Supremacy MMA

Supremacy MMA isn't an MMA game in the way EA Sports MMA or the UFC games are. It doesn't try to simulate any aspect of the sport. It's really just a fighting game with MMA trappings. There are submissions but you don't really make anyone submit. There are cages, but you won't use them tactically in a bout. They are merely a backdrop for the brutal bashings that you'll be indulging in.

And it is fairly brutal, being more bloody than any of the above mentioned games.

But it's bloody to the point of ridiculousness, it's nothing really off-putting.

I winced more at the injuries in EA Sports MMA than I did here, just because they handled it more realistically.

It controls simple enough.

There's a punch button, a kick button and you use the left stick as a modifier to pull off different punches and kicks. You can mix them up for some simple combos.

There's a clinch button. From the clinch you can take a dude down or just lay into him.

When you're on the ground you use the left stick to transition. Your transitions can be blocked, but the CPU isn't terrific at doing that.

While on the ground you can indulge in some vicious ground and pound or go for the submission. Except they don't submit. It just does some damage, it doesn't end the fight which is kind of off-putting. Submissions bring up a stick waggling mini-game, which the cpu tends to almost always win. I think I've only ever won by using up some of the "rage meter" or whatever they call it. Otherwise they'll escape practically every time.

Also submissions could stand to be a bit more brutal.

If you've got rage mode activated when you finish a guy via submission you'll break whatever limb you're on, twisting it in a way that looks pretty gnarly. But regularly you finish a guy by submission and they tap out in the sissiest way possible. It's kind of jarring. If I had the means to record this and share it I would, because it's just that out of place.

Once the "shock" factor of the blood and limb breaking wears off, the repetitiveness of the rather simple combat becomes increasingly obvious.

There's a story mode. Each character has their own tale. None of them are interesting and they are all told via some rather crappy motion comic-esque cut scenes. I watched most of them, but when I had about two fighters left to play through I just couldn't really hack it any more and started skipping them.

In the advertising it was made to be somewhat of a big deal that this was the first MMA game to have female fighters. And I'm fine with females being fighters. That's great. But this game has a whopping two of them. So one for you and one for whoever you can convince to play with you, because when I tried the online I couldn't find any games. Not really surprised, but just throwing it out there.

Supremacy MMA is fun for a while, but it quickly grows repetitive and no amount of blood and bone snapping could fix that.