Do you have what it takes to be the Ultimate Fighting Champion?  Find out in UFC: Sudden Impact

by Louis Bedigian

“Our goal was not the ‘pursuit of realism’ per se, but the ‘pursuit of fun and excitement’ of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.” 

Street Fighter is fast.  Mortal Kombat is bloody.  Soul Calibur is in a league all its own.  These are great fighting games.  “Games” meaning “fictitious interactive entertainment.”  You couldn’t possibly do this stuff for real.  View the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat flicks for proof.

What if it’s reality that you are looking for?  What if you wanted a fighting game that was based on a real competition, but still had a cornucopia of fighters and different fighting styles that, when properly combined, make for an incredibly addictive experience?  Then there’s only one place to turn – the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

The latest game to envelope the competition is UFC: Sudden Impact.  Screenshots show off more graphical detail than ever before, as well as a character select screen that includes more playable fighters.  Wanting to know more about the fighters and their styles, we sat down to chat with the game’s creators – Kaoru Koda (Producer, Take 2 Licensing), Brian Etheridge (Assistant Producer, Take 2 Licensing), and Ryota Hayashi (Director of Development, Opus).

Most fighting games take liberties with real-world physics in order to create a more exciting experience.  How did the development team tackle this issue?  How did you manage to keep the realism of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and still make it fun?

Ryota Hayashi: The focus of UFC is on real fighting and the game takes every opportunity it can to emulate that. We know that there is no lack of intensity when you watch a real UFC fight, so we tried to exemplify the power of the slams, the takedowns, the head-kicks, and the real brutal knock-outs. What we've come up with is a game that, when played against your best friend and if you lay him out using a well placed uppercut, you both wince, thinking of how painful that looked, the sound his body made as it flopped onto the mat, and what that guy's jaw will feel like the next day. We've kept to the realism to a point where people can relate to the pain their fighters are feeling. 

The previous UFC games strived to depict the realism in its pure sense. We however, decided to take a more innovative approach this time. We tried to get into someone's brain, someone who is super excited about UFC, and tried to depict exactly what he is seeing (the images in his brain), rather than trying to directly depict the realism. In other words, our goal was not the "pursuit of realism" per se, but the "pursuit of fun and excitement" of UFC. We wanted to accurately grasp the fun and exciting images that UFC fans enjoy, and reflect those images from their perspectives into the game.

Using this approach helped us immensely when trying to figure out what to focus on and how far we should go. We did often encounter challenges in terms of figuring out where to draw the line so as to not go too far from reality. But all in all, we feel that we have managed to make the gameplay and the presentation of the game much more fun and exciting than ever before while maintaining the image of real-life UFC accurately.

Tons of fighters.  Many are hidden!

Did you get to work with any of the UFC fighters while developing the game?  If so, what was that experience like?

Brian Etheridge: Several people on our team had the opportunities to work with the fighters for reference photos and the like. This usually entailed scheduling a photo shoot after the weigh-in at the actual events. Also, because their appearances can change so often (hair style, facial hair, new tattoos, physique, etc.), we have to constantly update our library of reference shots. We normally take 100+ pictures of each fighter at a time to create accurate fighter models in the game.

On occasion, we would call up some of the fighters to ask them specific questions for their fighter bio. For the most part, most of the contact with the fighters was done through Zuffa, the owner of the UFC. They are all huge fans of the sport and knew most of the information off the top of their heads. Every once in a while, they too would have to get the fighters on the phone to get specifics, like when they had to call Phil Baroni to confirm his birth date. Little details like that make this game cool in a sense that it really caters to the fans of the sport.

Some fighters seem to be really into the game. We have pictures of Chuck Liddell playing this game (a demo version) against one of our staff, and he won the game. So in this picture, he is doing his winning pose, though not as intense as in his real fights. J Matt Hughes also beat some of us a couple of times in the game. We enjoy every opportunity in which we get to talk to the fighters because we ourselves are huge fans.

What fighting styles are represented in UFC: Sudden Impact?

Brian Etheridge: There are specific fighting styles to choose from when creating a character, and when using a real UFC fighter, their repertoire of moves is a combination of these styles, drawing from various techniques. There are a total of 15 specific fighting styles for players to choose from when creating a fighter. There are pure martial arts like Jiu-Jitsu, Kung-Fu, Muay Thai, Sumo, Ninjitsu, Karate, Wrestling, Sambo, and Boxing and a number of hybrid martial arts like Pit-Fighting, Submission Fighting, Pro-Wrestling, Luta Livre, Kickboxing, and Mixed Martial Arts. When creating your fighter, you can choose to either focus on one of these styles, or diversify and learn up to 3 styles. When a person chooses to train a fighter in the same style for 3 years, they will learn more powerful, decisive moves, but they will lack the balance of someone that mixes up their fighting styles. It's all a matter of how you envision your fighter.

A block is worth a thousand words.

No, wait, that’s a picture.  But I’m sure the block was more effective in this case.

Talk about the gameplay mechanics.  What's new?  Has anything changed?

Kaoru Koda: The ability to not only create a fighter but also cross train the character any way you like is a really big addition to this game that I'm sure a lot of players will enjoy.

There are several new positions in this latest iteration of the series. Players can control their opponent from the side-mount position. This is an overwhelmingly advantageous position, similar to that used by Matt Hughes to dominate Carlos Newton at UFC 38. We also have the fence mount position in its complete form. The players can now pin their opponents up against the fence and rain down blows from above. This is truly devastating and difficult to escape from. This makes it ever more important to execute strategic Octagon positioning. Other new positions include the so-called "Inoki vs Ali" position (one fighter standing the other on the ground), standing clinch, and the fence clinch. 

Another cool addition is the variation of short and long distance moves. This creates a whole new dynamic in stand-up fighting. You can build up momentum by charging across the ring and delivering a flying knee to the head. Spear tackles and lifting body slams are other cool new long distance moves.

One more gameplay mechanic that we worked on was the duration of the fight. In previous games, players felt it was too easy to submit someone and end the match quickly. It is now easier to escape submissions and takedowns...if you have enough stamina left. As a result, matches last longer now. If your health is low or you've tried to perform too many powerful moves, it will be easier to submit you or knock you out.

UFC: Sudden Impact includes a new story mode.  Besides the expected rise of a champion, what does this mode involve? 

Kaoru Koda: Here is the story. You play a guy who is good at nothing but fighting. He has no money and no purpose in life. One day he is discovered by a professional fighter trainer. The story mode begins here and is synonymous with fighter creation, but it's not your typical create-a-character mode. You don't just pick his hair color and outfit, you do all of that, and then train him yourself. You'll start by creating the look of your fighter. You'll be able to choose their height and build, trunk style, trunk color/design, and tattoos. And in addition to just naming your fighter, you can input their strengths/weaknesses, nationality, birth date, and also choose their entrance music. After all of this, you pick your first year's academy and begin training. Some styles are less common and unusual and you might find them more interesting to try those.

You will have to complete 24 challenges a year. These challenges require you to use your fighters' specific abilities to either gain new moves or improve their technique. These challenges are tailored to the specific fighting style so, while there may be a few grappling challenges in the kickboxing academy, it will be mostly striking lessons. At the end of the three years, you will have a brutal fighting machine. You will take your fighter through the ranks of the UFC and hopefully win the title.

Don’t kick a man when he’s down.

Punch him instead.

What other play modes are going to be featured in the game?

Brian Etheridge:  We brought back the popular Tournament Mode which allows you set up an 8-man tournament between you and your friends or the CPU. We've also added a much more in-depth Training mode and a Fighter Profiles mode for the fans. This mode contains bio and fight record information on all of the fighters in the game. The single player favorite Arcade Mode is back, which allows you to fight an endless stream of challengers that get progressively more difficult. Other single player modes include Champion Road and Legend Mode. These are two similar modes in which you fight through a number of famous UFC fighters to try and win the title. Legend Mode is a tougher version of Champion Road that the player will have to beat to unlock certain special fighters. Then there is the ever-famous Versus Mode in which you just pick two fighters and fight. You can fight your friend, the CPU, or just watch the CPU duke it out with itself.

I've heard that UFC: Sudden Impact will feature at least one female fighter.  Is this true?  If so, what does she bring to the table?

Kaoru Koda: Yes, it's true! This time we've brought Erica Montoya into the game. She is a real, undefeated, female Mixed Martial Arts fighter and she ranks at the top of the 120-125 lbs fighters in the world. She was the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Champion in 2001. She knows her stuff and her character in the game proves it. My personal favorite is her virtually inescapable flying armbar that will even take down the likes of Tim Sylvia, when used properly.

How many of the fighters' real-life moves have been implemented into the game?

Kaoru Koda: It would be impossible to get a number of exact moves that each fighter has used, but each of the fighters' moves is determined by their real-life style. Chuck Liddell, for instance, has a head-kick that could take down an elephant while Matt Hughes' lifting slams and takedowns are second to none. There are plenty of signature moves too, like Shonie Carter's spinning back-fist (used to knock out Matt Serra at UFC 31) and Caol Uno will lie on the mat to taunt the opponent, the way he does before a match.

But most importantly is the fact that the fighters' styles are tailored to their real-life attributes. It's much harder to submit Tsuyoshi Kosaka or other well-versed grapplers because they have extremely skilled ground techniques. If you are fighting a deadly striker like Robbie Lawler, you may want to take him to the ground and while trying to avoid his KO punches. Knowing your fighter's attributes is the key to the victory.

Not happy with Sudden Impact’s fighter lineup?

Create your own!

What did it take to get the moves into the game?  Were any motion-capture techniques used?

Ryota Hayashi: Real-life moves from major MMA disciplines are the basic set of moves. On top of these core moves, we tried to gather requests from various people including fighting game fans and regular gamers. (Thanks guys for participating in our focus group testing!) Through deliberation, we tried to incorporate as many of these requests as possible into the game. Then our motion designers spent many nights drawing animations. Some of the animations are motion-captured, like when a fighter gets hit or tapped out, during fighter entrance, etc. But basically the motion designers worked very hard to make a smooth transition between each motion so the animation flows smoothly and looks real. According to them, it was particularly challenging to make submission move animations. Not so much when performing the moves, but the animations when escaping from submission moves were particularly challenging because the motion varies so much and there simply isn't just one way to do it in real life. Each fighter has about 200 moves in his move repertoire (check out the moves list in the game), and we have a total of 4,000 animations in the game!

Were any additional moves added?  Anything that wasn't necessarily something a fighter would do in real life, but just had to be included?

Brian Etheridge: There are so many new moves. All the moves in the new positions are brand new. The ones that I think people will especially appreciate would be the long distance moves as mentioned earlier. If you do them right, the moves will incur high impact on your opponent and you will feel it. You can also find some interesting new moves in Story mode that are very unique and less commonly seen in real-life UFC events. Some may be "over the top" but not necessarily unrealistic. I don't think anyone would be caught dead attempting a somersault kick in the UFC, but hey, you never know.  Also, some of the more obscure unlockable fighters have 10 hit combos and other moves, that when used, will definitely catch people off guard.

How do players execute the moves?  In the past the UFC games controlled very differently from other fighting games.

Brian Etheridge: We are using the same control system again. We did a focus group and found that people like these controls because they are pretty intuitive. You basically use control buttons as strike buttons, and button combinations will perform takedowns, submissions, feint moves and taunts. Combination of directional buttons and strike buttons will perform step moves (side step strike, back step strike, etc.). You can re-map the button configuration in the Options and use shoulder buttons too.

Thank you for your time.