UFC 2009: Undisputed Comments by Matt Edwards

Comfortable? I'm all for games where near-naked men writhe on the floor whilst one tries to beat the other off.

"If you're comfortable enough in your sexuality to be able to play game where muscular men regularly tussle with each other on the ground, as well as beating each other senseless, then Undisputed comes highly recommended."

What a stupid comment.

Otherwise, it seems that most people who played the demo loved it, myself included. Pre-ordered on the basis of the demo, first time I've done that in months.

UFC is the future of combat sports, but hopefully Fight Night Round 4 also lives up to expectations too.

An 8 is higher than i was expecting judging by the demo.

I can not wait until friday I have waited a year for this game.

Wow, that was quite the long review.

Good review, as a martial artist and MMA fan it still amazes me how immature most people are when it comes to the ground game, it's less common in the US where guys wrestle in high school, but we English are a right bunch of insecure closet cases ;)

Yet "we" consider football masculine...have you seen Cristiano Ronaldo? your saying he is more "manly" than Chuck Lidell?

/laughs till it hurts

Football>Boxing >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> UFC

I think it's not as popular as boxing because, as tough as these guys are, and how well trained they are in their respective disciplines, it's surprisingly boring to watch two guys tangled up on the ground rabbit punching each other.

wow the generic' lol this looks a bit like gay secks' jokes started early

rhubarbandcustard: Bet you only noticed that 'cos you skipped straight to the last paragraph...

I thought this was a bummin simulator...

rauper: I don't know about him but that's true of me. Sorry, I go straight to the score on games I'm not really bothered about. Peaked my interest enough to download the demo though, which I didn't know about.

All inuendos aside, im looking forward to getting my mitts on this!

@ Wastelander

You're probably right about that. I train in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and even I find a lot of MMA fights dull. I do think that the UFC etc need to put more effort into explaining what's going on during the grappling phase though. Joe Rogan does a good job, but there's still a huge amount of the audience who don't get what's going on.

Surprised that it got 8/10, I haven't played the demo, but I hadn't been impressed with what I had seen from the clips that had been released, especially around the ground game. Obviously must play better then it looks

Boxing: 2 guys whacking each other in the head till one falls down

Matt Thornton said that, an MMA coach who used to box and was Lennox Lewis's sparring partner for a while.

Whatever way you slice it, Boxing is on the decline and MMA on the rise.

Not to say that these trends cannot be reversed, but MMA has been growing unbelievably rapidly over the last few years and it seems like one day soon it WILL be bigger than boxing.

I wish this was a pure martial arts or kick-boxing game, like Panza Kickboxing (also called Best of the Best on SNES). That part of the game is so good, but the tangling on the floor thing just doesn't sit well with me. Not because it looks homoerotic (it obviously does, even more so than regular wrestling), but because that element is just so damn boring.

i cant look at that last screenshot. The sweat makes it immensely disturbing.

I knew EG couldn't do a review of this game without alluding to MMA being a homoerotic bumfest.

Twats.

Although I enjoyed the UFC demo and played it quite a lot it has nowhere near the level of realism that some are claiming, and certainly not a fraction of the realism of Fight Night.

The animations for strikes and kicks are slightly stilted and as there is no body control combined with the panned out view it all looks and feels a bit like a 16-bit mortal kombat during the standing game. I mean this purely from an animation perspective, the visuals are pretty good otherwise, and things look more realistic on the ground.

There are some major problems with the combat engine too. Spamming strikes to the head interrupts any action your opponent tries to make and can prevent your opponent moving, or in fact doing anything but blocking leading to incredibly unrealistic, not to mention frustrating, bouts against button mashers.

I have serious reservations about the career mode as well (although I suspect most people will spend a lot more time in multiplayer) as fights are over very quickly it will make for frustratingly short amounts of gameplay in between career decision and loading.

Still, at least you can punch with the face buttons. What kind of a cock end would design a fighting game where you can't use the face buttons? ;)

'UFC is the future of combat sports'

lol no.

@OnlyMe

"I wish this was a pure martial arts or kick-boxing game"

I'd love to see a realistic take on pure martial arts too. I'd like to see what the Fight Night team could do as they seem to be the only developer who understand how body momentum affects the flow of combat.

/happy.

EG group for those interested.
http://gamers.eurogamer.net/groups.php?g...

Good review.

I quite enjoyed the demo and am considering getting this, but I can see how it would be an acquired taste, much like MMA itself.

OnlyMe

hahaha Panza Kickboxing. Fooook me I'd forgotton all about that. Had it on me Atari ST and it was mint!

Im also waiting for the inevitable "is it better than punch out" comments hahhahaha.

Very nice, very informative review.

I enjoyed the demo even though I didn't initially understand why I was occasionally getting knocked out within the first minute. Once I realised that the stamina was linked to the health then I started playing the game more tactically. It's certainly deeper and more enjoyable than any wrestling game I've played to date plus its a whole lot more exciting than boxing too.

I'm unsure whether to buy it though. Had it been sub-£30 then I would but at almost £40 it's a tad too expensive considering for something I only have a casual interest in. May wait for it to drop in price and pick it up later.

MMA is today more popular than Boxing globally, I have no idea how the reviewer can claim otherwise.

.....just by looking at their owned games and score. Nice.

This game is for wimps and pussies who can't fight in real life; my last fight was on Saturday night (after the match) on the Bigg Market, I was grappling with 5 men, they ran when I became erect.

I can't hear the acronym UFC without wanting it say, "U f***ing C***"

@Sidnice

outside Powerhouse more like.

Three pages?!

tl;dr

@superfurryanimal; You know where the action is sweet pants.

I really Liked the Def Jam games pre Icon for thier slow yet more brutal fighting, do you think this will be up my street?

i downloaded the demo of this and sat and played it against a mate and it was a great laugh, played for at least an hour or two with just the two characters. many LOLs were had

will get this after pay day

that sloppy 360 'tornado' kick was nowhere near as entertaining as the ufc

@ OllyJ

You should get the demo and try it out. I also really liked Def Jam FFNY. I would say that UFC sits somewhere between that and a straight up wrestling game. Slightly closer to wrestling than the FFNY style of combat that was kind of light on the wrestling and heavy on the brutal combat.

"If you're comfortable enough in your sexuality to be able to play game where muscular men regularly tussle with each other on the ground [...]"

I bet EG's women readers are having a hard time figuring out what, exactly, the reviewer is trying to say with this silly sentence...

Matt seems to be unaware the UFC out sells Boxing on PPV already. It's less 'popular' (I think 'well known to the layman' would be a better way of putting it) because it's existed for a decade in the modern format, vs many decades for boxing. Also what's wrong with a first round submission victory?!

EG - your reviews are far too long. Please sort. Thanks.

haha... o dear

A tiny slip up at the end, after over 2000 words of serious review, and all some people can remember is the silly end comment.

Which is supposed to be a light hearted dig at people who say the UFC is homoerotic...

Screw it, you can never gauge what people will think about these things... :\

Def Jam FFNY was a great game. I always thought that a speeded up and fleshed out version of that engine would make for a great MMA game. Think it was developed by Aki (who did the now legendary WCW games on the N64)

wastelander said "I think it's not as popular as boxing because, as tough as these guys are, and how well trained they are in their respective disciplines, it's surprisingly boring to watch two guys tangled up on the ground rabbit punching each other. "

You really need to see a good UFC fight with two people very good at submissions and countering submissions... that is intense and along with the various fights I've seen when someone is in an arm bar and you can practically see their arm being pulled out of the shoulder for them to not tap out and to counter the submission and carry on as if nothing much has happened becuase he is bad ass...

Two of my friends are picking this up (one on 360 and the other on ps3) really enjoyed playing the demo with them and when the price drops I'll probably pick up the game as i'm not really into fighting games to play them often enough to justify full release prie

Matty Edwards: why not simply edit the article and remove the "silly end comment"?

It really is a pretty stupid paragraph to end your review with.

I just wish they weren't so closely connected with the UFC only. I mean, the world's best fighter isn't in this game! And I would love to take the Babyface Assassin back into the UFC to try to regain his belt!

The heavyweight division must be sorely lacking in this game. Old Nogueira? Brock who?! Mir is OK, I guess..

"Welcome to the World Series of Cockfighting! There's gonna be some big fun on the bayou tonight!"

Brock 'Heavyweight Champion' Who, you mean.

OK, whether or not he's done enough to earn the belt is another matter entirely, but that comment is a bit churlish.

A sport which I have absolutely no interest in. But I read the whole review. Very well written.

After regularly playing the demo in the office multiplayer since it came out, nearly every other colleague who didn't play it came up and made some remark about us liking 'sweaty men' or gazing with horror at Rua in the 'dominant position'. Therefore it I think it is only right that Matt Edwards should make this off the cuff comment. Everybody else has/will/is.