UFC 2009 Undisputed – Game Review
Fighting games are the one genre where the battle system and controls are more important than anything else. This is both a blessing and a curse for UFC 2009 Undisputed for the PS3 and Xbox 360. For those who don’t know what the UFC is, it is a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) promotion in the United States, while it is a fighting game, some may consider it a simulation.
Like most fighting games, there are a bunch of characters to choose from and several different game modes. Of course it should be noted that while there are around 77 fighters to choose from, they are broken up by weight class, so there are about an average of 15 fighters per weight class. This means if you stick to the same weight class you will exhaust the number of unique opponents pretty quickly, but of course you can always pick a different weight class. The game modes are as follows: an exhibition mode where you can pit two fighters against each other and play either against a computer controlled opponent or a player; an online mode, where you can play against a human opponent over the Playstation Network; a create a fighter mode where you create your own character; a tutorial mode where you can learn who to play; and a career mode where you create your own fighter and work your way up through the ranks.
The first thing you will notice when you boot up the game is the question about the tutorial mode, if you have never played the game before, you absolutely need to play the tutorial, even though it is long. The reason being, the controls are so complex that unless you have a pretty intimate knowledge of MMA a lot of it will make no sense. Even if you do have an intimate knowledge, the controls may seem awkward until you get the chance to perform the maneuvers, and unfortunately if you are trying to do some of the more complex ones in an exhibition match you may find yourself stifled. While some may say that you have to get into full mount to do a lot of damage (many guides online say only try for full mount) you can finish the fight from almost any position, as long as you are on top, though it may be possible to do that from the bottom, but it is highly unlikely. The one problem with the controls is the transitioning, it is sometimes hard to figure out which way to spin the stick to allow you to transition out of something, particularly from the bottom. This does not hinder you too badly, but can be extremely frustrating when your opponent gets you in the full mount position. Of course submissions can be done from any position, but it is difficult to finish a submission, which with the recent patch will be slightly easier, but if you don’t have an online connection you won’t be able to obtain this patch (to the best of my knowledge). With the difficulty in obtaining the submission victory, that leaves the knockout and technical knockout and the decision victory, both knockouts are pretty easy to get, which means you and your opponent can both get a win without much difficulty. Which for some may seem like a problem, as there is really no way to tell when you will get hit with that vicious punch, it could be the first hit or it could take all three (or five for a championship match) rounds. Of course you could just let it go to the judges’ decision, but like in real life no one wants to go to decision.
The one mode that really matters is the career mode, as this is where your created fighter can gain stats and you can also build up a reputation and gain sponsors and get the title of your weight class. To start you create a fighter with the look you want and the height and weight class. Obviously the weight class matters, as you cannot jump weight classes in career. The height effects your reach, but reach only matters if you care about how far you want to stand from your opponent to do damage. You also need to pick your style, which comes in two parts, your stand up and your ground style. While all fighters can perform most things, some positions can only be obtained by certain ground styles. The stand up style determines your types of strikes, meaning whether you are more efficient with your punches or you are better up close in a clinch, etc. You then have your attributes, strength, cardio, and speed. These are pretty obvious, cardio is meant to represent your stamina and determines both your in ring and out of the ring cost for actions. Finally there are the numerous stats, like standing strike offense and standing strike defense. These stats determine how good you are at a particular part of a fight. This means you have to train a lot to get these stats raised. There are two kinds of training in career mode, training of your attributes and sparring, which gives you points to raise your stats. You can also raise your technique level in your ground and standing style by participating in training camps, unlocking new maneuvers and raising stats related to the style. Then there are the fights, which are like any other fight in the game, but have the added bonus of giving you cred and raising your rank, helping to give you a reason to keep fighting.
Now for the bad news, while the game has smooth animations and a great fighting system there are still some things that could be better. The transitioning can be a little difficult at times, and the fighting system is complex enough to turn away some fans of MMA, but the controls make sense, they just take a little while to master. The other big problem which some may not see as a problem, is the inability to change weight classes in career mode. In real life fighters will change weight classes and in a game all about being able to fight all the various fighters in the UFC it would only make more sense to be able to go up or down in weight to fight these people.
Now for a rating, this game even with its problems still is a cool+, as the issues are not something that can’t be overcome or ignored. For fans of MMA who like videogames you may notice that this is not the first UFC game to come out, but it is certainly the best so far. For those who are not fans of the sport this is not going to be anything more than a meh+, as it is well made, but not something you may have even more than a mild interest in.
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Well, it seems like the controls would be good for me and the game seems to be pretty cool…
But then again perhaps i just like MMA in general and also go to training sessions =P
I guess the training would be more useful than playing a game but it still rocks… Would be funny if they made this possible on new XBox with its Project Natal sensor
Anyways, I dont know about you, but I’m so getting this game =]
If you are that into MMA, but also fairly used to videogames then I think it is the perfect fit, as for playing over training… I would think this would be a great tool for cooling down or pumping you up, not an alternative to training. As for motion control, it would be kind of hard to do the ground stuff in my opinion, plus the game does not really have sloppy positions, which you would find yourself in if you were fighting someone in real life (like getting into a position not rendered into the game, or getting stuck between positions awkwardly). The stand up side would work well though. Who knows, we may see it in future iterations (2010 has already been announced).