When UFC Undisputed was announced a while back, I knew next to nothing about the UFC. I had never even watched a full UFC fight from beginning to end at that point, and all I thought was that it was basically professional wrestling, except it was real…and…had more professionalism. Little did I know, I was missing out on a sport that has a surprising amount of strategy behind it.  In an odd twist, I became interested in the sport by playing the game, not the other way around.

However, when it was announced, the devs stated that they were, (as I recall, so don’t hold me on it word for word) “Making the best fighting game ever.” Now, even for someone who barely knows of the sport’s existence, this is quit a claim in the gaming world, where Street Fighter, Tekken, and Mortal Kombat, all shook the world and their influence can still be seen in many a game today. The idea of creating my own fighter,  putting him through a UFC career complete with an EA Sports-style calendar, schedule, and leveling system, was an exciting one.

Also touted was the physics-based fighting, which, until Fight Night Round 3 was announced later on, was a fresh and new thing. Punches and kicks could glance, and arms could even tangle up and re-direct each other, so a hook to somebody’s temple might end up behind their head and miss completely. I’m glad I’m not a programmer, because it must be a technical nightmare to do that without the ragdoll physics we’re all used to.

Anyway, on to the game, I’m disappointed to say that it most definitely is not the best fighting game ever made. It is however damn good, if a little repetitive. I wasn’t expecting it to be as revolutionary as advertised. In fact, I thought it would either be fantastic, or awful, but I was excited to see how it would turn out either way. Well, it finally came, and I was pleasantly surprised that it was closer to fantastic than all the skeptics thought.

First, the good. The graphics in this game are pretty fantastic. The sweaty, half-naked men are rendered in lovely HD down to individual chest hairs. The presentation is also spot-on. Almost every conceivable detail of a real UFC broadcast is faithfully rendered here, with the weight class and fighter faces announced, followed by a screen of their stats, and then their introduction by Bruce Buffer, etc.

The audio is very well done. I expected the announcing to be pretty sub-par since Yuke’s doesn’t have the luxury of recycling lines recorded for previous games, like EA and their Madden and NHL games. They get repetitive after a while, but I didn’t expect anything more. What was disappointing, and I recall this being a complaint in IGN’s review, is that the announcers simply aren’t adequate enough when it comes to using your own custom fighter. Nobody’s impressed to hear “Tonight, a middleweight matchup between Anderson Silva, and the Head Hunter!” It’s just corny. The announcers are always ranting about the history of the various real fighters, but custom fighters are barely mentioned. It would have been nice if we had the choice to pick various events in our fighter’s life, similar to Mass Effect,  so the announcers (Joe Rogan is the only other Rogan I know BTW ^_^) could piece together something to say about us. Or maybe they should have the ability to talk about past wins or losses, like if I got my head caved in by Michael Bisping or if I submitted Rich Franklin in the final seconds of a title match.

The sound effects within the octagon are what you’d expect. It’s hard to go wrong with meat-packing sounds. However, it would have been nice if some noise came out of the actual fighters. Maybe a grunt or two while being kneed in the ribs or a yelp while being submitted.

Also, the fighting engine is pretty great. I was never into the old-school fighting games where I’d have to memorize 10-button combos. I’m right at home here, with every face button controlling a limb, the left shoulder buttons controlling high or low strikes, and the right shoulder buttons controlling blocking. This is all standard though, and what was really pushed during the advertising stages was the grappling system.

It’s very, very deep, to compensate for all the strategy in a real UFC match. If you don’t know about the different positions or their names, you’ll have a bit of trouble getting used to the vocabulary, as the game does little to nothing to teach newcomers what a half-guard, full-guard, or side control are. There’s a whole different language to learn here if you’re new to MMA, and you’ll need practice before getting used to it. Who the hell thinks to call something a Rubber Guard, anyway?

The fighting system in general works pretty well, and aside from grappling, it’s pretty easy to pick up. One thing I did not like was that head kicks are a serious exploit. If I’m having trouble in a match, I always even things up by kicking my opponent to the head a few times, and the AI seems to have difficulty adapting the the fact that the only place I’m aiming for is the left temple. Yes, I said left. That is because I discovered through the practice mode that the right hand and the right leg almost always do a little bit more damage, which is a surprisingly useless detail to add, but it adds just a modicum of strategy because your right leg and arm strike slightly slower because of the stance you’re forced into.

As I was saying, I truly purposely avoid the head kick when I’m doing well, so as to make the match a little more interesting, but I shouldn’t have to avoid an aspect of a game just so I don’t win every fight without exception.

I’m not the only one with an exploit, however. Unfortunately, when the AI does win, it usually feels like they’ve cheated you rather than defeated you fair and square. Especially towards the beginning of your single player career, submissions will always be your kryptonite. You will almost never be able to submit people despite how many points you dump into submission. However, the AI can submit you with the greatest of ease, to the point where if they do get you into a submission, depending on your stats, it may even be an automatic win for them., with no point in even fighting back. Either that, or the AI can nail you with a one-punch instant knockout, out of nowhere. Now, apparently this has been fixed with the latest patch, but I have yet to download it, and therefore, cannot comment. But it’s a real pain in the ass, when you’re destroying your opponent and the mat is literally red with his blood, but he gets in one perfect punch, and bam, you’ve lost your title.

One Punch, and all that hard work for the title shot can be rendered instantly useless

Now, onto the career mode. It starts out simple enough. You have an email section, which, like me, you will eventually stop checking altogether because it usually tells you things you already know, or includes a newsletter telling you the results of other fights, which is irrelevant to you. Then, you have your calendar, which is where you’ll spend most of your time in UFC Undisputed. Here, you can train to increase your 3 core attributes: strength, speed, and cardio, a fancy word for endurance. Or, you can spar to increase any of your other specific stats like the aforementioned submission, or kicks, punches, grappling, you get the idea.

Now, the sparring was probably my biggest gripe with the game. It’s annoying, and repetitive. Once you get a solid average of 70-90 in any of your core stats, sparring is what you’ll be doing consistently almost every week (You can only do any one thing once a week, and you usually have 5-9 weeks between each fight depending on how far you are in the game). Now, sparring works like a normal fight, with one round. You have to fight your partner as best as you can, and afterward, your performance is calculated and a certain number of points are given to you to go towards your attributes. It makes sense on paper, but in practice, it’s frustrating. If you do well, you’ll earn upwards of 50 points. If you do terribly, you get next to nothing, and you’ll have wasted an entire week. This means that after a while, you’ll revert back to the old exploit. Just keep kicking your sparring partner in the head to earn maximum points. Now, I took karate for seven years, slightly less than half of my entire life, and that’s long enough to know that sparring is to experiment, and improve, and to put everything you’ve learned to the test. In UFC however, it turns into a needless struggle to scrounge for every last point you can get, and the mode is meant to double as practice, but you’re encouraged not to mess around because it wastes time on your schedule if your partner mops the floor with you and you get 10 points, when your best stats needs 25+ to improve by 1 out of 99.

After awhile, I realized, “Hey!…I’m…grinding…in a UFC game.”, and that’s my biggest overall complaint. The sparring and training overall is just tedious, but its necessary for your fighter not to be a complete wimp, who kicks and punches like he’s swinging a sledgehammer.

All in all, the career feels pretty shallow. It feels like a bunch of exhibition matches strung together, and as you can only ever fight in one weight class, you’ll always be fighting the same 5-8 fighters, sometimes the same people more than twice in a row. Also, there are no rivalries, or exciting re-matches, or any real interaction with any of the other fighters at all. You can actually pick different fighters to be your coach at training camps, but they all act identical and there’s no reason to pick one person over the other.

By the end of my career though, after all that frustrating grinding, Middleweight champion of the world, Rogan “The Head Hunter”, was finally becoming a powerhouse. Then, out of nowhere, I get an email saying that I’m going to have to retire. Wait, what? I look over to my stats again. Dana White, dude, I’m 18. Not only are you forcing me to retire, but you’re forcing me to retire before I’ve even moved out of my parents’ house?

Or…maybe retirement isn’t so bad.

It was really disappointing when my career came to an end, and I found out that I couldn’t just bring my fighter back for a second career. The fighter that I spent hours and hours tailoring, can now only be used in exhibition (not even online, because I didn’t make my character on the account with the gold Live subscription).  However, it wasn’t the end of the world, because after playing the game for so many hours, its flaws really begin to show through. It’s repetitive, it requires serious RPG-style grinding, and after a while, even the beautifully-made fighting system shows to be not much more than a really deep, well-realized version of rock paper scissors.

There’s some replay value to be had in this game, like getting to play real-life classic fights, or making different fighters with different combinations of the six fighting styles, but they’re all too similar to warrant spending another 10+ hours to play with them. It’s simply not a good enough reason to want to come back much more.

While the game lasted, I definitely got my 60$ worth with this game. This whole review makes it seem like I mostly hated it, but honestly, for what it is, its a surprisingly fun game. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the best games released this year, but that’s not saying much. It’s been a pretty awful year for games in my opinion. So far, we’ve had…what…Red Faction, Sims 3, Godfather 2 (Hush! I like it!)…Prototype…and that’s about it. So UFC doesn’t have much competition.

Even if it did, I enjoyed it before it got repetitive, and it gets a 7.5 from me. Not abysmal, not amazing, but average doesn’t cut it either. I suppose the technical term would be…”quite agreeable”.

Rating:

Definitely a good first-time showing, but that only means expectations will be raised exponentially for the next installment

Oh, and I hear Anderson Silva will be fighting Forrest Griffin at UFC 101. My vote goes out to Forrest Griffin, the apparent underdog