UFC 2009 Undisputed Preview

It was human burger bar Elvis Presley who, in 1964, sang the immortal lines: "Viva Las Vegas turnin' day into night-time/ Turnin' night into daytime/ If you see it once/ You'll never be the same again." Apparently, American songwriter Doc Pomus wrote these lyrics having never been anywhere near Sin City. He knew enough to know better. With its signature sprawl of mega-resorts scattered through the arid desert basin of Nevada like toys across a sandpit, Vegas beggars belief.

Of course there's a jet-black pyramid hotel with the world's brightest spotlight bursting from its peak; of course there's a hotel with a full-size basketball court in one of its rooms; of course there are bars full of Barbie-blonde hookers with epic cartoon breasts; and of course we just barged past Dennis Hopper to go and watch angry men fight in a cage, alongside Queen of Porn Jenna Jameson and a gaggle of Playboy bunnies.

We've come to the Palms Resort for the live finale of The Ultimate Fighter season seven, the reality TV show that has almost single-handedly resuscitated the mixed martial arts of UFC from the near-bankrupt flat-line of the mid-noughties to the pulsating mainstream US hit of today. And it has undoubtedly been the catalyst behind UFC 2009 Undisputed, the first UFC videogame in four years and the reason for our Vegas adventure.

It's THQ's first crack at the sport (Ubisoft and Crave have previously grappled with the licence), but the publisher's CV makes it the ideal candidate for the job. WWE remains THQ's biggest money-maker, last year's take shifting over 6 million copies, and WWE studio Yuke's is at the development helm for Project UFC, with a brand new team at its Osaka office creating the game from the ground up with a specially-created engine. With unprecedented involvement from the UFC, and the pedigree of Yuke's, THQ is putting heavy emphasis on delivering a gaming experience that's obviously fun to play, but also impeccably authentic.

The sweat flying about is particularly sex. Look closely for the gumshield being knocked out.

While based on the professional sport rather than the TV Show, The Ultimate Fighter and its key protagonists have an influential role to play. If you haven't seen it (it airs on Spike in the US and Setanta in the UK), the show fills a house with rookie brawlers, trains them up, and pits them against each other in the cage to compete for the ultimate prize of a "six-figure contract" with the UFC. Think X Factor with fisticuffs and very thick necks.

For proof of the format's success, look no further than jug-eared man mountain Forrest Griffin, winner of the original series, who is set to fight UFC superstar Quinton "Rampage" Jackson for the light heavyweight crown on 5th July. Griffin was the perfect fighter to establish the show as a credible incubator for professional talent. Smashing down suggestions that Ultimate Fighter was a ratings-chasing pantomime, Griffin first was narrowly defeated by UFC legend Tito Ortiz in a split decision, then knocked out Pride fighter Mauricio "Shogun" Rua, widely touted as the world's greatest MMA fighter.

So, in less than a fortnight, Griffin gets a pop at Rampage - an already mouth-watering prospect given added relish thanks to the pair's roles as rival mentors on The Ultimate Fighter. The grand unveiling of UFC 2009 Undisputed has been timed to coincide with the climax of season seven, and ride in on the hype-wave leading up to the Jackson-Griffin encounter. Both fighters star in the first gameplay trailer (watch it on Eurogamer TV); and they're here in the penthouse suite of the Palms, alongside UFC president Dana White, to help talk up THQ's UFC debut.

Don't wear hats indoors, kids.

"We're really excited to have this new videogame, because everyone knows our first one sucked," White observes during his preamble. "That was a deal that we were buried into when we bought the company, and I know a lot of the fans were disappointed with our old game. We were looking for a partner to help us squash the stigma of that, and really put together the best fighting game anyone's ever seen. This is going to be the best fighting game ever launched." A healthy dose of Vegas-sized ambition there.

THQ's Keith Kirby, who heads up product development, can't resist bragging about the appeal of the UFC brand in gaming circles since its dramatic resurgence. "This brand is super, super powerful - as soon as we announced we were doing this product, we got resumes from all around the industry: from [people working on] Fight Night, Call of Duty, Spider-Man, NBA Live, and Tony Hawk."

Yuke's long relationship with the men in spandex is deployed as an indicator of the benchmark standard for grapple-based fighting (which isn't a cast iron guarantee of quality - WWE SmackDown vs Raw 2008 scored an underwhelming six out of ten on Eurogamer), but Kirby is keen to dampen fears that Undisputed is just WWE in disguise. "We've created from scratch - everything from the first line of code to what we're showing you now has been created for this specific game," he says.

Yet another suit from the corporate cavalcade gives us some detail at last. They've already done a bunch of motion-capture sessions with the likes of Rampage and Griffin, we're told, "to build photo-realistic in-game representations." Footage of the sessions - Rampage is pulling silly faces, the wag - is flashed up. And, to be fair, the likenesses are already highly impressive; easily on a par with any other sporting game we can think of. Abstract-number fans can console themselves with the knowledge that each fighter is made up of 30,000 polygons - we'll take their word for that - and in addition to today's special guests, the roster includes Chuck Liddell, BJ Penn, Anderson Silva, Ben Saunders, Jon Koppenhaver, Clay Guida, Cheick Kongo, and Martin Kampmann. "Over 80 fighters" in total, from "all five weight divisions".

And don't forget the "non-fighting personalities", which will include the real commentary team, the prick-teasing Octagon girls, and Dana White himself. Everyone's invited! "They've given us access to a lot of their other personalities: cut men, trainers... Everything that makes the UFC brand what it is, we get," so we're told. "We want to create that totally immersive experience where you're watching a pay-per-view event. We use the same graphics, the same camera angles."

All of which will be music to the cauliflowered ears of existing UFC fans. The growing popularity of the sport in the US is not in doubt. In Vegas, the forthcoming Jackson-Griffin battle seems to provoke similar levels of interest to a major football match on these shores, and a number of unprompted locals are super-keen to bend our ear with predictions.

Is this still the same game?

Meanwhile, over in Britain, and again thanks almost exclusively to the TV show, UFC is enjoying a surge in popularity; but it's still clearly a far more niche proposition. Nevertheless, UK events routinely sell out and a Brit - Mancunian Michael Bisping - won the third season of The Ultimate Fighter, giving us a local champ to rally behind.

If Yuke's turns out a great game, that's not going to hurt the sport's progress. However, UFC's ability to continue capturing new British fans has been partially hamstrung by the recent channel-switch from the free-to-digital Bravo to the subscription-based Setanta - a move that has been criticised in some quarters as valuing short-term revenues over long-term growth (well, fancy!). No doubt it's a risky strategy for a sport to which maintaining and building momentum is vital.

But for Undisputed to succeed both home and away, it will need to entice fighting game fans to whom UFC means very little - although designer Omar Kendell thinks some of the work's already done. "The UK has a very long tradition of being very fighting game savvy," he tells us. "So those communities in particular - if you've been interested in the Tekkens and the Virtua Fighters - I think you'll find something to love. You'll definitely find the spiritual roots of those games in ours."

Breaking down people's resolve by rubbing their arms against your nether regions is a valid tactic.

Conceptually, the UFC boasts the raw materials for a fantastic videogame translation: combatants are expert in a range of diverse styles including boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, judo, wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And since this is mixed martial arts, the best fighters will be skilled in multiple disciplines making the nature of each contest inherently unpredictable. This is certainly reflected across the real-life bouts we witness in the Palms Resort. The first couple are thoroughly tedious affairs in which the fighters quickly collapse to the canvas in a clinch and remain there pretty much for the duration, writhing and twitching in the knotted limbs of homoerotic human spaghetti. It's not a million miles away from the naked wrestling scene in Borat.

But Diego Sanchez's welterweight face-off against Luigi Fioravanti is a thrilling advertisement. From the off, Sanchez wades in with a stunning onslaught of punches and kicks, but is unable to break the stubborn resilience of Fioravanti until a devastating TKO in the final round. It's a wince-inducing, brutal and bloody battle. The crowd, us included, go nuts.

In the game, the ebb and flow of each fight should be equally dynamic. "Players are constantly given the option of improving their position, going for submissions or inflicting damage," the product manager notes. This is what THQ is calling 'Constant Control' - a context-based system where a range of varied moves are available from any position. Punches from a distance will be different to those unleashed at close range; when you're right in your enemy's face you can try and force them into a number of clinches and takedowns.

"There's a huge variety of gameplay options to really convey the sense of struggle of an actual fight. Our grappling game is probably what's going to distinguish us most from other games out there - Nearly 50 percent of UFC's combat will come from the clinch in the ground position". They want you to play strategically, to think like a real mixed martial artist: "Button-bashing will make you lose - there's no advantage to that."

The game will feel markedly different, we're assured, depending on which fighting style you favour, and moves will use a combination of button presses and thumb-stick gestures. "We're still playing with the control system - there's a ways to go," reveals Kendell. "We're trying to combine elements with which the players are familiar. If you're a fan of popular fighting games, popular sports games, you'll probably find the controls immediately accessible."

With the game still a year away, we're not allowed hands-on time. Instead, and in anticipation of the 5th July bout, Jackson and Griffin square off under the control of Yuke's staffers, egged on by the real fighters. Make no mistake, this may be a videogame demo, but with a world title fight two weeks away, the egos on the line are all too real.

Already, the visuals depict the ferocity of UFC in compelling fashion: people in the room actually recoil and yelp as some of the heavier blows make contact. Taking a cue from Fight Night Round 3, there is no HUD or health bar. Each fighter's physical condition is represented visually. A nasty bruise ripens across Griffin's ribs, a deep cut opens above Jackson's left eye, and a TV-style slow-mo highlights reel at the end of each round shows how bodies deform and muscles ripple as blows are landed, with juicy dollops of blood and sweat sprayed around.

"What are we going to do about this miniature referee suspended between us?"

The fight ends abruptly as Jackson lands a jaw-breaking punch that knocks Griffin clean off his feet and unconscious. The real Rampage has an orgasm of gloating. "You just took one hell of a beating," we say to Griffin afterwards. "I did, thanks for bringing that up. It's nice of you," he deadpans. "It was cool seeing myself in the videogame - right until getting knocked out." Is that going to happen on 5th July? "God I hope not, I don't think so."

Jackson, however, thinks he's scored an important psychological victory. He tells us: "Fighting's 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical, so hopefully he sees himself getting knocked out in the game, and so in the fight." In Jackson, the UFC has a champ that's also a genuine superstar - a larger-than-life, brash and funny showman who could out-trashtalk the biggest WWE diva, and who just happens to be the best light heavyweight on the planet. And he's also a big gamer (he's currently hooked on Ninja Gaiden II), who is relishing his videogame debut. "It's a great ego-trip - I can play with myself. Fighting is the most selfish thing on the planet - it's all about me, me, me, me."

Griffin couldn't be more different. A man of few words who does not appear to relish the interview situation, he is most definitely not a gamer: "God, no. I don't play. I'm borderline retarded... what are you gonna do?" And UFC 2009 Undisputed doesn't look like changing that. "God no, it's horrible. I'm not going to start head-hunting with videogames." Griffin's philosophy is straightforward: "Really, you're in a bar thinking: can I beat that guy up, and does he have a bigger dick than me? Those are the important things in life. You can't make your dick any bigger, so I started beating people up." Can't argue with that.

Well now.

Despite his crushing virtual defeat, back in the arena Griffin manages to have the last laugh. His student Amir Sadollah secures a controversial first-round tapout against Jackson's boy to become season seven's Ultimate Fighter. Jenna Jameson seems to enjoy it: the Ultimate Fighter cheered on by the Ultimate F*****.

While the showboating suntan circus of WWE seems much more obviously 'Vegas' than the serious business of mixed martial arts, Sin City is nevertheless the home of UFC, and the nuance-free neon vulgarity of the strip offers a necessary and proven recipe for ratings success and mainstream popularity. There's much more of the game still to be revealed, from the promised career mode, to online options, but for now the early signs strongly suggest that this is the UFC game fans have been waiting for, with good potential for a brawler all fighting fans can enjoy.

So, just this once, what goes on in Vegas shouldn't necessarily have to stay in Vegas.