UFC Undisputed 2010 Review
Let’s get it on, again!
The Plot
Stop the other guy by any means possible.
Game Play
When THQ released the Yuke’s Osaka game UFC 2009 Undisputed one of the main features that gripped me was the sheer depth on the combat system, another was the pure brutality of it. The game did a fantastic job of capturing the tension of the UFC and I spent many a happy hour getting my quantum singularity handed to me before managing to deliver a knockout blow completely against the tide.
It was a game that I greatly enjoyed for the time I was playing it but realised after a time that the skills I could master (although good enough to beat the CPU) were barely even scratching the surface and I could not compete in online competition. No matter how much I practiced I could not master the ground transitions and submissions. This was the death of it for me, until now.
With the release of the slightly reworded UFC Undisputed 2010, we had heard that everything had been reworked, tweaked or completely overhauled and this sent alarm bells ringing. Could this mean that an already deep, complex franchise was now going to be unplayable to a simpleton like me?
Nope!
Although there are now four times as many striking moves, three times as many positions and twice as many submissions the game on a whole is now more playable.
UFC 2010 has what THQ are calling the Unified Grapple Theory. In essence it simplifies what was in UFC 2009 without taking anything away from the game and it works very well. After a short refresher though the tutorials I was able to work the ground and standing grapples with much more success and even swing things in my favour with submission attempts.
There are plenty of modes available here, some new and some familiar but even the returning ones have had a major revamp.
Career
The career mode has been improved quite significantly from the 2009 version while still keeping all of the basic principles.
If you have already gone through the ‘Create a Fighter’ you have the option at the beginning of the career mode to copy your fighter and use them throughout the career mode. Your stats/attributes will be reset but I personally found that this would later become a huge benefit for online play (I’ll explain that more in due course).
Once you fighter is ready you still start out under the guidance of Marc Laimon (one of the many recognisable characters from the UFC universe) in the WFA. Marc will be with you throughout your career no matter how long (or short) it might be and if used right will become a very valuable asset. Starting in the WFA was a very nice touch. It gave me the opportunity to try a few different techniques and difficulty settings as well as earning XP during the training sessions to start the development of my fighter early before hitting the big time and the big opponents that come with it.
The main career itself has been almost doubled in length since the last instalment and now weighs in (excuse the pun) at a hefty twelve years; five more than was previously available. Everything that you would expect to be here probably is. There are media events, sparring/training sessions, downtime and camp invites and if you’re going to succeed to the title and Hall of Fame you’re going to need to use them all.
Another new addition to the already jam packed career mode is the option to switch divisions. You will be given this option multiple times after you’ve defended your title and it really did breathe new life into the later stages of my career.
Title
For those gamers that lack the time to work on a full career but also want something more to aim for than an Exhibition fight; this is the perfect mode.
Title mode allows players to choose between eight, ten or twelve fights at a variety of difficulties. A title ladder will then be created with an appropriate number of AI fighters from the relevant weight division. The player then needs to work their way up this ladder by beating the opponent on the next rung.
There is no penalty for losing which takes away (most of) the frustration that comes from an unexpected counter punch KO as you’ll be able to go straight in for a rematch. This does come in handy as each fight will be progressively harder than the last.
Title Defence
This mode unlocks upon the completion of Title mode and follows along the same lines.
Fighters will have to face twelve opponents in succession that a split over four groups (one for each of the games difficulty settings). One loss and it’s game over. This is truly the most unforgiving mode in the game at the best of times but when you add ‘Condition’ into the mix it can become unbearable.
‘Condition’ essentially means that your stats carry over from one fight to the next. If you’re not tactical and very careful you may well end up getting to the later fights and not having enough stamina to throw a jab without becoming gassed and vulnerable.
Tournament
This mode is exactly what you’d expect it to be. You can either have four, eight or sixteen fighters and between one and sixteen players, with the remaining spots being filled with AI, competing in a bracketed, single elimination event.
This is a good mode for groups of players who want some good ‘Pass the Controller’ fun with a little bit more depth than Exhibition mode.
Ultimate Fight
Ultimate fights mode is based heavily on the classic fight mode from UFC 2009 but with some significant changes. The premise remains the same in allowing the player to relive classic fights from UFC history but a vast amount of depth has been added.
Fights have now been split in to categories such as ‘Ultimate Knockout’ and each fight has eighteen challenges (nine per fighter). These challenges are split up into three groups of three per fighter and for each group of three achieved during a fight the player will unlock media related to that specific fight.
This is a mode that will keep completionists busy for a long time and the potential for DLC is only limited to the number of fights that the UFC have hosted.
Event
Event mode takes a lot of its ideas from tournament mode but expands on them quite dramatically.
Players are basically able to create their own Pay Per View events across all weight divisions and then either compete themselves or just sit back and watch the AI slug it out.
If this seems too much like hard work there is also the option to download classic UFC events and relive them all over and over again.
Online
As you might expect; the online aspects of UFC are quite limited. What you might not expect however is that they are not limited to only ranked and player matches.
Fight Camps is one of the biggest new additions to UFC 2010. This allows players to create or join camps that can be used to improve your career or created fighter by training with actual players rather than AI counterparts. You will also be able to impart your wisdom on other fighters by turning your hand to the training.
Within the camps there are also challenges (for the individual as well as the team) that, once complete, will unlock more and more customisation options for the camps banner.
This all sounded fantastic to me and I was eager to get stuck in and try it for myself, which I did. Eventually!
My online experiences at time of writing have been plagued with problems. Some of these may simply have been connection issues (lag) and some may have been because I was playing before the games official release so I’m not going to dwell on them too much.
One thing that I am a big fan of when it comes to UFC online is the ability to copy and paste my created fighter. This enabled to me to create a lot of identical looking fighters but to then alter the stats and moves of each one. The great advantage of doing this was that I was able to mask my strengths and weaknesses so even if I was fighting the same opponent my game plan was still known only to me and not announced as soon as I had picked my fighter.
Graphics & Sound
Both the graphics and sounds are well above par here.
Not only do the fighters look more fluid than in 2009 (this alone is quite an accomplishment) but the transition animations now hold a real sense of struggle. Something else that really stuck out for me was the level of detail that had been put into the physics of the game. In an instant UFC 2010 will process every aspect of your knockout punch (angle, counter, both body positions, etc) and will make out opponent react and fall in some fantastic ways. Add to this the subtle bruising that you will notice start to appear after a few shots to the body that continues to grow with punishment and the cuts that flow free with blood after a well placed strike and you will really start to appreciate the effort that has been made to make the human react accurately.
The sounds that erupt from the crowd upon entering the octagon are something to be awed and as you might expect this continues throughout the fight. The one place where I was not expecting crowd roars was in the after fight interviews. The fact that there is a small delay as your voice carries over the loud speakers and the crowd digest what you have said also really adds to the occasion.
Final Thoughts
UFC 2010 is not a perfect game. It is not even a perfect fighter. It has its problems but in truthfulness; what games these days don’t? If you answer that question honestly I am confident that you will end up with a very small list and even the items on there will be subject to debate.
This is the problem we are faced with at the moment and with competition for gamers time so high that things can and do slip through the net. On the plus side with this connected world we live in there is a high probability that the problems UFC 2010 is having can and may be patched; just like many other games out there and this will only enhance your experience.
UFC 2010 may not be a perfect game but it is a good, solid game and as it happens it is, by default, the best MMA game out there at the moment.
Overall
7.5/10
Consumer Opinion
Buy – If you want to be able to access the online features of the game without extra charge or intend to invest some time into learning your trade.
Rent – If you’re after some quick ground and pound fix with your friends.
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