Written by: Mark

 

 

 

UFC (or Ultimate Fighting Championship to give it it’s full name) originated in the United States in 1993 as a sport advertised as no holds barred cage fighting with hardly any rules, no weight classes and fighters wearing no gloves.

 

Over the last sixteen years the UFC has massively evolved to become a global sporting phenomenon with tighter rules which has helped to shed the tag as a barbaric blood sport.

 

T.V viewing figures for the organisation have gone through the roof so it is no surprise that a video game would be released to co-inside with the populariy of the sport. What may come as more of a surprise is that UFC Undisputed 2009 is not the first UFC video game to be released with previous releases being available on consoles such as Sega Dreamcast, Sony Playstation and Nintendo Game Boy.

 

As a massive fan of the UFC since it’s conception I have played most of these previous games although not one previous version has truly captured the realism or complexity of the sport. Early screenshots of the next gen (Xbox 360 & PS3) versions of the game have been available for a considerable amount of time which has certainly led to a massive amount of anticipation with the game showing a very realistic look similar to the Fight Night boxing games.

 

Now with the release upon us, we at PlayDevil got our hands on the Xbox 360 version of "UFC Undisputed" and the following in-depth review will give you the insight as to whether the game is all show or if it offers significant improvement on other UFC games.

 

 

With all one on one fighting games the major thing which always draws the player in is it’s overall presentation and this has been evident with the WWE games in particular who look beautiful but seem to lack when it comes to gameplay.

 

 

With UFC Undisputed 2009 the first thing which strikes the player is simply how realistic the overall package is, starting with the hugely impressive roster of more than eighty fighters available from the outset with the possibility of further available to download. Just about all of the fighters bear a striking resemblance to their real life counterparts and have fighting styles which mimic them very well.

 

What the developers have done well with is not only the amount of fighters available but the fact that there are a vast amount of classic fighters from the history of the franchise meaning that there should be someone to choose for even the most long standing fans of the sport such as myself. Admittedly there are several fighters missing from the game although this could be due to contractual reasons but it will be interesting to see if any of these become available as future downloads or in future UFC games.

 

In fact the only glaring omission from the fighters is the lack of entrances or walk on music. Perhaps it was asking too much to gain the music licences for the vast amount of fighters? What ever the reason for the omission it would be nice (although not essential) for them to be included in further instalments to the UFC games franchise.

 

Next is the inclusion of the realism of commentary from the UFC’s duo of Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg who talk intelligently through each fight, giving background information on each combatant as well as calling the action taking place. Although commentary can become repetitive it hardly becomes tedious and flows rather well to accompany the fights taking place.

 

 

In addition to the commentary to accompany each fight the games menu screens have gone for a different direction with heavy metal music which UFC fans will recognise used as the sound track backed by some classic commentary and interviews. Although this may sound strange it does work very well and fit in with the theme of the game.

 

Such is the level of realism and impressive presentation that aside from fighter introductions, anyone not too familiar with the sport could be fooled into thinking that they are watching a real life UFC TV broadcast and this sets the game off to the perfect start.