Fans of the UFC have had to wait a bit longer than usual for the upcoming release of UFC Undisputed 3, but hopefully the slightly extended development schedule has given the folks at THQ time to tweak a few extra gameplay systems while adding to the new features that they've announced. From what we already know about the game, there looks to be a lot to get excited about.

1) More Ways to Fight, More Ways to Finish

One of the drawbacks in the UFC series has been the limited ways in which you can engage an opponent. While the striking system has been competent and the ground game quite detailed, key positions have been omitted and certain scenarios would just never occur during a fight. One way in which this is different this time, is with the inclusion of leg kick TKOs. Now you can actually deploy leg kicks as a viable strategy to batter your opponent's legs. Leg kicks can also be checked by the defending fighter, possibly even resulting in a broken leg for the attacker.

Also added is a seated position against the cage. This is an important change because in real life there are many situations involving clinch work while standing along the cage — or ground work near the cage — that end up with two fighters pinned against the cage in a seated position. Not only can you deliver damage here, but you can use it as a transition point to try and flatten your opponent out or, if on defense, you can attempt to use the cage to stand back up.

Another addition this year is the “finish the fight” moment, where your fighter can deliver some final blows, even while an opponent is already out. This works particularly well with the aforementioned leg kick TKOs, as your opponent will crumble and you'll still be able to jump on top and blast them with a few more shots. Just the same, you can recreate the Henderson-Bisping fight by knocking an opponent out and then raining down another shot while they're out. This change alone removes some of the stilted ways in which fights finished in previous versions of the game.

2) Key Gameplay System Changes

One of the biggest alterations this year is in the submission system. Gone are the days in which you had to “shine” the right thumbstick until your hand fell off. Also gone is the need to button mash incessantly. Now when a submission is locked in, each player will participate in a mini-game, in the shape of an octagon, where the attacker tries to hover his icon over the defender while the defender tries to stay away. It looks a bit jarring on the screen, but the developers believe this will give better feedback as to how you're actually doing in the submission struggle, resulting in fewer puzzling tap-outs. Speaking of submissions, you can block them now by holding the grapple block — a welcome change.

Another exciting tweak takes place between rounds, as fighters will actually recover some of the damage accumulated in the previous round. This will eliminate situations where a fighter's “head damage” was at about 95 percent when they stepped out for the next round and they subsequently got dropped in one shot. Fights might be a bit longer because of this, but that should only add to the realism. The developers at THQ said they also wanted to add regeneration during the actual fight as well, but this feature won't make until the next version.

3) Bells and Whistles

One of the more exciting additions to the game this year is the inclusion of PRIDE mode. All of the elements that make PRIDE unique will be present, including irregular round times, soccer kicks, knees to the head on the ground, face stomps, referees over the PA system and laser and pyro entrances. Even better, PRIDE ring announcer Lenne Hardt will provide introductions for all of the fighters, and Bas Rutten and Stephen Quadros will handle play-by-play. It's also worth noting that over 30 unique PRIDE fighters will be included, such as Bob Sapp, Royce Gracie and Akihiro Gono. These guys can fight in the UFC modes of the game as well. Overall, it really seems like they've handled the inclusion of PRIDE the right way.

Back to the UFC side, fighter entrances with longer walkouts and improved facial animations will be included this year. The entire broadcast presentation is said to be improved, with a different color and lighting treatment than before, as well as a lower camera angle that, actually, resembles something more akin to an arcade fighting game.

4) Less Cheese

Like any competitive fighting game, there are going to be many questionable tactics that players develop. Most of the time it just ends up being industrious players working within the confines of the game to find an advantage, but sometimes these techniques end up tarnishing the realism that a game is gong for as well as sucking the fun away for a large part of the player base.

To that end, it's nice to see that players will be prevented from performing certain moves in this version. You'll no longer be able to reset a clinch along the cage, which restarted the referee's “timer” and allowed you stall and slowly punish while not doing much. It will also no longer be possible to cancel a submission into an advantageous position, which many online players used as a tactic advance into side control with no real effort. Finally, elbows from clinch range will only be possible from a handful of fighters, as many players often spammed these powerful short strikes to put you in a “rocked” state very quickly.

5) New Fighters, More Accurate Styles

Admittedly, it's a bit annoying that fighters like Phil Davis and Brian Stann aren't in the game by default. The only way people will be able to use those fighters, as well as Nick Diaz and Jason “Mayhem” Miller, is by pre-ordering the game at Gamestop. While this is a bit questionable, it is good to know that more of the fighters in UFC Undisputed 3 will behave like their real-life counterparts. Some of the lower-ranked fighters are still created using pre-existing archetypes — kickboxer, wrestler, etc. — but many of the fighters have been mo-capped with many more signature moves, transitions, submissions and stances.

It's also cool that reach is going to be a bigger factor in this year's game, so fighters like Jon Jones, Anderson Silva or Cheick Kongo should fight distinctively different from grapplers and Jiu-Jitsu fighters. Being able to paw a jab out in front of a range fighter in previous years only served to deter grapplers for a few seconds before they shot in for a takedown.

With addition of many new submissions and fighter-specific moves, it would be cool to actually recreate the standing guillotine that Jon Jones locked on Lyoto Machida — and then maybe land some extra shots for good measure once he's out.

As for the roster, UFC Undisputed 3 will also feature bantamweight and featherweight divisions, bringing the game's total roster to over 150 fighters. Since the UFC owns Strikeforce now, it seems like only a matter of time before all of those fighters are included as well.

Outlook

It's actually pretty refreshing that in this day and age a company like THQ was actually able to have a longer development cycle for a franchise like this, and it seems that they've listened to a lot of feedback and requests from their fans. With the game only a couple of months away, let's hope it all comes together into something special.