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Pop quiz, video games fan: what was the first fighting game to feature counters, in-air reversals, special moves accessed by twirling the joystick, secret techniques that didn't appear in the instructions and a super attack that led to instant disqualification? Don't bother guessing, you're probably wrong: it was Brian Jacks' Uchi Mata, a judo game released on the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 which came out a full year before the original Street Fighter. In an era where most games treated the player's frantic yanks on the joystick as nothing more than gentle suggestions, it was one of the most insanely complicated simulations ever released, with 16 throws possible from a variety of different positions and an ultimate one-throw KO (the uchi-mata itself, Jacks' signature hip throw) that took a flawless half-circle on the stick to execute. It had counters that relied on perfect timing. It had a 'grip meter.' It had a separate gauge to show the fighters' feet. And it's still one of the most faithful interpretations of Jigoro Kano's gentle art ever coded.
Grappling - which, for the sake of argument, we'll call any style of fighting that doesn't involve strikes or weapons - is difficult to translate into games. Incredibly difficult. I've been doing the real thing for nearly a decade - mainly Brazilian jiu-jitsu, otherwise known as the rolling-around-on-the-floor one, which I've got a purple belt in - but also judo, wrestling and MMA, where I've had four amateur fights and I still sometimes feel like I have no idea what's going on. So whenever a developer tells me that their whole studio's been practising for a couple of months so that they'll understand the moves - as EA Vancouver did for EA Sports UFC - it doesn't entirely fill me with confidence.
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