Sam Parker Hardware Editor	Now Playing: Warcraft III Beta, Renegade, Warlords Battlecry II Most Wanted: Warcraft III Final, Master of Orion III, Unreal II

Putting Up a Fight

I played a ton of Street Fighter 2 in high school. Something about the game's combo system and the competitive challenge kept my friends and me pumping quarters into those arcade machines. But after trying a stream of slightly different versions of Street Fighter 2 and a bunch of knockoff 2D fighters, I sort of lost interest in fighting games. I mostly missed the genre's transition to 3D, though I did catch Bushido Blade on the PlayStation and loved its deadly weapons play.

Just in the last few months, I've started to see the appeal of new fighting games that more realistically depict hand-to-hand combat. There's something to be said for how newer games like UFC: Tapout or Virtua Fighter 4 really can take advantage of 3D graphics to represent the reversals, throws, and ground fighting that are so important to some fighting styles. Though certainly, the essence of games like Dead or Alive 3 or Soul Calibur isn't realistic fighting but rather cinematic drama, and I can appreciate that, even if I'm not as excited by the result.

It's my real-world interest in martial arts that's gotten me interested again in fighting games and that has me putting a higher premium on martial arts realism than I have in the past. For a year now, I've spent most of my nongaming time off training in an aikido dojo in San Francisco's Japantown, working on the style's repertoire of throws, joint locks, and submissions, as well as the sword and staff katas that are so essential to the art's roots. When most people think of martial arts, it's the punches and kicks of karate, kung fu, and tae kwon do that come to mind. Aikido--like judo, jujitsu, hapkido, or even wing chun--takes a "softer" approach to fighting, trading the reliance on striking at a distance for moves that happen close up and often take the opponent right to the ground.

If you're playing UFC as a stand-up striker, you better learn to avoid the takedown.

So with this in mind, I've been particularly excited to see a few games that have more than striking in the move lists. UFC: Tapout for the Xbox is one example. The game's mix of sometimes dramatic punch and kick catches with groundwork and submissions can make for sudden reversals of fortune. If one player doesn't pay attention for a moment, the matches can end quicker than even a Tyson KO punch might allow for. I've had a lot of fun playing the game against guys here in the office, but its approach to fighting certainly does seem to appeal more to some than to others. The game also does seem to divide most matches fairly evenly between striking and grappling, something that really isn't the case in many real UFC fights. It's simply that fighters' different styles don't come across quite as well within the game's relatively standardized move system.

Sakuraba is huge in Japan, but will a US audience recognize his greatness in Pride?

The upcoming Pride game for the PlayStation 2 looks to be a good extension of UFC's concept. It's based on the Pride no-holds-barred tournaments held in Japan, which draw many of the UFC's best fighters, as well as the toughest contenders from Japan and Brazil. Whether because of bigger prizes or better rules, Pride's fights tend to be filled with more action than those in the UFC, and hopefully the new game will capture this. From the early info we've heard on it, the Pride game will greatly expand grappling options with a number of new positions, like the side mount and butt scoot (with one fighter defending on his back as the other stands). Since the UFC and Pride organizations promote themselves as mix-martial arts contests, there isn't the orchestration you see in the WWF, but there's some sports entertainment showmanship mixed in. However much these games stray from fighting-game conventions, they share that emphasis on good balanced multiplayer competition.

			Should fighting games be grounded in real martial arts? Yes No

Sega's Virtua Fighter 4 for the PlayStation 2 has a lot of people here pretty excited, but I've been away from conventional fighting games for so long I was skeptical about being able to get into it. But my mind was changed once I started to appreciate the hundreds of real martial arts moves in the game. The game's great animation and good physics engine make the moves look smooth, and while everything is amplified for effect, it often seems more like a martial arts movie's athleticism than the pure fantasy of anime.

Those aren't just pants that Aoi is wearing--it's the traditional hakama worn by samurai.

I'll say that what really got my attention was that one character, Aoi, draws on aiki jujitsu for her moves. It's just cool to see techniques I've trained in replicated in a game, even if they're taken to bone-breaking extremes. But for balance, these reversals, counters, and throws certainly can't be easy to pull off, and I have a lot of practice ahead if I'm going to get halfway decent in the game. That's one thing that never changes. The learning curve in fighting games is steep, and they're hard to master. But that's what makes them good for a little head-to-head competition, and I do like that challenge.