Pictured: A Screenshot from WMMA 2. So, You Wanna Be A Fighter Promoter?

The popularity of mixed martial arts is exploding, with TV shows, books and films springing up all around the sport, along with the newest of mediums, video games.

Most notably, a great deal of media attention was placed on ZUFFA’s release of UFC Undisputed last year. The game had flaws, and many hardcore MMA fans complained that it failed to capture the styles of the fighters. But it seperated itself by capturing the ebb and flow of the fight on the ground, and the deadly “puncher’s chance” that is so widely renowned in our sport. Overall, it give us a reasonably accurate representation of the sport, and easily the best representation of said sport on console today.

Or is it?

World of Mixed Martial Arts II offers a very different option for gamers; and it’s one that I highly recommend.

Grey Dog Software is a small company specialising in sport text management simulation games. It’s most famous for the Total Extreme Wrestling series, but it has also given us World of Mixed Martial Arts, a series currently in its second incarnation. The game essentially allows players to take control of their own MMA promotion. They are then expected to complete duties such as matchmaking, hiring and firing and promoting as they guide their promotion to the top of the MMA world.

The game follows a cycle. When you start the game you will undoubtedly want to bring in some ‘talent’ of your own, so you run off to the ‘character’ screen. The default database contains around 800 fictional fighters — an active community has also created various mods that allow play in several real world scenarios. In the default fictional universe, it is easy to find parallels to the real world – the dominant heavyweight sambo practitioner is Hassan Fezzik here, and the deadly Croatian head kick merchant goes by the name of Zvonimir Asanovic – and I guarantee you will find some fighters you want to bring in and make stars. You will then want to book your first show, so off you go to the ‘office screen’.

There you book your event — looking to select a main event that captures the imagination of your promotion’s fan base. The main qualifiers are the fighter’s perceived reputation in the MMA world and their name value in the region where you are holding event. It presents a pretty accurate representation of what casual MMA fans find attractive: a hot prospect with a high ‘performance’ score but low ‘name value’ and ‘reputation’ just won’t cut it with your fans.

With your event booked, you will then find yourself advancing the game till fight night. Once there, you’re taken to a screen where text commentary is provided by the in game website, named blurcat.com in obvious homage to a certain real life MMA website. The two fictional announcers break down the fights for you, picking their winners, before they bring you pay-by-play of the event. Though a major criticism of the game at release was the repetitiveness of the commentary, patches since release have addressed this somewhat. The fight engine used in the game is detailed; often you will see tepid stand up, other times a vastly superior ground fighter passing his opponent’s guard and tapping him out at lightning pace, or a wrestler laying on brutal ground and pound from the top while his opponent struggles to survive. Occasionally rarer events happen: gogoplatas, extravagant sweeps and scrambles, flashy knockout punches. There are lovely touches throughout: in one fight I booked between Aleksander Emelienako and Ben Rothwell, Aleks knocked his opponent down twice, both times gesturing for Rothwell to get to his feet. The third time, a frustrated “Grim Reaper” followed his opponent to the ground, only to get swept and submitted by Rothwell.

Following fight night it’s back to the contract negotiations: resigning your top stars and searching for new talent to replace those whose names have been soiled by high profile defeats. The cycle repeats, and yet surprisingly it takes a long, long time to feel repetitive. As your company grows you have to continue build stars and bring in new ones to keep up with your own soaring reputation. And if you get bored of one promotion, it’s easy to jump ship to another and begin a new challenge.

I could go on about this. I’m hooked. There’s the ability to hire your own commentators, run up to 8 man tournaments in one night, barter to show events on TV and PPV and the interviews on the in game website that feel like something straight off the real ‘net. Add to that random incidents – rivalries springing up, fighters jumping fight teams, making friends (and then refusing to fight them) and taking on protégés – and injuries, medical suspensions and steroid tests, you have a game that would really seem to accurately recreate the trial and tribulations of being a fight promoter.

So whether you choose to dive into the fictional universe, or download one of the several fantastic real world databases available from Grey Dog Software’s forum, you may find yourself suffering from ‘one more show’ syndrome, as you attempt to climb to the top of the MMA pyramid.

You can download a one month demo of WMMA II that will allow you to test whether it’s for you. But with all its diverse options of play and features, this game is highly recommended for all MMA fans.