User Review : EA Sports UFC

Ups

• Committed dev team.
• Exciting gameplay.
• Great graphics and beautiful presentation.

Downs

• Little offline replayability.
• Limited Create-A-Fighter options.
• EA Game Face translates horribly.

EA's new beatdown bonanza gets examined by the TRIGGAMAN himself.

"I'm telling you straight-up, I'm at war with them right now. That's how I look at it.”

Since the debut of UFC’s Undisputed series, Dana White’s discontent toward EA has made for a storied saga in mixed martial arts gaming. The feud began when EA announced the release of their own EA Sports MMA title and, according to White himself, refused to acknowledge mixed martial arts as a sport. Aside from Undisputed 2009, neither UFC nor EA gained any significant financial success from their MMA video game efforts, despite receiving a largely positive reception from critics. While their combined forces haven’t yet produced a blockbuster, they’ve certainly created something that, in and of itself, is a work of art and a vast expansion on a financial avenue that has the potential to amass its own cult following.

Enter EA Sports UFC: The long-awaited joint effort by two business titans, each combining the elements of their own respective worlds. The graphics are most certainly up to date; fighters glisten with moisture in the center of the octagon and make fluid jabs, leg kicks and flying knees that knock beads of sweat across the canvas. As for sound, the game's soundtrack features music artists SchoolBoy Q, DMX, Imagine Dragons, Run The Jewels, and Avenged Seenfold for menu and entrance music. The commentary by Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan feels authentic in that it actively it follows and responds to every nuance of each fight. These refined elements synergize well and bring out a distinct immersion that can suck you in for several fights at a time.

The controls of the game follow a simple layout. Holding R2 and left or right on the right stick to block transitions in both clinching and ground fighting, which streamlines much of the gameplay and keeps the skill curve low enough for newcomers to catch on. Unlike most fighting games, there’s less attention allocated to technique and more placed on how it’s applied, prioritizing the ability to out-think opponents over elaborate inputs and hard-to-execute mechanics. Stand up combines the factors of stamina management, the ability to land combos and flush shots, and defensive timing to make a wholesome striking system that makes throwing hands more than a mindless slugfest. The submission system has been turned into a relatively simple mini-game where the escapee must push one of four gates to the edge before their opponent transitions into a better position, locks in the submission and taps them out.

In a generation of gaming where high definition graphics and lifelike movement take precedence over substance, it’s refreshing to see a game that can pander to those mainstream demands and be as mechanically sound as EA UFC. But still, this game is far from perfect. EA’s Game Face, which is almost scary in how accurately it uploads your face into the digital world, somehow looks nothing like it does on the website when translated to EA UFC’s Create-A-Fighter. You’re not allowed to tweak your Game Face despite how distorted, cartoonish and deformed you may or may not look, and a majority of the default faces you have to choose from look like beaten caricatures of Brazilians with chiseled jawlines.

You get a variety of fighting styles to choose from – Muay Thai, Kickboxing, Judo, Wrestling, etc. - though there is little variation between the move sets throughout the game. The ability to choose entrance music is nice, but you can’t actually change the way you walk to the octagon, and the options for tampering with your fighter are honestly very limited. EA UFC’s career mode isn’t very inspired – you’re cycled through the same videos of UFC fighters complimenting your progress as you go through Fight Night-esque training drills before each bout. Once you gain the title and climb to the top of the mountain, you don’t move weight classes, you sit through an endless cycle of title defenses and repeat video packages.

The focal point of this game obviously isn’t its offline at all, though. With a fourth patch just on the horizon, EA UFC maintains an online community of 234, 471 ranked players. Championships (ranked) are divided into six divisions: White belt (95k players), blue belt (49k players), purple belt (40k players), brown belt (31k players), black belt (my rank) (14k players), and red belt (2k players). Matchmaking is considerably quick and games seldom lag, which is impressive, as the online functions so smoothly that it feels like a faraway equivalent of a split-screen game with a friend. The competition is ripe and, personally, I found there was a sadistic satisfaction to be derived from dominating human players and forcing them into submissive positions. In EA UFC, there’s a counter for everything, rather it be spamming, turtling or continuously sidestepping, and it’s up to the player to acquire knowledge of the game and adapt to each situation. You either sink or swim.

Of course, it's worth mentioning that each character’s stats significantly influence how easily you squeeze out of each attempt and how hard you hit your opponent. Characters such as Cain Velasquez (97/100), Ronda Rousey (96/100), Georges St. Pierre (95/100), and Jon Jones (97/100) dominate their divisions and give players unfair advantages over lower-rated picks. While it’s possible to outplay people who pick top tier, you’ll often find yourself being rocked by no more than a few punches and kicks by some of these heavy hitters. It’s to the point that these picks are not only irritating, but make up a large percentage of a player base who, more often than not, is looking to compensate for a skill gap and/or pick up an easy victory online.

Ascending the ranks is somewhat fun as well, but rather than receiving players who are more skilled at the game, you’re paired with players who are more skilled at exploiting it. Random leg kicks interrupt strikes and, with the recent patch, the window to parry is smaller so spamming them is harder combat. Many high level players are content with mashing jabs or throwing body hooks to cut down your stamina and sometimes flash rock you through your guard, and having no stamina means you can’t backpedal effectively or continue to block (an effective anti-turtling measure). Dashing halts your stamina regeneration and rarely gets you far enough from these body hook spammers, whose constant blows to the body chop down your overall stamina and negatively impact your ability to recover. Strategies like these are merely more effective ways to exploit the game code, which is much of what has kept the dev team busy for months now.

EA UFC has received scathing criticism from fans for its loyal team of developers, as many folks are saying that this should’ve been the product that came out of the box. I disagree. Many games are flawed and sometimes need to be continuously balanced (League of Legends, anyone?) to make for more balanced PVP. I commend the game’s developers for going against this alarming trend of making new DLC packages for a game and then simply abandoning it after. EA UFC’s only charged $2 for Bruce Lee and Royce Gracie, and other than that, has continued to clean up the game’s on and offline (having tweaked the AI as well) while adding on new fighters to enjoy at no cost at all. Even in spite of its flaws, EA UFC captures the spirit of competition and sets the bar for MMA games in the future, prioritizing gameplay over aesthetics and creating a piece of art that gets far less credit than it actually deserves.

Score

9.0

Graphics

Great attention to detail, from the realistic movements to the HD visuals themselves. Sometimes animations can look a bit arcade-like in the way they come together and I believe that cuts and injuries could look better.

8.0

Sound

Very active, animated commentary from Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan that makes it feel like a real fight. Bruce Buffer does a great job of introducing each fighter, but I do believe that commentary could be varied and specific at times. Different menu music every so often would be nice too.

9.0

Gameplay

Gameplay is constantly being fine-tuned by the dev team for the online climate. Groundfighting looks weird due to constant stand up attempts and spam tactics can be irritating, but other than that, the game is extremely responsive (even online) and feels amazing.

9.0

Fun Factor

EA UFC is extremely addictive. Once you play through a few fights, you'll find yourself playing through a hundred more. The emphasis on the online gives it great replayability and the ability to figure out weaknesses to each playstyle gives you an awesome sense of accomplishment.

7.0

Online

I wish I could rate this higher, but since the stamina constraints of the most recent patch, what was originally attempt to punish spammers has actually rewarded them even more. While there's another patch on the way, the most recent one has greatly decreased my desire to climb to red belt.

Overall

8.0