Kicking ass

by ERIK LEIJON

Ultimate Fighting Championship’s megalomaniacal head honcho Dana White is in a perpetual philosophical struggle with sporting purists over the validity of mixed martial arts as a sport. Many old-timers, including most sports journalists, still associate the rough and tumble world of MMA with inelegant back alley brawling or worse, un-sanctioned bum fighting. UFC 2009 Undisputed (X360, PS3/THQ, Yuke’s) has the stamp of Dana White’s grandiose vision for his beloved MMA. Although developed by a studio known primarily for quality wrestling titles, Undisputed wants to be a sports game.

Therein lies the internal conflict with the game, since the developer has understandably built a deep, engrossing and realistic fighting engine that shows off the subtle nuances of MMA’s chess-style battles. Undisputed also tries hard to include the types of gameplay modes sports game fans expect, such as career mode and create-a-fighter, and this is where Undisputed doesn’t feel as poised. A championship-calibre mixed martial artist must be balanced in multiple forms of combat, so the slight missteps can occasionally feel like gaping holes in this game’s otherwise chiselled armour.

For UFC fans who would prefer to select local hero Georges St-Pierre and obliterate some helpless tattooed Yankee, Undisputed does an amazing job at forcing players to learn multiple styles and familiarize themselves with the many possible attack and defensive manoeuvres. In the standing, clinch (up close), ground and submission positions, there are always a multitude of moves to the point where every button seems to result in something positive.

Punching like a madman works about as well in the game as it does in the real octagon: if your style of fighting is uni-dimensional, anyone with a few hours of practice under their belts will easily take you down and deliver a relentless beating. The deep and complicated controls are intimidating, and there should’ve been a better way to streamline blocking and countering with the right analog stick, but like a quality fighting game, it can be incredibly rewarding to master countering and anticipating your opponents’ attacks. Even the aesthetically boring ground play—where the two fighters writhe around in compromising positions—can play as a great see-saw battle between two quality players looking for the upper hand.

The career mode plays like a bad sports title, as it’s menu heavy and devoid of personality. Dana White may desperately want to prove MMA is a real sport, but considering his league is called Ultimate Fighting Championship, it should be no surprise Undisputed kicks some serious ass as a fighting game.

Sweatin’ to the Wii

U.S. President Barack Obama recently gave his nation’s collective bulging waistline a dose of reality, pleading with America’s portly youth to put down the videogame controller and enjoy the outdoors. The President may not have taken into account exercise games like EA Sports’ new workout title Active: Personal Trainer (Wii/EA Sports, EA Vancouver), a sweat inducing, body sculpting, bulge reducing and calorie burning fitness game that is actually quite fun to play.

The game comes with a resistance band and a nunchuk holder that rests on your quad and tracks bending movements. A lazy journo like myself might not reap the benefits of completing the game’s tough, 20–30 minute daily workouts while downing a tumbler of black coffee in my extremely cramped gaming room, but doing the various upper/lower body exercises and even a few cardio workouts with my fitness-obsessed brother yielded a considerable amount of perspiration on our collective brows. It is possible to trick the sensors sometimes with lazy squats, but when taken seriously, Active: Personal Trainer will pump you up.