UFC 2010: Undisputed

Indeed, with any new franchise, a hefty chunk of the development cycle is spent on simply building it from scratch and getting it out of the door. With a solid base in place, the studio has the relative luxury with the first annual update of focusing on the game experience. And THQ is keen to point out what it sees as a wealth of improvements made by the Yuke's team in Japan.

Dravinski is more direct: "We went out to kill the '09 game. It was a great first start. We had momentum being the first MMA to release on the next-gen. I think we made a good fighting game.

"We're certainly aware there are things we had to improve - 2010 is light years past that with all the different combat improvements. The game plays so much faster, we've quadrupled the number of strikes, tripled the number of animations, doubled the number of submissions."

Among the headline improvements is the expanded possibilities for personalising the experience, with THQ wanting to encourage community involvement and players' investment in the content.On a straightforward level, Create-A-Fighter offers a useful guide to the team's ambitions.

First up, we're assured every one of the 100-plus UFC fighters in the game has been given the full treatment to make them not just fight but also look like their real-life counterparts. As have the personalities of the sport, from commentators Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg and cheese-king of cadence Bruce Buffer, to the Octagon Girls - complete with Dead or Alive-esque 'chest physics'.

The options, meanwhile, for crafting your own deadly neck-snapper are manifold. For 2010, more parts can be adjusted with greater variety; long hair's included; there's a flexible drag-and-drop system for applying tattoos and logos; and a slider-based colour system allows for greater subtlety in applying tone to all features.

Furthermore, while you can call your character whatever you like, if you choose first and last names from the game's sizeable listings you'll get callouts in game. And for when you're in the Octogon, touch glove sequences and victory animations can be pre-selected.

"We want people to invest in their characters," says Dravinski, who believes the more ways players can tweak with the experience, the greater the community engagement. Oh, and yes, you can be a southpaw this year.

"Southpaw sways and leans were in the build last year but it wasn't working to the levels we felt comfortable with, it wasn't ready to be in the game," he insists. "It was an omission and everyone complained - I love it when I read, 'Oh, it takes three lines of code to put in southpaw and they just didn't do it because they're lazy'.

"I certainly have the chest pains to prove no-one on this team is lazy. Certain things just aren't done; doing a yearly title has its limitations. You can't please everyone, but I like to think we've pleased a lot of people."

Sambo, karate, and Greco-Roman wrestling styles have also been added - in the Create mode, templates can be assigned by discipline, or you can edit moves individually to create, in theory, a fighter to your exact specifications.

Career Mode has had a facelift. The buzz this year is about the sinister-sounding "game is watching you" feature, which tracks your performances and reflects the data in commentary and progression, rather than spying on you in the shower while touching itself.

A newly created fighter will start as an amateur, before progressing to the WFA and, if successful, onto the UFC. You can be kicked back down again if you fail to perform. Stats decay over time if unimproved, with thresholds at 30, 50 and 70 which, once passed, can't be dropped below, and fighters also age, adding wear and tear to stats.