At this year’s 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo I was invited to check out 505 Games and Kung Fu Factory’s newest title Supremacy MMA. The developers focus was on making a brand new type of MMA game then what is currently or coming out on the market. The devs at Kung Fu Factory definitely have the chops as they were part of the design for UFC Undisputed 2009. We were loaded into a small room and first shown a trailer for the game. It didn’t have any in game footage or noticeable real world fighters. When the video ended the developers leading the presentation when into all about Supremacy MMA…(cont.)

Check out the rest of the story and a screenshot, after the break!
(cont.)…Supremacy MMA focuses on the dark side of MMA fighting
like the illegal cage fights held in shady bars across the country. 
This is the world of no holds barred fighting where men fight to feed
their families.  The one thing the devs wanted us to focus on was that
Supremacy MMA is all about story.  The story of the game is what will
keep the players hooked and while no details were dropped the developers
promised that they will be doing something that has not been seen in an
MMA game.

As the devs giving the demo scrolled through the menu screen I noticed
that Supremacy offered tons of modes.  Story, versus, tourny, and online
modes were on the menu.  The mode they did show us was exhibition and
off we went to the underground.  Two unknown fighters were selected and
then a choice came up to choose which arena they wanted to play in.  The
devs pointed out that those arenas will play a huge part in the game unlike
other games which just have a crowd filled arena.  The arena we saw was
based on the underground fight clubs of Mexico complete with a cockfight
ring.  IT pretty much looked like even if you won you were going out
tied up.

The devs started up the fight and wanted us to take note that what we
were seeing was only 50% done.  As the two fighters went toe to two what
I noticed was that the game was far more about striking then about
submissions.  I fully expected Butterbean to barge his way in and start
throwing blows.  What concerns me about a game focused on striking is
the potential for this being just another button masher.  The devs then
showed us something new to a MMA game and that is the art of feinting
your strikes.  The characters on screen threw realistic looking feints
that could easily be used to set up several different combos. While the
takedowns were fluid looking what impressed me was the realistic
looking grappling.

Fighters used true to form karate style grapples and muy tai clinches to
lock up their opponent. Supremacy MMA is a mixture of fast action
striking and slow strategic moves.  We were also shown a small glimpse
of a parry system which looked like it could add some more deep
strategy to the fights.  One of the interesting things we were shown was
the violence system.  When you perform a finishing move on your
opponent a tally is shown of what you actually did to them.  It was
refreshing to know that you actually did some damage to the person that
you are squared up against.  The demo ended with a brutal knockout and
we had a short Q&A session.

One of the questions asked was in regards to the character creation
system.  The developers wanted us to know that they are not focusing so
much on a character creation system as they really want to hone in on
gameplay.  They believe that spending too much time on character
creation can distract from the fun a player can have.  They want the
game to be easily accessible to all levels of players.  The one question
I got in was if they had secured a roster or are going with made up
fighters.  While they were not able to answer my question they did
assure me that they will be doing something very different.

Supremacy MMA has a lot of ground to cover and some stiff opposition in
the genre.  If they can truly pull out something different then it
might just stay out of the rental bin.  Supremacy MMA will be available
in 2011 for the Xbox 360 and PS3 gaming systems.