The past five years have seen the UFC come up from a growing sport into a legitimate mainstream fascination, with recognizable stars and household names among its roster of fighters. Unlike all other popular spectator sports, though, MMA continued to lack a good console title, with previous efforts proving to be barely playable and uninspired fighting games. UFC 2009 Undisputed changes all that, bringing the graceful brutality of the Octagon into home consoles, the same way NBA Live and Fight Night brought their respective sports’ exciting nuances into gaming platforms.
Created by THQ and Yuke’s, the same partnership that brought the WWE franchise into the realm of truly classic action titles, Undisputed is the first game that manages to combine both the no-holds-barred violence and the technical strategy that goes into MMA matches. The fighting mechanics are done so well that it’s truly more than a game where two blokes beat each other to a pulp. In UFC 2009, people beat each other to a pulp in a strategic manner.
With over 80 of the most compelling characters from the UFC’s roster, you get a good pool of fighters to choose from. Each one comes trained in both striking and grappling, with their disciplines (boxing, judo, etc) determining the strikes and holds they actually employ in the cage.
Stand-up battles feature control sets that resemble many of the existing fighting games in the market, with each face button performing corresponding strikes and the shoulder buttons providing blocks and modifications. Since this is MMA, however, fighting can get complicated really fast. Once you hit the ground, controls muddle up, with strikes, submissions and transitions all available for you to perform. The depth and realism of the move sets is truly something to behold, making Undisputed one of the most comprehensive fighting games you will ever experience.
There are various game modes, such as a (largely unimpressive) Create Mode and Classic Fights. They can throw the most complex modes in here but the fighting will continue to be what sets this game apart. With almost flawless collision physics (between fighters, that is; the referree is another matter) and a rich set of attack executions (there’s literally a plethora of counterattacks your opponent can perform to every offense you can muster), I do believe the title has set a new standard when it comes to hand-to-hand combat realism in games. The damage physics may require a little fine-tuning in the future, but this is the game we’ll likely all look back on, remarking “Remember Undisputed? That was good!”
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