Review: UFC Undisputed 2010

Overview

After my initial preview into UFC Undisputed 2010, I have finally had the chance to play the full game just before the European release. At the event I was able to play hands-on with the ‘Create a Fighter’ mode, ‘Career’ mode and ‘Tournament” mode. This time, of course, everything is unlocked for my bidding, if I can find the time to get into the menu screen that is. More on that later…

Create a Fighter

As before, I set to work on creating my fighter from the main menu. Now that I knew the gist of how to go about this I thought it would be pretty plain sailing. I decided on a light heavyweight fighter, as this option was not open to me during preview time. The stats still seemed a bit over-encumbering even after trying a second time, but fortunately I noticed an option to randomize all of the skill settings, so it was much easier for a novice like me. I also found that to get stamina heads-up in your fights, you have to locate it in the options menu. I picked random options and got ready for my first few fights, which were pretty straightforward. I believe you can just go through all the various fighters, fighting one after another in this mode.

During my time designing my character I daydreamed about his life, as there isn’t any background for your fighter to speak of in the actual game. Here is his story:

Gabriel ‘Savage’ Sanchez, born and bred in the heart of London town by his alcoholic, single mother didn’t have a very good upbringing. As he grew older, he fought with other boys in the area, and gained a reputation for himself. He became curious and angry towards his estranged Mexican father, whom he took as his last name. Smuggling himself aboard a cargo ship to the west at the age of 14, to seek out the man who abandoned his mother, he accidentally fell into a box of scorpions, headed for a pet shop. He was stung several times in the ankle, which still effects him to this day, evident by his constant use of an ankle support. He also reflects on this time by a tattoo of a large scorpion on his back, and a ship on his arm. Travelling to Puebla, Mexico was hard going, and Gabriel fought his way in street fights to earn some bus fair. Eventually entering his father’s hometown, he found that his trade was a fighter in the UFC. To gain entrance to finally confront his dad, Gabriel made it his mission to climb up the ranks as a UFC pro in Puebla, to one day fight his father, and take revenge for the cruelty of the past…

… or something like that.

Career Mode

When I started up career mode, the game asked me to make a character. I thought I had already done this, but after closer inspection it seems you can make a character for various fighting modes in the main menu, but when it comes to career mode, you cant seem to import your fighters. This annoyed the hell out of me. Why spend all that time making a character, to have to make yet another one to be able to play the main game?!

Anyway, during career mode, you start with a tutorial of the basic moves and simple fights to try them out. You can then choose to progress to become a pro, or stay and train a while longer. I went ahead and became a pro. After a short cut-scene, you are then offered various fights, and if you win, you can receive sponsors etc. The game-play is pretty good when you are actually in the fights, but there are still too many options and stats to deal with in-between for my liking. This game is definitely not designed for someone to just pick up while knowing next to nothing about the sport.

In-between scheduled matches you are asked what you would like to train on during each week leading up to the next fight. I decided to work on the main points of focus; strength, speed, and cardio for each week. Very soon you will have 100% fatigue, and there is nothing you can do about it except put your fighter to rest for a week or 2. This can become quite tedious especially if you want to level up quickly. There must be an art to this, which I am yet to fathom, but at first glace it doesn’t seem user friendly at all.

As I said in my last write up, the skill levels deteriorate if you do not keep on top of them. After about three fights I actually had nothing left in any of my skill bars (and there’s a lot of them). I wasn’t quite sure how this happened! I had won every fight, used various techniques, and had trained vigorously between fights. This got irritating, and no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t seem to make any headway on any of the stats; they just kept disappearing.

I decided to try something else.

Xbox Live mode

First of all, to fight online you will need a code issued with your game. If you buy UFC Undisputed 2010 pre-owned you are looking at spending 400msp to fight online, which to me feels a bit mean, but it seems to be a growing trend these days, to put people off pre-owned games.

After my first attempt at getting online, which took some time, quite a few players destroyed me. There was a slight lag with the fighting, and I would recommend playing against a friend on multiplayer offline, rather than online for this reason. Again, there are a ton of stats thrown at you, including a leveling-up system when you win. If you lose, which I did, your opponent seems to receive all of your combat points for that fight, including their own. After 5 fights, I was still stuck at zero points!

Enough about my lack of skill… after giving it a few hours to cool off my frustration, I tried again. This became aggravating yet again, as this time I couldn’t even get online to play. It seemed the server was down already, after only two days of release in the US. You have to wonder how it will cope after Europe gets their mitts on the game. Several attempts later, taking about 3 minutes each time as it tries to connect, which you cannot back out of it with any button (so you just have to sit there and pick your toes or something while you wait), I gave up.

Event Mode

This mode seems to be a fun way to go through random fights with your friends. You can pick a scene from a template, and it plays cut-scenes as though it was a pay-per-view fight on TV. There are a lot to choose from, and it gives each fight a bit more depth.

Graphics

The design is pretty good during fights in comparison with my exasperation for everything else. High levels of detail are shown, such as the fighters bleeding as they get kicked in the head, and sweat from various body parts. The fighters are pretty true to life, and even while designing your own guy, there are details you wouldn’t even think of, like changing the damage on your fighter’s ears to something puffy and grotesque, or changing their voice and mouth-guard.

Overall

If I am honest, I didn’t think too much of this game except for the actual fights, if you cant tell already. The loading times seem to drag on for a very long time, even while playing from my hard-drive, and the lack of online servers was uninspiring. Even when you first start the game, before the main menu, it takes a minute or two, trying to connect to… something. Whether this is the faulty online mode at the moment, or yet more loading, it gets annoying. While in a fight it can be quite interesting, and I wont deny that I get a slight thrill from smashing my opponent’s face into the ground, but it seems to take too long to get to that point.

The stats and leveling systems are far too intricate for a novice, as I have said before, and can lead to many complicated moments trying to work out what is what. For a fan of UFC (or an anally retentive recluse), who really knows what each move is, and how this equates to the styles and skill levels, this could be dream come true.

The graphics do give a positive swing to the game, and I really do enjoy the fights and detail within them, which is why my score is higher than you may think. If there was an option to have less stats, simpler skill formats, and of course faster loading times I would be all over this game like a bad rash on a working girl. This causes conflict on whether I should persevere through the loading screens to enjoy the fights or not.

Considering there are no other games in this genre as such, UFC has almost been left to their own devices, and has made some elements far too complicated. With the looming presence of EA Sports MMA, out later this year, we might be able to see some comparison and rivalry in the way things are done in this type of game. Let’s hope both companies learn from this, and make games a bit easier to figure out for non-UFC/MMA experts like myself, who just want a bit of rough and tumble with Gabriel Sanchez.

UFC Undisputed 2010 is due out today, 28th May, on Xbox 360, PS3 and PSP

Review: UFC Undisputed 2010 Results