UFC 2009: Undisputed Bringing Brand Off Life Support
When UFC 2009: Undisputed is released during May, 2009, it is set to be the first Ultimate Fighting Championship game released since 2004, when UFC 2004: Sudden Death hit the Playstation 2. Sudden Death was a joint venture between Opus, who developed the title, and Golden Star, who published it and the game was slated by critics, receiving a metacritic score of 54% after 29 reviews. Prior to Sudden Death, came UFC: Throwdown, which performed slightly better, but given the lack of success these two games garnered, publishers weren't overly optimistic about the licence's potential.
Step up THQ, renowned for their impressive work in revitalising the WWE video games, with Yuke's Osaka, their developer of choice. After purchasing the UFC licence in 2007 they have since been developing the latest attempt to bring this franchise successfully to a home console, this time on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.
Probably one of the first things that catches the eye with UFC 2009: Undisputed is the graphics. Yukes have gone to great lengths to make sure the characters look as realistic as possible and it certainly shows. What's even more impressive is that this is true for all of the 80+ fighters that appear in the game, as well as all of the non-playable characters. As well as looking great, the fighters also get injured realistically as well; blood spatters over the mat and the fighters and their faces cut up nicely. One problem though is that when the blood sprays onto the mat, it looks very pixelated and this is a blemish on the otherwise impressive in-ring graphics.
The gameplay is actually quite rewarding, but can be very technical. The demo, which became available on the Playstation Network and Xbox Live on the 23rd of April, allows players to chose from either Chuck Liddell or Shogun Rua. Both of these fighters have differing styles and it's advisable to check out the tutorial before going straight into combat as the controls take some getting used to.
For the most part, they are set up like a generic fighting game, as the face buttons allow for punches and kicks with the left and right sides. However, using these buttons in combination with the left stick (used for movement), or the left-side shoulder buttons can make for varied attacks. Also, when both fighters are standing, these attacks can also change depending on the distance between the fighters. To further add to the depth, the right stick can be used for performing counters, take downs and clinches. This adds a whole new element to the gameplay as if you're on the defence, you have the choice to block high or low using the right shoulder buttons or counter high or low using the right stick. When a take down happens, the situation changes and while strike moves can be performed the same way using the face buttons in combination to the left-sided shoulder buttons, the right-stick can be used to change position (called a transition) and defend against these transitions. This side of the gameplay seems a bit more sluggish and less fluid as it revolves around rotations of the right-stick to transition and defend against transitions and sometimes it ends up with nobody doing anything.
Based on what's been seen so far, UFC 2009: Undisputed looks like a reasonable product. It looks set to have an extremely large roster of fighters and the graphics for the most part look great. However, while the combat does seem quite complicated at first, it isn't actually overly complicated and could get a bit tedious over time. Fans of UFC have probably been anticipating this title quite a lot, and from the looks of things, they are right to do so.
