Supremacy MMA should be exactly the type of fighting game that appeals to me and thanks to its brutal, yet arcade realisation of mixed martial arts it achieved just that. As a plebeian when it comes to technical, boring and highly complex button combos that other fighting games trade on, Supremacy’s simplicity was a breath of fresh, unofficial, blood-soaked air. Sadly it doesn’t quite become the whole package thanks to some unresponsive controls and a battle system all too easily exploited.

I love hitting people in the mouth (virtually of course) and for pure fist to face fun however Supremacy MMA hits hard in all the right places. The brutal visuals of taking down an opponent and seeing bruises, cuts and breaks graphically appear as you fight is superb. No other fighting game has reached this level of gratuitous violence without being unnecessary and its one of the reasons why I keep coming back to it.

The positives don’t stop at the visuals though and it’s the story-based aspects that most supreised me about the game. Each fighter featured in Supremacy MMA has their own story-based journey with some stylish-animated cut-scenes to introduce each real-life character and show their progression. This was pretty visually cool at first but what was suprising is the about of pathos induced by some of the characters. All come from interesting backgrounds and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t actually rooting for these guys and girls after a few short minutes.

Stunning though it is to have this kind of real-life element in such a Mary Whitehouse-killing experience, Supremacy MMA also lays on the fighting options pretty hard. With a large number of different fighters there’s enough variety to please anyone who likes to “‘ave it” and options to play through the standard exhibition mode, tournament mode, Xbox Live fights, women’s mode and a story mode.

My problems with Supremacy MMA come simply in the controls. For the large majority of the time I played mindlessly bashing buttons worked just fine. The game has a simply underlying strategy when it comes to defeated an opponent and that is to knock them off their feet and wail on them until their a bloody pulp. It really didn’t matter which discipline my fighter was proficient in, whether it was wrestling or kickboxing, just smacking someone on the floor was the best route to winning. That was my choice to play however and by being stricter on myself to role-play a little, Supremacy MMA stands up as a satisfying arcade beat ‘em up.

Unfortunately the other issue was more egregious and that was the responsiveness of the controls. The basic speed of moves being performed after pressing a button was just too slow for my liking. It always seemed like some kind of lag was going on between controller and on-screen action – not as bad as the actual multiplayer lag – but bad enough to be frustrating. Also, and I’m going to hate myself for saying this, the simplicity of the controls left me wanting. Now I hate all that Street Fighter nonsense of quarter-circles and fifty million button combos to do a roundhouse kick but having just one button each for a kick, punch, block etc. seemed a little too limiting. At least on the Xbox 360 Controller it did.

Having said all that I have to admit I enjoyed Supremacy MMA for its basic gratification when it comes to dude on dude (or dudess on dudess) action. The knarly visual flair and the addition of two female fighters are enough to make Supremacy MMA worth a look. And with no other MMA game on the horizon this should keep you occupied with some simple, blood-blistering fun over the winter months.

For more Supremacy MMA shenanigans check out their official Twitter & Facebook pages.

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