UFC Undisputed 2010 review

Since the sport's inception in the early nineties, UFC has grown from a niche curiosity that Senator John McCain once dismissed as, ‘human cockfighting’, to become a billion dollar sporting empire broadcast in over 100 countries across the globe. PPVs in locations from London to Abu Dhabi attract millions of viewers at a time. Star names swagger to the Octagon swathed in commercial endorsements and UFC fans can buy themselves anything from trading cards to belt buckles. Human cockfighting is now very popular indeed.

Last year’s UFC Undisputed wasn’t the first console game to feature MMA fighting but it did reflect the sports burgeoning popularity riding the crest of a wave as the sport cashed in on a growing mainstream presence. Well received by critics and gamers alike, Undisputed was a breath of fresh air in the fighting, and sports, genres and a sequel was as sure a thing as sunrise.

This year besides the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, THQ have widened their focus to include this PSP version, but how does it fair alongside it’s more heavyweight partners?

From the off its clear that although the game may be small in stature it still packs a powerful punch, with a surprisingly decent number of features and options.

Before you even reach the ring there’s an impressively detailed create-a-fighter mode to get to grips with. The CAF option offers cosmetic looks like varying tattoo and facial hair, as well as gameplay affecting modifications through different fighting styles. Those familiar with UFC will know that fighters come from a range of backgrounds and nine different disciplines are available to shape your fighter as you wish here. Styles such as karate, Muay Thai, freestyle wrestling and kickboxing are all available meaning different tastes are well-catered for. Spend your time tweaking your warrior and by the time you reach the Octagon you’ll have a satisfyingly personalised fighter on your hands.

As well adopting a particular fighting style, fighters can chose their preferred weight, with the lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, light-heavy and heavyweight divisions all present. Even more impressively, over a 100 licensed fighters are included in the game’s rosters, with all the names a UFC addict would expect from Canadian welterweight supremo Georges St-Pierre to the fearsome behemoth, and current heavyweight champion, Brock Lesnar.

Equally in-depth is the game’s exhaustive tutorial mode. Way back in season three of Friends, there’s a period when Monica dates businessman Pete Becker, played by Jon Favreau. Despite being fairly far removed from what you might expect an mixed martial artist to be, Pete reveals his ambition to become an Ultimate Fighter. And then is routinely pummelled to within an inch of his life every time he enters a cage. Avoid the tutorial UFC Undisputed offers and you’ll probably experience exactly what Pete did: large amounts of pain and very little clemency.

This, like the sport it is portraying, is not a forgiving game. On all but the easiest settings Undisputed will beat you down, choke you out and then victory dance around your bloodied and bruised combatant. To earn a championship will take time and effort, but then isn’t that how it should be?

Game modes include Exhibition matches, Career and Title modes, the latter of which is a ladder-style progression towards a title match in your chosen weight category, and the enjoyable Ultimate Fights mode, which allows users to recreate great moments from UFC history. At the time of review Gamestyle was unable to connect to any sessions in the game’s Ad Hoc online mode, but from the look of the lobby set-up this appears a simplistic but solid inclusion upon which to build in future additions.
The career mode is fairly standard with your fighter aiming to rise from the amateur ranks to championship glory. Pre-fight you can train your character or pick-up new special moves, just in case there is any space left in your head for extra button combos.

For the most part the PSP handles the complex control system reasonably well, even if the early fights of your career will still be somewhat prone to panicked button mashing with little-to-no success. There can be frustrations when switching between the analogue stick and d-pad inputs but with time the controls fall into place, and you'll eventually gain satisfaction from when moves rehearsed in practice come together in a match or you snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with a well-timed counter.

Graphically the fighters look the part even if their animations don’t always flow quite as smoothly. But given the immense complexities found in the real-life transitions during a fight, admonishing the PSP for not being quite up to the task of recreating the ebb and flow of a UFC match perfectly would be like getting annoyed at a lilo for not having the horsepower to keep up with a powerboat. Otherwise the presentation is generally solid and, particularly for title fights, atmospheric: the additional build-up before headline bouts shouldn’t fail to inspire you to glory. The game’s audio does what it has to and little more, with generic rock loops between fights, appreciative crowd noise and thudding grunts as opponents trade blows all present and correct.

The game’s biggest problem is perhaps the same as the sport it represents. To the uninitiated real-life UFC is quite alienating in that the immense amount of skill required to survive in the Octagon is not always obvious. Too often for the casual observer fights appear to be random, plodding hug-fests with little to excite those not able to distinguish their gogoplatas from their gator rolls. In the game the tutorial will break up these complexities into easier-to-digust nuggets but there remains a nagging feeling that UFC is still preaching to the converted with little care for casuals. This year EA streamlined the equally complex sport of American Football in Madden NFL 11 with their intuitive GameFlow system and it is reasonable to think future UFC iterations would benefit from having something similar to make the game more appealing to a wider range of gamers.

For fans of the sport, and those adept at fighting titles looking for a new beat ‘em up, UFC Undisputed 2010 is about as detailed a representation of MMA as they could hope for on a handheld. Those already enthused with MMA and the world of UFC can add a point to the score below, while the rest of us can doff our caps to Yukes' ambitious attempt to squeeze so much of a nuanced and hugely tactical sport into a portable system.