UFC: Undisputed

The game includes all the big fighters in the UFC like Forrest Griffin (shown on the cover of the game), Brock Lesnar, George St. Pierre, Anderson Silva, and Chuck Liddell, as well as some lesser-known fighters like James Irvin, Jon Finch, Nate Marquardt, and the ever-entertaining Chris Leben. This game was much a much-needed addition to the UFC franchise after a recent spike in the program’s viewing audience.

As far as gameplay goes, this UFC first doesn’t have much to improve upon. This will not be a simple game to pick up; it takes a while to learn the tricks of the trade, but once you do, this game will give you hours of entertainment.

The stand-up is pretty simple, giving you an array of strikes depending on the distance between the fighters. Different range asks for different strikes. The game recognizes if you are close to a clinch with your opponent or some feet away, so you won’t throw a high kick when you are face-to-face or a short knee when you are across the octagon. This, plus the use of stronger or weaker attacks, creates the perfect stand-up for the game.

The fun part about MMA is the possibilities of ground attacks. You can take your opponent down (or just knock him on his back with a big right hand) and ground-and-pound pretty easily, but learning the different types of submission can be grueling. Ranging from arm bars, to rear-naked chokes, and back to the kimura, the submissions can take a long time to master. They could get some touch-ups to make this aspect of the game simpler, but of course this would mess with the mastery that is needed to finish a fight by submission. Too much change could hurt the game.

Aesthetically, the game is top-notch. The graphics are perfect, from the way the fighters look life-like and become beat-like after too many left hooks to the dome, to the way the octagon looks and feels for the fighters (in terms of bounce-back on the cage and wear-and-tear during fights).

Also, the game includes a lot of great gaming options like quick-fights, career with a created fighter, and historic matches (which gives you a video of history-changing matches and then lets you try to recreate the fights).

And who could forget the fight commentary? UFC wouldn’t be the same without Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan behind the microphones, and this game gives the best commentaries that I’ve heard in a while. Games like Fifa give colorful commentary, but after a half-dozen games you start to remember every word Martin Tyler and Andy Gray spew and you start to finish their sentences for them. The commentaries in UFC: Undisputed never get old because you get the million tidbits that Mike Goldberg usually throws around during a fight and you still get to hear Joe Rogan scream "on the button!" after every knockout.

This game was a great addition to the UFC monopoly on MMA. Other games are in the works for promoters like Strikeforce, and even EA Sports is working on one, but they will all fall short to the UFC since they are one step ahead of the rest. UFC: Undisputed was a great start for the company in a new field, and their next title, UFC: Undisputed 2 (aimed for release in the next couple of months), should be much bigger and much better than the first. I mean, how could it not be huge, it will include the infamous Kimbo Slice!