Get ready for some octagonal brutality

by GrathiusXR

©2009 Arthur Kotsopoulos:- CE (Community Editor)

With UFC becoming one of the fastest growing sports in the industry today it was no hard decision to cash in and make a UFC game to appeal to its massive number of fans. With YUKE’s Future Media Creators having a plethora, and I mean plethora, of Smackdown/Raw wrestling games under it’s belt, it was an easy choice to have them helm the task.

Creating an authentic yet imperfect representation of the fierce sport that is UFC 2009: Undisputed, Yukes have changed things around compared to the SvR franchise and made the whole feel and look of the game fresh and different from that of wrestling titles.

Ultimately though, the menu and navigation is vigorous and a bit tedious.

Regardless of the menu system the game itself does wonders for the sport and many fans of the genre will have a plethora of hours to put into the title, though the first couple with be spent solely on figuring out the control scheme.

• UFC 2009 Undisputed Trailers.

Unlike other wrestling and fighting games, to fully implement the complications of UFC’s moves like standing strikes, ground grappling, clinches, throws and probing and such, Yukes needed to come up with a control scheme that would suit the game best.

In doing this though they have plummeted the learning curve, so many gamers looking to jump straight in will be restricted to standing strikes as many will want to walk before they learn to crawl.

Luckily a tutorial mode is present, yet it does not fully teach the gamer the way the game works so you will need patience and time to understand how to do everything.

Once that is out of the way though the game is a breath of fresh air and combines strategy, brains, brute force and wits to its fights.

It has a huge roster of 80 fighters to choose from, with each having their own strengths and weaknesses; some may know Judo and Boxing, Kickboxing and Wrestling etc…

This means each fight is always different. You may walk in throwing punches and kicks, yet your opponent may be a wrestler and counter grapple your kick and restrain you to the floor pounding you or locking you into a submission move.

Fight over in less than a few minutes.

This then forces you to learn the moves and delve more into the game, giving you a better experience and overall much better enjoyment.

To reinforce this incentive, career mode is only accessible by creating a new fighter, starting from scratch and making your way to the top.

It isn’t as fully customizable as the wrestling games, but it does well in giving you options to customize the fighter the way you want.

Upon completing the initial customisation you choose his fighting style, allocate points to the various characteristics of the fighting style and off to simulation you go!

The career mode in UFC 2009: Undisputed will feel very similar to those fans of the wrestling games in a sense that it is more simulation in style of the FIFA games etc.

In my time, I spent less time fighting opponents mainly due to the shortness and unpredictability of fights and more time training speed, cardio, strength or sparring with various opponents to receive points to further improve my fighter.

Because of the unpredictability of fights in the sense that TKO’s come more frequent than real UFC fights, all the simulating that you’ve done for 10 minutes will only count for a 2 minute fight.

My main gripe with this is that whilst the hit detection is almost spot and better than the demo, landing a kick anytime during the fight could count as a win for you.

Yet sometimes landing that same kick won’t result in anything but a counter from your opponent and then you lose the match.

Knowing the control scheme though allows you to toy with your opponent, land a few punches/kicks, run around the octagon, grapple him, land a few hammerfists and end the match with smarts.

In comparison to the Fight Night series, it’s on the same page of smarts but not damage nor real time cuts and bruises. One measly punch could cut your opponent open or vice versa while a flurry of kicks may not do any any real-time facial damage.

As graphically superior as the character models look, with sweat and blood rippling down the fighter’s body, damage isn’t as extensive as in Fight Night.

And the end of round recovering session doesn’t give you any option to fix up your fighter the way you want to. It’s not that bad but would have been nice to include and give the gamer a little bit more of an engaging experience.

Without the inclusion of this feature and the lackluster excitement of the crowd there are moments where the game feels bland and uninspiring and the speed and brutality of the sport isn’t really captured most of the time in this game.

Yukes perfectly captured the crowd in their wrestling games, so how could they not with UFC?

If you can get over the extensive control scheme this game delivers on all aspects: great graphics, brutal combat and strategic fighting. UFC 2009: Undisputed is a fine entry for the sport.

If done right it could be a big contender to rival the SvR franchise but let’s just hope that they do not rehash the same career mode and just release a new game with 2 new features and that’s it.

©2009 Arthur Kotsopoulos:- (Community Editor)

“7.9/10

Please share us around

UFC 2009 Undisputed Price List in Australia (as of writing):
• EB Games: $109.95 ($29.95 when you trade 2 eligible games) (will also price-match)
• Game: $109.95 ($29.95 when you trade 1 eligible game) (will also price-match with catalogue proof)
• GameTraders: $109.95
• JB HiFi: $89 (trade 3 x 360 games not on the exclusion list and get it for free)
• Wow Sight & Sound: $98
• Harvey Norman: $109.95
• Myer: $109.95

• Or try our Affiliate when you want to Swap-n-Save

Filed under: 3rd Party Games, Console gaming, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Game Reviews, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | Fight Night series, Griffin, Kickboxing, oxcgn reviews, Smackdown, Smackdown V's Raw, TKO's, UFC, UFC 200 Undisputed review, wrestling, YUKE's Future Media Creators, Yukes