I can speak highly of the authenticity of EA Sports MMA's Live Broadcast because, were I to fight a mixed martial arts bout in real life, I'd get wrecked exactly this bad, too.
This is a demonstration of a Live Broadcast, an innovative and highly entertaining feature in EA Sports MMA, due on shelves Tuesday. While the event was set up for media reviewing the game, all fighters can expect to see this sort of thing regularly when EA Sports starts scheduling bouts from the game's community.
These matchups will be chosen by EA Sports promoters, who will be watching multiplayer stats and judging hype videos that players are encouraged to produce and upload to the EA Sports MMA site. Live Broadcasts can be fought for all types of real-world prizes too. But the straight-up flattery of being chosen for one of these looks like plenty of a reward, too.
The commentary, as you can hear, is live and it is very strong. Rocky Rivero supplies the call and EA Sports MMA creative director Jason Barnes has the color. Both are well informed about the game and the sport and it's delightful how they call this as a battle of actual players while still dropping in key details about the virtual fighters. EA Sports MMA's team wants to keep the focus on its players in these events and I think they do it well.
When you're fighting, however, you won't hear the commentary depicted above. It will play out more or less like a regular multiplayer bout (voice chat is still enabled, and all card participants will be present.) After the completion of the fight card, you can then go back into the online menu of EA Sports MMA and see the broadcast presentation of your fight.
Here, watch Ben Silverman of Yahoo! Games turn my face into hamburger. Earlier, actually, we had fought to a three-round decision at lightweight (me as Gilbert Melendez, Ben as Lyle Beerbohm. Ben/Lyle won). The devs assured us that was uncommon for two writers in this preview event, although lighter division bouts do tend to go much longer than the big bombers.
Granted, if Ben's fighting as Fedor Emelianenko, I would have had to turn in a mistake-free performance just to stand a chance, and he got me early on in my understanding of the controls. I also admit I don't understand Muhammad Lawal's style or strengths all that well (I do not follow MMA very closely). But what I can't do is stand around admiring that stun punch while Ben recovers his stamina.
I should have immediately whammed that A button (or X) to take him down and start raining the blows. Instead, I was thinking I'd get some knees in to the face while standing because that looks extremely goddamn painful. But that didn't go so hot, because of the time it takes to get into the clinch and start attacking. You stun somebody, take them to the mat. They can't deny the takedown (B button, or circle) while stunned. Lesson learned.
My review of EA Sports MMA is coming up on Saturday, giving me plenty of time to learn how to avoid disasters like this. If you have comments, questions or concerns about the game you want answered in the review, tell me in the comments below.