THQ is known for developing and publishing wrestling games, which in my opinion have clunky control schemes and cheesy animations. Needless to say my expectations for UFC Undisputed 2009 were not very high, but this game has been a pleasant surprise. The first thing you should do if you play this game is go through the tutorial. There are a lot of actions that you can do in this game and it can all seem confusing, but once you go through the tutorial it is pretty intuitive.

One of the best things about this game is the versatility of the control scheme. In the PS3 version the four face buttons control the strikes of your four limbs respectively. The R1 and R2 buttons are used to block high and low strikes, while the L1 and L2 buttons are used to direct in combination with the face buttons to direct your strikes high or low. You can even throw feints. Movement is controlled by the left analog stick while most of the grappling portion of the game is controlled by the right stick. The right stick is used to clinch with an opponent, take them down, and to perform ground transitions/reversals. Submissions can be attempted from certain positions by pressing R3. Both the fighter performing and defending the submission can opt to either button mash the face buttons, or rotate the right stick really quickly to sink in the submission or escape. I prefer to button mash to preserve the longevity of my dualshock 3 controller because the buttons are designed to be pressed over and over again, while the stick is designed for recognizing light and controlled movement. If the control scheme sounds a bit complicated, trust me it is not that bad once you get into a few fights and get the hang of it.

The game has a pretty extensive single player career mode. You must play as your own created character; you cannot fight as a young Chuck Liddell looking to establish yourself. The customization of your characters appearance is fairly weak. While you can achieve a fair amount of variability with the presets they have, I wish they had something like the sliders in Saints Row 2, so that you could truly customize your appearance, instead of putting together a strange Mr. Potato head fighter with preset pieces. However, the UFC roster characters have a lot of detail and really do resemble their real life models. There are 3 striking styles and 3 grappling styles you can choose from and each has their own benefits, but they were not all that different. The game would be better if the styles were more unique and you could mix and match your move set from varying styles. Once you create your fighter you move onto fighting on the undercard of UFC events against lesser known fighters. UFC president Dana White and match maker Joe Silva contact you via the games email interface to offer you fights.

One of the things you will notice as you play is that the commentary by Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan is spot on, and they even provide background information on many of the fighters, which adds to the effect of the game. Much of the game will be spent on your calendar where you decide whether to train, spar, attend other camps, or attend publicity events. Training your attributes like strength, speed, and stamina occur with the click of button and take up one week of your calendar. Skill points are earned by sparring, where the goal is to inflict as much damage as possible. These skill points are used to increase your fighter’s skills such as standing kicks offense, clinch striking defense, ground grappling offense and more. Attending training camps allows you to learn new moves if you can perform a set number of combos, or specific moves. The combo system is fairly limited when compared to games like street fighter, but you can string together 2-4 strikes together in quick succession before your opponent can block again.

The career mode lasts 7 years and once your fighter retires you can bring him into the online world to fight against the game’s roster of over 80 UFC fighters. The problem is that there are 5 weight classes in the game, and you can’t fight people outside of your weight class, which is no fun at all. Everybody wants to settle the pound for pound ranking debate right there in their living rooms. Playing the game online is much more rewarding because human players are more unpredictable than the game’s AI, and often times much more challenging. There are ranked matches where you gain “fans” by defeating other opponents which are used to level up for notoriety. There are weekly standings as well as overall standings for you high score junkies. I like to play in the player matches because you can request rematches with your opponents, unlike in the ranked mode. In most fighting games, once you finish the match online, you and your opponent go back to the character selection screen, but in this game, you have to request a rematch each time, and you can’t even change weight classes without starting a new session. I am a big fan of arcade fighters like Street Fighter 4, but I find playing a game like UFC Undisputed 2009 more rewarding when I win. In this game the fights last a lot longer which gives you time to feel out your opponent’s style and weaknesses. There is also the threat of flash knockouts or flash submissions, meaning the match could end at any moment if you are not careful.

One of the things I like to do is try to emulate the style of the fighter I am using. If I am Lyoto Machida, I try to stay on the outside and pick my shots. The game even has a mode called classic fights where you try to reenact the result of historic UFC fight, in order to unlock fight footage. The problem is that many of the fights they chose for the game are not even classics and it shows a disconnect between the developers and their subject matter. I still find myself coming back to this game every time there is a big UFC event to try to simulate the fights online; choosing the fighter I want to win. All in all this game may lack some polish but it is super fun to play and especially with friends at your place or online. This game is a good first outing for what will hopefully become an ongoing franchise. The UFC first approached major developer EA sports for their game, but EA turned them away. The UFC eventually went with THQ and Yukes, and the game has had great commercial success. EA Sports is now working on their own MMA video game to compete with the UFC. Iron sharpens iron in the world of combat sports and hopefully the same principles apply when it comes to developing video games.

UFC Undisputed 2009 gets an 80/100 in my book.

Guest Blogger: Oliver K.