Boxing? Wrestling? Those are easy games to make compared to a mixed martial arts (MMA) affair, which blends both of those sports with judo, karate, jujitsu, and any number of other methods of beating one’s ass to a pulp. But THQ’s making a fresh start of it with UFC 2009 Undisputed, thanks to a new engine and physics system. Gone are the days of arms that miraculously punch through torsos thanks to dodgy collision detection; with every hit in Undisputed, you’ll see flesh deform and bruises form in real time — with no canned animations — at 60 frames per second. The presentation is done slick TV-style; you just happen to control the fight you’re watching. THQ is confirming only a handful of fighters (Georges St-Pierre, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Chuck Liddell) from the 80-odd final roster, but the ones we saw looked alarmingly realistic at 30,000 polys each, right down to the blood spatter and sickening bruises.

The gameplay’s just as grounded in the real world, too. Undisputed will be a very technical fighter — think sports sim, like Madden, only with punching — using a series of timed rotations of the right analog stick to “transition” between fighting positions and stances. THQ calls it Ultimate Fighting Control, and you’ll use it to knock fighters down, shift leverage, and slide into submission holds. The game’s input methods are still being tweaked, but we figured it out with a little help. Your awareness of the various MMA fighting styles will help immensely, but button mashers definitely need not apply.