I’ve been playing a lot of fighting games recently. It started off somewhat innocently, throwing a few carefree fireballs in Street Fighter 4 and thinking nothing of it.

And suddenly I felt like something more. Maybe it was the lack of gritty realism. Perhaps I just wasn’t convinced that a Honda, a sumo wrestler, could exhibit such a display of dexterity and agility. Or it could have been the fact that Seth was pounding my characters skull into the screen while stealing my credit card numbers and using my computer as part of his spam botnet.

So I moved on to UFC 2009 Undisputed and Fight Night Round 4.

Fight Night Round 4 feels a lot more sedate than FNR3. FNR3 was about big haymakers, dramatic counter-punches and chicks in bikinis. It was larger than life, so to speak.

FNR4 is more grounded. There’s a lot more focus on how inside work is done, thanks to the improved model clipping and counter system. Stray punches can get caught in the opponent’s arms and wild blows can be hit and miss. Counters are somewhat easier to pull off and are a lot more punishing. Leaning isn’t as effective as in FNR3 but the addition of Weaving is useful (if somewhat open to abuse). The controls are bit more accessible and don’t require as many buttons. Clinching is still pretty rudimentary, since you can just press a button to push the other guy off you.

Undisputed, on the other hand, makes FNR4 look like a tickling competition. Nothing says “mainstream lower-middle class society” than glorifying no-holds-barred fighting, and Undisputed is king of the hill in this regard. Within 15 minutes I was going Muay-Thai on some poor sucker’s ass, whipping his neck and driving my knees into the bastard’s face. The submission/ground work wasn’t all too intuitive, with a lot of stick and button mashing to get some kind of action going. (Not to mention that seeing two sweaty grown men writhing on the ground can easily give the wrong impression.)

That wasn’t to say that, after spending a session on it, I felt the urge to drink a glass of raw eggs mixed with protein powder and join a kickboxing gym so I could “defend myself” after I’ve had a few drinks and some guy was trying to steal the girl I’d been hitting on all night.

I also find it amusing that the Government elect decide to say one thing about how it’s bad that we’re jacking cars in GTA, and yet they decide to classify a game that involves two grown men beating each other to submission in a cage. But hey - I figure the youth of today need to know when to tower over someone and beat their opponent’s face in.