Contributor: Connor Dillon
Start Here: This fuckin’ game. So for the record, I’ve played this demo for a couple hours, switching up between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson. I’ve gone through the tutorial a couple times. Each match is only available to play on Easy Difficulty, for 3 rounds, with an accelerated clock, and only at the MGM Grand.
My advice? Play the tutorial for several hours before jumping in, otherwise you’ll probably end up being side-slammed by the CPU opponent. Yes, that’s right, you can get fuckin’ side-slammed by fuckin’ anybody. On top of that, imagine…I don’t know, Alexander Gustafsson doing a jumping superman punch off the cage? Or maybe Jon Jones knocking someone out with a cartwheel kick? Let me put it this way, there’s a shit ton of cool things in this game. There is legitimate depth in the striking system, the animations look out-fucking-standing, and the production side of things look even better than they do in real life.
For all that cool shit you can see (no, I’m not saying ‘do’ because you WILL suck at this game the first time you pick it up, don’t kid yourself), the ground transition game sucks pretty bad, the submission system sucks even worse, and the striking (not controls or animations) is very reminiscent of EA MMA, in other words, not good. So, let me break this down into the dirty details.
Good Things:
- Depth in the Striking System: Alexander Gustafsson throwing spinning heel kicks? Yes please. Jon Jones with a reverse elbow, a la Anderson Silva? Oh baby. Straights and hooks to both the head and body? What I’m trying to say is there is a lot that one can do standing up, even if it isn’t necessarily realistic (Gus throwing spinning heel kicks). The controls provide a lot of possibilities to do some crazy stuff, or some really slick things. For instance, in one match I was able to successfully parry a punch and then land an overhand right which KO’d Jones. In another, playing as Jon Jones, I KO’d Alexander Gustafsson with a cartwheel kick. There’s just so much depth in the controls to the striking that open up a lot of possibilities for tactics to rise to the top, rather than button mashing.
- Animations ARE BEAUTIFUL: Each kick and punch, every takedown, each are a beauty to see. The game imitates real life very well, where sometimes a head kick will stick on a shoulder as an opponent moves forward, after a slam there is a momentary pause because you got the wind knocked out of you, and an opponent steps back from a leg kick rather than take it to the shin or thigh. On top of that, knockout sequences are tight, with the opportunity to wind up stiffer than Terry Etim against Edson Barboza. That makes it pretty to the eye. I just enjoy catching these little things that make the game a lot of fun to watch.
- Production: The typical UFC production elements, Bruce Buffer’s intro, ring card girls, the fight intro pieces where it has UFC in the center and the two fighters squaring off on either side, they are all awesome. The pictures look real as hell, the logos on the mate are fantastic. The shading system is great, you literally get multi-shaded elements from the fighters, cornermen, the referee. Just fucking small things that are beautiful. You can see ripples of skin as someone gets KO’d for Christ’s sake. These just add up in so many ways to make the game have a really good production element.
Bad Stuff:
- Transitions: If you plan on doing a lot of grappling in this game, don’t. Instead of just lifting the half and quarter turn transitions from the Undisputed series, or borrowing heavily from EA MMA by flicking the right stick up and down to move, they kind of created a red-headed, incestuous, one-eyed piece of shit control system. To perform a transition, you move the right stick a “quarter” turn left or right. But it’s not really a quarter turn, it’s much more of a “move it to the left or right at the halfway mark and see if things happen” kind of deal. On top of that, it’s like the system is trying to create a depth of choice (do I move from over/under to single collar tie or to double unders?) but fails spectacularly, recreating scenes that brought back memories of EA MMA grappling. Whereas the striking system has a lot of depth, and while it isn’t the easiest to get used to transitioning from the EA MMA/Undisputed era, it makes sense to your hands and mind once you play, the grappling portion just makes me confused. Why is there such a pause between positions if the CPU isn’t fucking doing anything? Do I need to have a pause in a semi-half guard, semi-shrimp position, or can I just do it? The CPU wasn’t doing the “blocking” animations (and there is a way to block transitions, but it isn’t as OP as Undisputed’s was), so why was that happening? The transitions for grappling are just an abortion of controls. Another things that annoys the hell out of me is that if you KO an opponent, you can’t follow them down to the ground. You can stay standing and punch or kick the air. Just thinking back to Undisputed 3, if I wanted to be a dick, I could totally follow some guy I KO’d to the ground and punch his lifeless corpse some more. It was kinda brutal, but added more to the game and, believe it or not, the realism too. Shit happens in actual matches, so why can’t I do that in this game? Oh, and did I mention almost every takedown that you can’t defend perfectly instantly lands the opponent in side control?
- Submission System: Seriously…I just wanted to beat my fucking brains in when I started this submission mini-game. I can best describe it as a cross between the chokes submissions from EA MMA and the submission system from Undisputed 3, so in other words, the worst fucking submission system since UFC Tapout 2. Somehow, in between flicking your left stick and moving your right stick in one of four directions, you see the “full” grappling actions taking part. Except, you don’t, because the prompt for the left stick can be counted only in milliseconds, and the right stick doesn’t actually do anything, even though it really does. I know the game developers wanted to recreate how a submission happens in real life, but…this is not the way. It really isn’t. It should be something intuitive that doesn’t involve STARING AT FLICKERING PROMPTS ON A SCREEN. I want to watch the submission get sunk, not the mini-game and then the tap at the end. I hate to harken back to the first and second Undisputed games, because fuck spinning my goddamn right stick until my thumb bled, but AT LEAST I COULD WATCH THE SUBMISSION PROGRESS INTO A FUCKING TAP OUT.
- Striking Realism/System: Yeah, the system has depth, it’s got some pretty animations. But seriously, Alexander Gustafsson plays exactly standing up like Jon Jones, trading oblique kicks for leg kicks, and a cartwheel kick for a ‘normal’ spinning heel kick. I hope to God this isn’t what it is in the final game (which it is I’m sure), but guys, Alexander Gustafsson doesn’t do that shit. He doesn’t jump off the cage and throw a superman punch, let alone a spinning heel kick. Don’t even get me started on the elbows that are in place. I can see and have seen Jon Jones land a variety of elbows. Gustafsson? Besides your usual diet of forearm elbows and a spinning back elbow attempt in the Jones fight, nuh-uh. SO WHY THE HELL CAN HE THROW A FUCKING REVERSE ELBOW LIKE ANDERSON SILVA? On top of that, the controls are not the easiest to get used to, and it felt like I was button mashing in a game where I can’t win via button mashing, but I still was winning somehow.
Bottom Line:
This game has a lot of depth bubbling up to the surface, I can feel it. From the beautiful graphics and animations, to the crazy ass but really fun strikes, there’s a lot of beauty and genius one can feel went into this. I absolutely love doing cartwheel kicks, side slams, and such. It is so much fun watching this take place. But despite this genius, the fantastic things you glimpse in the hints of light, it is very, very much full of bullshit. The grappling transitions are a complete regression from both the previous EA MMA and Undisputed offerings. The submission system is a prompt game where even the victor loses. And despite my love of crazy offerings from the striking system, it just…isn’t good, playing like a terrible mishmash of a realistic (EA MMA) and arcade (Undisputed) striking system. So despite all the beauty on the top, the clear talent you can see, EA Sports UFC (demo) fails at the toughest tests.
If I could liken it to any fighter, I’d lean towards Roger Huerta. He showed his heart and determination, his amazing talent in the Octagon. Fights against Leonard Garcia and Clay Guida stake down his resume, fights that are still amazing to watch these days. But in spite of his clear talent, marketability, and heart, Huerta’s career is now remembered for being finished by Eddie Alvarez and The-Fighter-Formerly-Known-As-Jon-Koppenhaver, before a disastrous and inhumane soccer kick from Zorobabel Moreira. Despite having the world seemingly in his grasp, Huerta somehow lost it. While it may never be known what exactly held Huerta back from greatness, at this point my prediction about the failings of EA Sports UFC revolve around its absolutely terrible grappling and submission systems.
Demo Review: Don’t.
-Connor can be reached @WrasslingConnor or at [email protected]
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