Our biggest gripe with Undisputed 2009 is the soulless career mode so it's with open arms that we welcome a huge change in this for 2010.
Gone is the dull presentation and vacuous training regimes and in comes the full UFC show time feel and a career mode that feels worthwhile. You can now give a voice to your character (see 8 for more) and to give him personality throughout the pseudo-story mode.
You start as an amateur working his way up to the big time. You'll have a trainer giving you advice along the way and you can even respect or diss your opponents at the weigh-ins. This last aspect will follow you around your career meaning you can stoke up rivalrieswithin the UFC if you like.
Your trainer will even ask if you want to change weight classes as you progress so that you can take on another division of fighters. All in all, it's shaping up to be an incredibly deep career to dive into, but we'll reserve judgment until we've had a proper play with it.
Above: Clay Guida (or is it Carlos Tevez?) sends home a fat kick
6. Online camps
Yukes are going all out to improve the online experience this time with the inclusion of a clan like feature. Effectively this allows you to recruit the best fighters to join your club and fight for your camp.
You'll be able to create logos that all your fighters willuse while representing and there'll be a leaderboard system in place so everyone can see just how good your crew are.We're hoping that there'll be a spectator mode for clan leaders who can then pass on advice to their man, but already it's much more than Undisputed 2009.
7. It's gorier than ever
At the open Q&A, some fool asked if there would be an option to turn the blood off in Undisputed 2009? We loved Neven's response - "Turning off the blood in UFC is like turning off the grass in football; it just doesn't happen". Bravo, sir.
He went on to add that the blood has been vastly improved so that it's far more realistic as the claret splashes across the canvas. However, the gore goes beyond just being cosmetic eye-candy this time too. If you take too much punishment to the face then the doctor and ref can stop the bout.
8. The devs aren't worried by EA MMA
"We're confident in our own game and we know which one the industry are already looking at as the best MMA game ever made" says Neven Dravinski.
When we ask how he feels aboutEA's game as direct competition he adds "Making an MMA game is hard but, y'know, we'll just have to wait and see!".
Above: Will it be THQ or EA celebrating at the end of 2010?
