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The Rock's been a bad boy this year and Saint Nick's gonna give him a big lump of coal. From THQ and its arcade wrestling title, WWE All-Stars, due next year. More »
Get ready to get super buff. European sites including CVG and Eurogamer say THQ announced that UFC Personal Trainer, the UFC-themed exercise game for Kinect, Move, and Wii, will be released in Europe on April 1 of next year, bringing with it THQ's firm (but completely unspoken) guarantee that regular use will make you look exactly like Brock Lesnar. Out the same day: WWE All-Stars, a similarly casual-focused game, but with wrestling instead of whatever you call what happens in UFC, and arcade-style controls instead of motion.
Both games are headed for a similar release window in North America. During an investor conference call this month, THQ cited them as highlights of its "March quarter."
Mad Catz has created FightPad and FightStick accessories for fighting games like Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. It has now announced a partnership with THQ to produce ... WWE-branded FightSticks and FightPads, for the upcoming WWE All Stars game. All Stars is supposed to be more arcade-like and feature "combination sequences" (according to its original announcement), so ... no, this just isn't going to make sense no matter how hard we try.
Mad Catz intends to produce the accessories for PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii, which means that if you missed out on the Tatsunoko vs. Capcom FightStick, you'll have another chance to get a Wii arcade stick, albeit one with pictures of wrasslers all over it. Mad Catz has declined to offer images or specific details for the devices, so we're just going to have to dream for now.
THQ has another WWE game on the way, joining its WWE Smackdown vs. Raw series and the new WWE All Stars (pictured). According to THQ's Danny Bilson, the new WWE "extension" shares All Stars' focus on accessibility over Smackdown vs. Raw's detailed ... simulation of simulated wrestling.
"Next year you'll see another new extension [of the WWE license]," Bilson told CVG, "that's just as exciting as All Stars, but a little different. We're not talking about that yet." He said that the plan was to release a WWE game every six months (presumably for many years to come), alternating between Smackdown vs. Raw, All Stars and this new series -- the latter two being "more friendly, easier and less simmy than Smackdown vs. Raw." There's a fourth franchise too, WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw Online, but that's intended solely for the Asian market.
If you're thinking that the "new" series will feature WWE wrestlers driving in cars and shooting at each other -- THQ tried that one already. Our wild guess: the new game's gonna really Kinect players to the Moves.
To be more specific, it's from the WWE All-Stars booth at E3. But you probably didn't need that additional information. You only need to know that it's the greatest thing we've ever seen. When our bones are full of fatigue from braving the crowds of the E3 show floor, we need only to look towards it, like a beacon of hope, capable of rejuvenating our spirits in unprecedented ways. Thank you, WWE All-Stars booth. We do not deserve you.
