This weekend we will get a chance to see Joe “Daddy” Stevenson take on Diego “The Nightmare” Sanchez at UFC 95, free on Spike TV. If you want a quick preview, just check out this clip of UFC 2009 Undisputed. I like how the developers are taking real pay per view events to show off the game and all it has to offer. I am impressed with the transitions from full mount to guard and back to mount. This seems to be a very technical game with a lot of emphasis on technique. I am hoping button mashers need not enter. This game can not come out fast enough for me!
So if you’re a UFC fighter, what do you do after beating someone to a pulp? Shake their hand, thank God and then do a back flip followed by a little dance of course. Most fighters are very respectful after doing battle for a few rounds but they do like to celebrate and George St. Pierre is known for his trademark back flip after winning fights. UFC 2009 Undisputed looks like it captured that very well. I especially like the fact that the character does not land it perfectly, making it look a bit more realistic.
What’s that question you haven’t asked and probably don’t care about? So what has been up in the gaming industry? A lot of doom and gloom is the short answer. There hasn’t been a month gone by where the headlines haven’t carried word of another studio closure, retailer going under, or publisher falling short on expected sales. Really nothing too happy to say these days. As of late, when items like this fall into my inbox I would rather not write about them. Everyone knows the economy is shit, recession, depression, or what ever you want to call it. If you need me telling you, than you need to get out more often. The question that might make a difference to you dear reader is, what will this bring to you, the gamer?
As studios like Free Radical and Ensemble Studios go under there are many skilled programmers, designers, and producers dumped into the job market. Now try to hold back those tears, a good number of these people have received severance packages. I’m not trying to trivialize the massive life changing event of someone losing their job, I just want to make sure you are aware some of these people got a paycheck as they were showed the door. I have heard of some companies, outside of gaming, pay severance of one month of salary for each year of service, which can be a sizable amount of money for some, especially in an industry where contractual and cyclical employment means people need to (or rather should) save for those times they are between jobs.
If you did not know already, I am very excited about UFC 2009 and would stab anyone right now to get a copy. UFC is one of my favorite sports to watch and now that it has become more mainstream it is great to catch old fights on Spike TV and now get a chance to take the action to a console.
Here are two videos showcasing the upcoming fight for UFC 93 between Rich “Ace” Franklin and Dan Henderson in the middle weight division of the UFC. The stand up in these clips looks decent, but at times looks to have a bit of stutter and lacks fluidity. The ground game looks pretty good, but it is hard to tell how the game will react to sprawling (take down defense) and reversals of submission attempts. One other concern I have is that neither clip shows scarring, bruising or blood after all those strikes? I do like the small details they have incorporated, like ring logos, background logos, and even ring post logos, although Steve Mazzagatti (the referee) looks very awkward and lifeless.
Another nice addition are the voices of the UFC, Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg.
Hit the jump to see the second fight where Dan Henderson wins.
After Soulja Boy challenged the world of video gaming and made an intriguing review of Braid, what would be left for him to do? Make his own video game, of course. Apparently during an interview with Joe La Puma of Complex, he discussed a few different subjects and ended things with some news of a new video game coming for Xbox 360 in 2009. Something tells me this will be an XBLA title and not just an Xbox 360 exclusive, although if I was Sony, I wouldn’t want him any where near my console anyway after he publicly discredited them as a game console. How interested are you in this title? What could the plot possibly be?
Complex: Would you ever want your own video game?
Soulja Boy: I’m glad that you brought that up. Soulja Boy video game is coming for Xbox 360 in 2009. After I put the Xbox 360 challenge up on the Internet, it was over all these video game sites. And a couple video game companies hit me up on my email because I put the email on there too. And hit me up like, “Blah, blah, blah, blah.” So I was like, “Oh snaps!” So I forwarded to my management, and they forwarded to my label. And now we’re doing the video game. It was the same way I got signed for my music. It’s like history repeating itself, but instead of music this time it’s about video games.
[Via Complex]
Image courtesy of N4G user Nathan Drake. Great cover art.
As the year draws to a close, more and more of the games that we thought would be out by now have been pushed back past the holidays along with the others confirmed for next year. Here is a hearty list of what we can expect next year. Some are not 100%, but is anything really in this industry. Hit the jump for the full list.
DigitalLife is a trade show that is put on by Ziff Davis Media at the New York Jacob Javitz Center, which typically included technology and video games, but seems to be cancelled for this year because of a bad economy. Vice President Paul O’Reilly said the following during an interview:
The poor economic conditions have created a very different and difficult dynamic for us this year, and we weren’t confident that we could present a show experience that was consistent with the successes of prior years.
I can say that as a previous attendee last year this show was dying, he goes on to say:
Hopefully, a bigger and stronger DigitalLife will return in 2009. We will make additional announcements about the future of the show when details are available.
I would love for his last statement to be true since this show is very accessible to everyone on the East coast and it would be great to have something that could rival E3 or CES on the East coast as well, but it seems like a big stretch especially after the news of this years cancellation.
EA and Maxis put up a sneak peak of their new Sims 3 game scheduled to release in 2009. For anyone who has ever played or heard of a Sims game this is nothing earth shattering, but it does look pretty crisp and the familiar ‘Simlish’ is back. This one looks to be a bit more open world and focuses not only on the player and their home, but the entire town. More Sims action to come to your PC next year.
If you read our siye regularly, you already know what huge UFC fans we are. You also know how excited we are for thr upcoming title from THQ. Here is an in depth video with the project manager for UFC 2009. Everything you wanted to know and more. The game should be out early 2009. Six months away FTMFL.
Check out some more details on the brand new UFC 2009 title. You can see the overall process used to scan in the different fighters, referees, corner men and ring girls. You can also watch as Rampage acts the fool and gets some laughs from the crowd, Rampage has to be the funniest UFC fighter ever. This game and it’s level of detail look phenomenal!
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