14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts' newest fighting game, EA Sports MMA, has just landed another famous name for the roster. With an almost fairytale-like, childhood story, Frank Shamrock has quite an image of the American Dream. Placed in several group homes, foster homes and crisis centers from the age of 12, Frank Alisio Juarez III, as is his birth name, was eventually placed with Bob Shamrock.
Today, he holds titles like "Fighter of the Decade" for the 1990's awarded by the Wrestling Observer, three times "Fighter of the Year" from Full Contact Fighter Magazine and Best Full Contact Fighter" by Black Belt magazine in 1998. Presently facing a lifetime ban from UFC organizers, he is fighting in the Strikeforce, a tournament he joined in 2006.
Other known fighters will join Shamrock in the ring, including the likes of Fedor Emelianenko and Randy Couture. If their popularity will be enough for EA MMA to match the three million sales of THQ's UFC 2009 Undisputed remains to be seen. With an already familiarized market, MMA hopes to play on the rising popularity of mixed-martial arts tournaments that have bagun to surface in the last years. The title will be developed by EA Tiburon, in Florida, and will engage several game developers who worked in the past at the late EA Nascar series.
The closest thing to a direct competition will be WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010, set for release on October 20, 2009, and maybe TNA Impact! 2, which, even though has a release date set sometime in 2010, is sketchy on any further details. Most likely, it will suffer from the typical postponement and end up not being a rival for anything yet announced.
EA Sports MMA also has a release date set in 2010, but, with a little bit more media coverage and several development updates made by the company, it has fair chances of respecting the vague deadline. It remains to be seen if it will be a hit or a miss, though wrestling games tend to be on the money as long as they provide enough brutality.