Customer Reviews

UFC 2009 Undisputed

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Wow, this game is fun. I'll make this short and sweet. But in case you just read the pros and cons, I'll say this now: The game is fun. The minor gripes I have are nothing compared to the fun to be had in this game, which is why it is a 5 star.

What I didn't like:
-Can't go through career mode with any of the fighters. Have to create your own character, which is fun, but I wanted to go through as Machida.
-No intros, by that I mean the entrances. Bruce Buffer announces you, but that's about it.
-Just 3 fighting styles for striking and grappling.. I was looking forward to fighting with Machida's one-of-a-kind shotake karate style.. but it is non-existent. They just have him as Kickboxing.

What I did like:
-The gameplay and fighting mechanics are so deep and well done.. there are just so many things you can do in so many different situations.
-Graphics are beautiful to look at. The hit-detection is spot-on, and you can get bruised up just about anywhere. It's damn pretty.
-The commentary is pretty well done here.. music is ok. But it doesn't take away from the game at all.
-Just a blast to play with friends.

Like I said before, the pros of this game VERY much outweigh the cons. There are room for improvements, but for being the first installment for what looks to be a successful series to come, it's an extremely promising foundation to build upon. I love this game.

I enjoyed this game for several reasons (most listed in other reviews), but most importantly, I enjoyed the challenge of finding a way to beat someone in a different manner every time you fight. I'll use my son for an example. He'll choose a kick boxer every time and just kick you in the head for a quick knockout (very effective). So instead of just getting mad, I've had to explore each fighting style and learn how to counter his kicks. The end result...awesome matches! It's the classic button masher verses the technical fighter, you never know how it's going to turn out, but you always know that you at least have a chance to win no matter what style you use.

I've really enjoyed this game, and like most fighting games, playing against your friends is a blast. That perfectly timed shot that knocks out your opponent when you know you're behind on points never gets old....

If I were to sum up my feelings of this game into two words it would be, F&%@ing Awesome. The UFC haven't got a great reputation when it comes to video games, but as an MMA company have been on a rapid rise over the past few years, so it seems only fitting that they get a game just as good as the product they offer on screen. The project of THQ & Yukes this game is a surprising gem when comparing it to THQ's relatively lacklustre attempts at pro-wrestling games. Unfortunately, whilst this game was being made, the developers faced a few setbacks which led to the removal of star, Clay Guida because of problems with collision detection thanks to his long hair. As ridiculous as that may sound, this was a decision THQ had to make in order to get the game to the homes of people when they expected it.

The game offers a lot to its players and it's obvious that the game is created by the same combo that deal with the WWE series as certain inspiration is drawn from that game and implemented into this, including some of the soundtrack. Within the game there's the typical modes you would expect in a game such as this; exhibition, career, create a fighter and online. There's an additional mode with takes inspiration from the Legends of Wrestlemania game and that's the classic fights mode. In this mode you are thrust into some of the most exciting matches of UFC history and asked to recreate the momentous scenarios from those classic matches. As a reward for completing the task asked of you, you are awarded the match as a video which you can view at any time you wish.

The in game mechanics are beautifully done with most UFC fighters in the game being photo realistic, much like the next gen Fight Night games. There are, however, a few fighters who look like they were created at the last minute and lack that beauty and detail of some of their more famous fighting counterparts. This lack of consistency is a bit disappointing, but it doesn't take much away from the overall experience of the fight. There are 6 fighting styles overall and your particular fighter can utilise two at any one time, these allow for a great combination of striking combos and manoeuvres when standing and an immersive ground and pound experience when you're in the mood for just being brutal. The collision detection works really well and creates a realistic look when you're pounding the hell out of your opponent and watching bruises or cuts gradually develop and become more severe which caters to the more frightening gamer who enjoys a bit of blood and brutality.

Although there is a lot of good that can be said about the game because of its excellent graphics and its even better gameplay mechanics, there is sadly quite a bit of bad that can be said about it too. The career mode although good for the development of a created fighter, is a real let down and becomes massively tedious. To start it, you create an original fighter and your mission in the career mode is to train your guy and win fights to the point in which you can challenge for the title and win your entry into the hall of fame. There's nothing much to it in terms of story, and I know it's not to be compared to the likes of the WWE games, but an attempt at a story would have been massively welcome. As you play through the calendar you can choose to fight your sparring partner in order to gain ability points or you can also take part in the UFC camp in which you have a complete a number of challenges in order to win further experience points, enhance your fighting ability.

The create a fighter mode is pretty basic as you simply choose your fighters height and weight class, assign attribute points, fighting skills and other profile details. Then you enter into the look of your fighter which is disappointing depending on which way you look at it. Considering this is a game created by the same combo that works on the WWE series, they're very much aware that gamers want a large variety offering when it comes to the look of your fighter. However, I am aware that because of the detail that goes into the fighters and the collision detection specifics, a large amount of detail and amazing graphical quality don't really mix. The only aspects of a fighter's appearance that can really be worked on are the facial features in which you can mould and shape almost every portion of the face to give it a look perfect for you.

As of this moment the online experience is quite disappointing also as the developers seem to have overlooked a problem that curses many games of this type when you have players online. Some imbecilic players who can't actually take a loss on the nose have discovered that if they disconnect in time the loss isn't counted on their record. For those who choose to play the game properly and do appreciate that losses can occur, it can become quite frustrating and really destroys what would otherwise be a pleasurable online gaming experience. When you win you gain a number of experience points which can bump you up a level and you also gain a number of fans which I have yet to recognise the significance of. Of course your win/lose record gives you some fun prestige when playing online but, until a patch is released to stop people disconnecting I would really say you're only best entering into matches with people with a modest win/lose record as you can almost guarantee that if you fight someone with a 25 - 0 win streak, then the likelihood is, they have disconnected at some point so it's not really worth you wasting your time.

Overall this is a very impressive game for the first in what is promised to be a long franchise of games for the UFC brand. Looking forward to sequels, the only parts of the game that really need looking at in future versions are the career mode and the online experience. The fighting mechanics are near perfect and if it's possible to speed the fighting experience whilst keeping the same control system, then a future UFC game will be very good indeed.

DISCLAIMER!!!: I have only played on the easy setting.

The graphics and established character details are pretty good. Some of the features for your characters could be expanded. Long hair anyone? The player controls are ok and the game is geared more for upright striking fighting than ground game unless you are a hardcore gamer that has hours upon hours to spend perfecting said ground game.

I have gone through 4 characters. Each have been in a different weight class. First of all, good luck in the 170 lb. weight class. And for the game overall, good luck with being a submission specialist. You can only succeed if you concentrate on striking. I have tried a submission character and his record was subpar at best. I got to the into the top 10 on mediocre striking and got whipped! They need to revamp the ground game controls. It is pretty shoddy. The game can be fun if you are into spectacular knockouts, but after over 200 fights I have no submission wins and sometimes it seems my level 4 or 5 sparing partner should be fighting my opponent instead of me.

Suggestions for THQ: Make easy actually easy on the ground game aspect. Let us non-hardcore gamers, but hardcore fans, play a competative ground game. I shudder at what the higher levels are like.

Having enjoyed the demo, I ordered this from Amazon and started it on Saturday morning. Besides one break to eat, I didn't stop until my PS3 indicated my controller needed to be recharged! I'm at best a casual UFC fan, so I can't remark on how true the fighters are represented. The controls bring a steep learning curve, but make for deep gameplay where button mashing is almost always a bad idea.

My only big gripe is the tutorial could have been better. Not knowing the names of ground positions (open guard, half guard, etc.) made it very hard to understand what I was doing, especially when the camp invitation part of career mode asked me to do specific transitions from one position to another. I had to go to practice mode and choose each position to see what it looked like. Now I'm getting to the dominant mount up position and beating the tar out of the CPU. Submission wins have completely eluded me thus far, even as I pump up my character's submission skills. Maybe I just need more time with it, but even IGN said submission wins are rare. It should be noted that the ways to avoid being submitted are "brute force" escape with strikes or a technical escape by rotating the right stick. Some online players are likely button mashing as I initially did, resulting in otherwise avoidable losses. Learning the controls makes all the difference in this game.

Collision detection is great. I have yet to see anyone's limb pass through their opponent. Several times the game hiccuped for half a second when both men were attacking, but strangely the more I play the less it seems to happen. Maybe improving my attributes has something to do with it?

Personally I don't miss character development in the career mode. I didn't buy this game to read generic text. I just wanted to strategically beat guys up in something other than a traditional fighter or subpar THQ wrestling release. This fits the bill, and it's different enough from Fight Night that I'll likely still want that too.

You don't have to be a UFC fan to enjoy this, just patient enough to spend well over an hour in tutorials and training to learn it.

UPDATE: The submissions do work once you know when to use them. You need to wait until your opponent's stamina is low (the meter that refills when you rest for a few seconds, not total health). Or you can strike him until he is in a "rocked" state and then it's much more likely he can't fight off your attempt. In certain cases I can get a tapout win in under 90 seconds, but it's not so easy as to ruin the game. If your opponent has good mat and sub defense skills you won't win that way. Some say the balance of the game favors strikers, but they likely just need more work on their ground game as I did.

I bought this game about a year ago and for the longest time it just collected dust on the shelf. The reason for this was I was just getting frustrated with the game. On career mode after about 10 fights the difficulty level just seem to increase so much that it was easy to lose 2 or 3 fights in a row. So, after two or three attempts at career mode, I gave up.

About two months ago my wife bought me the 1st season of the ultimate fighter. After watching it, I notice several of the things that the trainers on the show would tell the fighters. So, I wondered if I took that same advice and I applied it to the game. WOW!!! What a difference.

Everyone complains about the ground game, but if you just take an hour or so it really becomes really easy to do transitions and submission attempts. You, also, can not rely on boxing (Dana White, states in the opening sequence of the game. If you just rely on your big right hand I'll show you where that went wrong after you wake up in an hospital) and knocking guys out in every fight. If you just come up with different strategies for different styles, it becomes alot more fun. If you are struggling against a certain style of fighter, lean towards sparring more because your sparring partner will fight in that style. If you handle a certain style well, then lean towards your other training. This alone makes this game so much more fun then other fighting games.

Since dusting this game and giving it another try. It went from a game I regretted buying to one I have to play everyday. I'm currently holding the title in every weight class. You may still end up losing every now and then, don't expect to go undefeated. For example, I was fighting Brock Lesnar the other night. I dominated the first two rounds but in the third he landed a hard right and knocked me out. Just like in real life, one punch can stop a fight regardless of how the fight is going. It really reminded me of the Lesnar/Carwin fight.

If you are struggling with the ground game, the biggest thing you can do to help yourself out is turn on the stamina bars. Don't expect to be able to do many transitions, mounts, or submission attempts successfully in the early rounds. The more you wear out your opponent the easier the ground game is. I usually make it a rule of thumb to try to out box my opponents and just transition out of the take downs with as little effort as possible during the first two rounds. This will wear them down much more quickly and you will have a HUGE advantage going into the later rounds. Kicks will wear out your opponents quicker then punches.

I hope this helps.

As soon as I got this game, I opened it up as fast as possible to play it on my PS3. Just seconds into my very first fight, I was very impressed with the smooth graphics and excellent attention to detail when it comes to the numerous characteristics that come into play in MMA. The gameplay is on point and challenging enough to keep me from getting bored. The striking is pretty basic and easy to learn, but ignoring the ground game will be disastrous. Just like in reality, an MMA fighter must be solid in striking and on the ground to have any real success, otherwise the losses will stack up rapidly.

The most glaring flaw that bugs me has to do with the career mode--your fighter does not age and is eventually forced to retire. I was a bit stunned that with all the impressive attention to detail that THQ would allow something like this to slip through the cracks.

Nevertheless, the few bugs are miniscule when you look at the game as a whole, but I do hope THQ fixes them. As the first installment of UFC games for the PS3, this is a highlight reel knockout.

This game is awesome graphics are great fights are intence and its overall a good game. I will tell you a little about the downsides but still worth buying if you like real life fighting games.
1. The ground game is a little bit aggravating because of all the transitions. You realy have to master that in order to go to the ground.
2. Yo do not age in career mode but you are forced to retire after a certain amount of years and you cant move in weight classes.
3. Online play - It is very aggravating when your playing someone online and you are whooping them and they decide to cut there internet off in this case i think if connection is lost the win should go to the person that did not be a sore loser and just cut it off.
Other than that game is great people say story mode is redundent but what do you expect your in MMA all there is to do is train and sign some autographs, which brings me to another downside unlike fight night when you train you actually train here it is a simulation which is a little bit of downside but other than that great so i would buy the game add porchboy33 and I will be glad to fight and not quit or cut the game off.

This is the best game for UFC\Mixed Martial arts fans currently on the market. The graphics are superb. The game is loaded with different options to keep you playing for weeks. The fighter roster is huge.

One thing I was a bit concerned about was how THQ would handle all the various attacks\submissions you can have and how they would be worked into the control scheme... My fear was that the controls would be limiting and ultimately just make the game a headache to play. Upon playing it, I was relieved, THQ pulled it off really well.

The only thing that can be a little annoying is the announcer comments, that do repeat. Its not enough to really detract from the game though. It is a minor gripe.

Overall, this is a real solid title! THQ you can take a bow.

i have played ufc 2009 on both xbox 360 and ps3 and it is my second favorite fighting game and almost as good as ufc 2010 but 1/5 of the price so is great for any fighting game fan who has a tight budget. if you want to play online the xbox 360 community for this game is dead but there are still a lot of people who play on ps3 and ps3 players seem less skilled as well.