E3 2007 wasn’t too long ago, and there were a LOT of big names that showed up. Aside from the Halo 3’s and the Metal Gear Solid’s making an appearance, one game that really piqued my interest was a new old game from THQ. They were the previous developers of UFC: Tapout and UFC: Tapout 2, the first receiving very admirable reviews, while the second receiving less-than-desirable reviews for not pushing the envelope and keeping gameplay generally the same as its predecessor. They promptly stopped the series and left the niche-crowd (including myself) at a loss. But, low and behold, with the rising success of UFC and mixed-martial-arts in general, they’ve revived the title from the grave, and the trailer looks great!

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21750.html

The big question for me is, can this be the next Fight Night? That may seem like a very optimistic question, seeing as how Fight Night is one of EA’s best-selling games, is one of my favorite games, and not to mention, is developed by *the* largest gaming company in the world. Having said that, the UFC 2009 trailer left me with a Fight-Night’ish taste in my mouth, and that’s a good thing. The character movements were smooth, the fighters looked great, and they even had the face deformations that made Fight Night so realistic! Also, UFC has been dominating the Pay-Per-View grounds where boxing events once reigned. Alright. So the graphics are great, the industry has momentum, but there are two other big factors that will come into play that we won’t yet know about until the game’s release…gameplay and depth.

Gameplay can easily and obviously make or break the game. When I say gameplay, I mean how does the controller *control* the fighter? In previous titles in the series, it was the standard controls for any game…thumbsticks move and look, buttons punch and kick. But what we’ve learned from Fight Night is the thumbsticks can be used in much more realistic and entertaining ways…left-thumbstick left hand, right-thumbstick right hand. Now imagine THQ taking some of EA’s vision and applying it to UFC 2009. Left-thumbstick left-hand, right-thumbstick right hand, trigger-left-thumbstick left foot, trigger-right-thumbstick, right foot! This opens up a whole new can of worms for fight simulation games, but I don’t know if THQ has the experience or a developer-pool deep enough to implement this, at least not for it’s first release back.

The second factor is depth. For any fans out there, mixed-martial-arts is far from simple. I am a big enthusiast and have been following the sport for a long time, and I am STILL learning the moves. Put simply, if they make the game too deep and technical, the average joe-schmoe watches-ufc-for-fun player won’t enjoy the game. Almost a little like popping in Madden for the first time…it’s intimidating and almost not enjoyable for the first little while. But on the flip-side, if they make the game too simple, they will lose interest from the target-audience, i.e. the UFC and fight-fans out there.

In short, when I think if UFC 2009 can be the next Fight Night, I think no…not YET. But, I think that the series CAN be…possibly after a few more title releases :)

^*Update: It looks like Cage Potato has found some info on the release date for the game! According to this post, we can expect to hear an official release announcement at UFC 84 slated for May 24^th, 2008. Yeesh, if this is right, then we probably won't get our hands on the game until at least the end of the year, or beginning of next year :s

Charles

Our friends a Joystiq have just created a video comparison showing differences in gameplay and graphics between Halo 2 and Halo 3 (beta). Sure, there are different weapons, vehicles, and maps, but it wasn't until I saw the side-by-side comparison that I noticed how smooth Halo 3 is. It's only in beta, but I can't wait for Halo 3! Anyways, see for yourself.

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/17/halo-2-and-halo-3-comparison-video/

Charles

For all you Halo fans out there (like me), here is a NEW Halo 3 documentary put out by the Bungie fellas. There's a big focus on multiplayer here, so if you haven't seen it yet, definitely check it out.

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/13214/New-Halo-3-ViDoc-Is-Quisnam-Protero-Damno-Trailer/

Also, there was a notable blog post pointing out a few details from the doc that you may or may not have missed.

http://360.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=9819

Charles

This is my first post to this blog, so what better topic for me to break in than the post-holiday results for our beloved next-gen consoles. As you all know, launches can be a make-or-break ordeal for companies, and the same can be said for consoles. There is a lot of media buzz, a lot of consumers, even more critics, and in the case of Sony and Nintendo this past November, the holidays were waiting just around the corner.

NDP, an impartial market analyst group, reports that Nintendo topped sales for consoles which launched this past holiday, selling an estimated 1.8 million Wii's, with Sony barely at it's tail, selling roughly 750 000 PS3s. Microsoft's Xbox 360, having launched a year earlier in November 2005, did not have the launch buzz that the previous two consoles had. However, Microsoft bested holiday sales with NSP estimating 2 million of the next-gen consoles being sold.

The results: Xbox 360 came out on top this holiday, followed by the Nintendo Wii, with a slow PS3 trailing third. A lot of this is reasonably attributed to launch availability, but there are far more factors that come into play here. I'll leave this post as simply a matter-of-fact entry, and I'll save my speculations for another time...

Charles

^*Edit: I don't know why I didn't link to the actual NDP reports, but I've lost the URL now and can't find it. You're just going to have to take my word for it.