Pride FC Preview
We take a comprehensive look at Anchor's interpretation of the bloody Japanese fighting event.
Anchor, the developer of the Ultimate Fighting Championship game for the Sega Dreamcast and WWF Raw for the Xbox, has been hard at work on its latest game--Pride FC for the PlayStation 2. Pride FC is based on the Pride Fighting Championship event, where the top fighters from the world of mixed martial arts engage in hand-to-hand combat to defend their own honor, as well as that of their chosen fighting style. Pride's roots lie in the Brazilian competitions of vale tudo, which stands for no holds barred, anything goes--Brazilian jujitsu versus kickboxing, shoot-fighting versus muay thai, judo versus Japanese pro wrestling, and to the winner goes the spoils and glory. The rules of Pride are fairly open, allowing for extensive options for both strikers and grapplers, although the specialized disciplines rarely dominate in today's Pride FC events, with the complete combatant--he who can fight while standing or while on the ground--often proving to be the victor. The fans in Japan look to Pride as an honored and near-legendary event, with their fighters pushed to celebrity status and respected as athletes and showmen of the highest caliber. While the Japanese event doesn't have mass-market popularity in the United States as of yet, due to limited pay-per-view access, mixed martial arts enthusiasts are quick to let you know that the best fighters in the world fight for Pride.
We've had a chance to play an early version of Pride FC extensively, and at first glance, the game bears a noticeable visual resemblance to Anchor's Ultimate Fighting Championship game. The fighters are modeled similarly, with a distinct focus on realism. Each character model is composed of more than 5000 polygons to accurately match up with the real-world athletes' physiques. Each fighter's health and stamina are represented by a single meter, which shows a full blue bar as health and diminishes into red with lost stamina. Stamina restores after inactivity, but unblocked strikes will deplete portions of the entire bar, thus reducing the fighter's overall reserves.
What differentiates Anchor's mixed martial arts games from traditional fighting games is the grappling aspect of the gameplay. Fighters can close in the distance and grapple with an opponent, which results in the fight being taken to the ground. When on the ground, one fighter has a dominant position over the other and can rain down powerful blows against the fighter on his back. There are three major positions when on the ground: the guard, the mount, and the back mount. The guard is the safest of the three positions for the defensive player--his legs are wrapped around the opponents' above the hips, so he is able to eliminate virtually all of his opponent's leverage. The mount is more dangerous, where the fighter on top is above the defending player's hips, meaning that he's free to rise up and put distance and power behind his strikes. The back mount usually results in a loss--it's where the fighter on bottom is turned around, often to avoid getting hit in the face, but then he is usually exposing his neck for a rear naked choke.
Submission victories are a crucial element of mixed martial arts and Pride FC--a successful submission maneuver will end a fight instantly, meaning that any fighter can win a fight at a moment's notice, no matter how beat up and battered. In a slight tweak of the submission system used in UFC, Pride FC gives defending players a longer opportunity to properly defend against a submission maneuver, making the movements seem more deliberate and realistic, as well as more balanced for beginning players.
Pride FC Fighting Championships Quick Links
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- THQ
- Anchor
- 3D Fighting
- Release: Feb 11, 2003 »
- ESRB: Mature
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