We’re lovers, not fighters. We don’t know what it’s really like to smash our heel into someone’s cheek. We imagine it’d feel like it does in Supremacy MMA: our unparalleled strength would bring blood and broken bones. (Hey, we can dream.) Authenticity has no place in this arcade brawler, yet Supremacy nails our most realistic assumption about getting into a fistfight: it isn’t any fun.
Facial damage is gross and escalates quickly. One punch and your mug is cut and bruised.
Because the game neglects simulation, the fighting is equal parts satisfying and unsettling. Each heavy hit lands hard, and the exaggerated reaction animations prove that getting punched sucks. The core combat is largely good (takedowns, counters, and typical X/Y combos comprise the small list of forgettable fighters’ moves), but it’s wounded by the game’s unresponsive controls. We can’t afford delays between button presses and onscreen responses: in a fast-paced fighting game with minute-long matches, we need the combat to be as reactive as we are.
Even then, reflexes simply aren’t enough sometimes. Combos regularly connect so quickly that blocking simply isn’t an option, and against A.I. and human opponents, we frequently ended up in irritating, inescapable attack loops. Plowing through the game’s atrocious, angsty storylines often demanded we exploit this weakness to progress; if we didn’t cheat our way into a winning 40-hit combo, the other fighter would.
Supremacy includes two female fighters. They can only fight each other.
Emulating and amplifying the bloodier side of fighting was, conceptually, a great way to separate Supremacy from other MMA titles. But because of its crippling issues, it stands alone as the one clumsy, bad brawler of its kind on Xbox 360.
+ Vicious, violent, and bloody brawling.
– Cheap A.I. and combo system; melodramatic fighter stories
– Garbage story modes; unresponsive controls; tutorial is a bit weak.
? Anyone else having horrible flashbacks to the Fight Club game (original Xbox)?
