As a fan of all things UFC or MMA, I was overjoyed to hear that THQ would be taking the reigns to bring us a new UFC game. I immediately thought that THQ was a great fit to make UFC because they’ve had some awesome successes with the Smackdown series. Last week, finally THQ threw all of us UFC fans a bone in the form of a playable demo.

The 560MB download is available on PSN and Xbox Live! As a free download and if you’re a fan of UFC, you really shouldn’t miss the opportunity to whet your appetite.

The demo only features the ability to play an exhibition with 2 fighters, Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell and Mauricio “Shogun” Hua, and the interactive tutorial. As a fan of the WWE series, I decided to forego the tutorial and get into the ring cold. Being unfamiliar with the control schemes, I fumbled my way to victory with a flying superman punch in the 2nd round. Not yet content with my win, I instantly got into a rematch and continued to play around losing some and winning others. I managed to figure out the basic controls and began racking up impressive victories, but I wasn’t content with that so I made my way to the tutorials.

WOW is this game deep. The tutorials were both helpful and overwhelming all the same. The

sheer number of moves to learn is mind numbing but they all feel pretty instinctive after trying it out just a few times. The tutorial is broken up into separate sections from you basic movement to submission defense and everything in between. After spending some time with the tutorials, I felt that I was ready to really try and exact some revenge for the Iceman from his loss on the previous Saturday.

What a different it made. Immediately I was pulling off triangle chokes, arm bars and a variety of submission moves just messing around with the controlling. I still need to work on my submission defense but it’s coming along, After all, every fighter has to train hard to become the best. One of the other things I noticed is that the playability of both fighters is vastly different than the other which is likely to give this game some incredible replay value both on and offline

The Bottom line is the graphics look spectacular and the character models are near picture perfect (right down to the blazing hot ring girls in tight clothes), the animation was fluid and crisp and the controls although very deep, were instinctive. This looks to me like it’s going to be a huge success. I know it;s going to see alot of play time with me, so far I’ve logged a good 4 hours of the demo alone. Now my only decision is what system to buy it for.

UFC 2009 – Undisputed drops May 19, 2009 for the PS3 and Xbox 360.