Pride Q&A

Pride, THQ's recently announced PlayStation 2 brawler, is based on the mixed martial-arts competition from Japan. Pride challenges fighters from several different fighting disciplines including wrestling, karate, judo, and kickboxing to fight by the same rules in one-on-one matches. The task of capturing the unique feel of Pride bouts in a game falls on seasoned Japanese developer Anchor. The company's experience working on the original Ultimate Fighting Championship game for the Dreamcast and WWF Raw for the Xbox makes it ideally suited to the task of bringing Pride to a home console. We talked with the game's producer, Sanders Keel, about what to expect from the game when it ships this summer.

This game is aiming to capture the look and feel of the Pride experience.

GameSpot: How is development on the PS2 hardware going? Are you getting the performance you want out of the console?

Sanders Keel: Yes, Pride has been coming along very smoothly. Anchor is a very talented development team, and they are showing their skills on the PlayStation 2.

GS: Aside from the setting, how will Pride be different from the Ultimate Fighting Championship game you developed for the Dreamcast?

SK: Pride takes a huge step forward in terms of gameplay. There are many positions to fight from, as well as tons of new moves and reversals not seen in the UFC games. These moves and reversals are much more realistic than anything in the UFC game, and much more strategy and skill are required to win a match in Pride. Also, each fighter will have realistic moves based on his actual skills.

Every fighter will have moves that are true to their real-life counterparts.

GS: Were you able to get all the fighters who also fight under the UFC license? Specifically, Mark Kerr, Mark Coleman, Guy Mezger, Gary Goodridge, and others?

SK: Mark Kerr, no. I don't think he even fights anymore--well, at least not for Pride. Gary, yes. As for the rest of the fighters, we have not announced whether they are in or not, but expect more on the final roster soon.