Thread: UFC2009 Undisputed Review

As a fan of the UFC for years now (almost since the very beginning) i'd been looking forward to this game since it was first announced.

I managed to hold off from buying it new though, instead i picked it up off Ebay for 25 notes.

And very quickly it turned sour, the learning curve in career mode is so steep that my controller nearly hit the wall a few times. At first you can get by by just kicking and punching (aka button mashing) but that only gets you so far. Eventually you hit a brick wall and end up getting mauled.

I could never manage to pull of a submission and the ground game was a complete mystery as well. All i could grasp was punching and kicking which meant i was only playing half a game. The fact that i appreciate the sport and knew what i wanted to do but couldnt pull it off made it doubly frustrating.

So the controller hit the wall one too many times and the game went back onto Ebay. Thankfully the winning bidder took a week to pay for it, and for some reason i picked the game back up and started to take the time to learn it properly.

The fact is that it takes at least 1 full run through the career path before you realise where you are going wrong (this takes up to 35 fights and many evenings work). Eventually i realised i was focusing on the wrong ways to build my fighter up, and slowly learned how to counter attack and to choose the best moment to strike and attempt submissions.

And eventually when the winning bidder paid up (he bought the game off me for £18 ) i was enjoying myself. So i then went and bought it off someone else (for £16). I've made myself £2 then - result.

The gameplay (once you get into it) is excellent, but the career mode is dull and repetitive. And the menu system is clunky, needing 15 odd button presses just to load your last game. The achievements are hard to get as well.

And the biggest bugbear is the auto savegame "feature". So if you lose a match and dont want the stain on your record then you need to quit to the dashboard which is a right pain in the arse.

Tonight i tried xboxlive for the first time and for my first match was put up against someone with nearly 800 (yes you read that correctly) wins. Needless to say i was the one picking up the soap in that match.

To sum up:
Pros - good gameplay, atmospheric, recreates the sport well, deep.
Cons - dull career mode, steep learning curve, autosave annoyance.

Its a good fighting game for sure - just dont pay full whack for it though. I'll tan the backside out of this for another week and then punt it on Ebay again.

6.5/10 (maybe 7 if you're a fan of the sport)

I know nothing of UFC myself having only watched a couple of matches in the wee hours after a boozey night out so I didn't even know what I was supposed to be doing!

My first match did rather boost my confidence as with one kick to the head I won the match! Amazing I thought, this game is so easy! Not quite though as over the next matches I got pinned to the floor and couldn't figure out how to get up again, very annoying until my random stick flailing enabled me to pin the other guy, still it seemed more of an exercise in thumb endurance than skill!

I couldnt see it mentioned on your profile. Did you delete it? Or are you talking about the demo?

I looooove this game.

Been a huge fan of the sport for years. By far the best UFC game ever released.

Completed it a couple of times with different weight classes. Online seems VERY laggy though they are meant to be patching it up in the near future.

I know im known for playing a game until the very death and wringing every last bit out of it (ask Bolty what i was like with Fallout).

but im bored out my tits with this one now.

Ebay here we come (again)

I only bought this game to watch the ring girl cutscenes, damn that Arianny Celeste is hot. Seriously though i got stuck at one point and couldnt get no further when i was tring to be all technical, so i just started going for it and went to button bashing, which kinda defeats the whole object of the game, but it was effective as from then on i didnt lose once on way to the title as won everytime in 1st round either KO or TKO!