” That blew my mind. It let me know that we hit of lot of those objectives that we strived for.