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UFC Personal Trainer beefed up with Xbox-exclusive DLC
It's been just over six months since the release of UFC Personal Trainer -- just enough time for you to recover from your first workout. Now you can get pummeled by a new downloadable pack. The Urijah Faber Workout Pack features the UFC bantamweight, in a series of five new routines and 15 "Hit the Mitts" drills. If you're more interested in building up your virtual self in UFC Undisputed 3 than your real self, you'll be delighted to hear that this DLC confers some kind of upgrade to your Create-A-Fighter character in that game. This Workout Pack is free, but it will be followed by two more paid expansions, each selling for 800 MSP ($10): the "Cain Velasquez Workout Pack" on January 31 and the "Jon Jones Workout Pack" on February 21. All are exclusive to the Xbox version.
THQ laments 'disappointing' quality in recent games
THQ's earnings release and investor call have seemed to pile on the poor Red Faction series. CEO Brian Farrell called out Armageddon's disappointing sales in the release, and announced the effective cancellation of the series in the investor call. Elsewhere in the call, he lamented the perceived quality of Armageddon and the other two most recent core games -- presumably MX vs. ATV: Alive and UFC Personal Trainer, though none are identified by name. "The last three launches we've had have been disappointing in terms of the quality," he said. "Mid-70s [in terms of Metacritic average] is not good enough, and the entire team in our core group knows that." Farrell said the core group intends to focus on putting enough time and resources into its games to ensure higher quality. He specifically referenced Saints Row: The Third, for which "We believe strongly the quality bar is there." And that's how the game's signature weapon got its new nickname, "The Quality Bar."
UFC Personal Trainer includes free Undisputed 2010 from Best Buy, freezing glitch everywhere
Good news and bad news about UFC Personal Trainer. The good news is that if you buy the Xbox 360 version online or in store from Best Buy, you'll get a free copy of UFC Undisputed 2010. That way, if you get tired of actually performing all those deadly combat moves with your body, you can take a break and engage in some virtual grappling, and then let Brock Lesnar's improbably overmuscled frame on the box art inspire you to get back to your workout. Now, the bad news. That copy of Personal Trainer might need to take a periodic, unscheduled break of its own -- users are reporting freezing issues with the training game, at least on Xbox. THQ is aware of the problem, which it attributes on the UFC Personal Trainer blog (currently offline) to "unforeseen server issues." The publisher is working on a fix, expected "shortly." And then you can get back to your training regimen, which is definitely guaranteed to make you as inhumanly, inconveniently beefy as Brock Lesnar. Update 9pm – THQ sent us the following statement letting us know the issue has been resolved: We have successfully resolved the hitching issue recently impacting UFC Personal Trainer, including potential interference with online and offline play. Yesterday, our third party data support center encountered a technical issue that halted all server support. This issue affected many games, including UFC Personal Trainer, as the lack of server support made the product periodically hitch and interfere with the user experience. THQ's technical support and development teams have resolved the issue by transferring data support to a new server facility. UFC Personal Trainer has been tested thoroughly, and we are currently not experiencing issues with the product or online connections. We will continue monitoring activities with the new server facility. We apologize for the inconvenience and encourage players to hit the mitts, take on the 30-day challenge and experience everything UFC Personal Trainer has to offer consumers. Good luck on your fitness journey! [Thanks, D!]
UFC: Personal Trainer video shows Average Joes working out
Are you sick and tired of waiting until 2am to get your infomercial fix? If you watch this trailer for UFC: Personal Trainer, the Kinect title aiming to get you into fighting shape, right now you'll get not one but two minutes of infomercial action.
UFC Trainer preview: Grappling with danger
THQ is, apparently, quite interested in making a big impact with its upcoming Kinect exercise game, UFC Trainer. In a large loft in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood a few weeks back, the publisher had nearly a dozen folks -- some from the game's developer, Heavy Iron Studios, some from THQ, some from the National Academy of Sports Medicine, and even one actual UFC fighter -- to show off the game. To be clear, that's about three times the number of people normally showing off a single game to the press. And during my demonstration, I was the only member of the press in attendance. As if the battalion of representatives wasn't enough to convince me of THQ's dedication to UFC Trainer, I was told upfront that the game had been moved out of its intended Kinect launch timeframe in order to give the developers more time to make a better game. Moreover, UFC Trainer was pitched as "especially for men," being the first exercise game to offer "something new and fresh" with male gamers in mind. I was then introduced to a rep from the National Academy of Sports Medicine who assured me that his institution had "gotten its hands dirty" with the project and left a profound stamp. I was even told by UFC fighter Urijah Faber that, relative to the training he actually does, the game is "really realistic." What I saw and played of UFC Trainer, however, left me unconvinced that most gamers should pick up the game for exercise -- let alone just male gamers -- and fully convinced that the few folks who do pick this up may actually end up hurting themselves.%Gallery-121990%
Get fighting fit with UFC Personal Trainer in June
Ready to get your Affliction t-shirt all sweaty? THQ has announced a June launch for UFC Personal Trainer, allowing you to spend your summer pantomiming mixed martial arts in front of your Wii, PS3, or Xbox 360. It's got the talent to be a credible training game: it's designed by the National Academy of Sports Medicine, THQ says, and received input from three MMA trainers who have worked with top UFC fighters. THQ was quiet about the features in the PlayStation Move or Wii versions in the press release, but the Kinect version will feature "content exclusive to Kinect for Xbox 360, voice command navigation and a full-body tracking system."%Gallery-120595%
UFC Trainer grappling with delays, launching in June
According to THQ's Fiscal 2011 third quarter report, the forthcoming motion-centric title UFC Personal Trainer has been moved out of the company's "March quarter" launch window and "into fiscal 2012" (starting April 1, 2011). A press release noted that the company's new financial projections, as mentioned in the report, are a reflection of "the move of UFC Personal Trainer into fiscal 2012." During a financial call directly after the release, company prez and CEO Brian Farrell pins the game for a June release. Plenty of time to build that octagon in your living room!
UFC Personal Trainer due in Europe this April
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."
THQ puts Devil's Third in 2012, announces UFC Trainer
While we were furiously running from appointment to appointment somewhere inside the LA Convention Center last week, THQ was busy holding an investor call -- and subsequently detailing a densely packed game release future. While we already heard from the publisher back in February that Darksiders and Saint's Row sequels would be arriving sometime in fiscal 2012 (between March 2011 and April 2012), it seems that Valhalla Games' debut effort Devil's Third will join the fold (as evidenced by the above image). Also of note, "UFC Trainer" was detailed in the financial call as a Kinect/Move/Wii exercise/training title set for release in Jan 2011 (as reported by GameSpot). It's aiming to contend with the likes of EA Sports Active and Wii Fit, albeit with a tougher slant. "We want this thing tuned to perfection without lag. And I'm not going to ship it until it's the coolest fighting thing in the world," THQ exec Danny Bilson said of UFC Trainer, explaining its absence from E3. He also reconfirmed that a sequel to Darksiders has been "greenlit" and is currently in production, though said nothing of the Devil's Third release window specifically (presumably for fear of being sliced to bits by Valhalla's ninjas).
