03/16/01

Ultimate Fighting Championship 

System : Dreamcast 

MSRP:39.99 (likely less in some places.) 

Genre: Fighting, duh.  

 Ultimate Fighting Championship. For the uninitiated, this sport takes two combatants and closes them into an octagon arena and lets the two beat the living snot out of one another. Sane? Not in the slightest. Barbaric? Yes, and we as Americans love it.  

 So now, you're saying to yourself undoubtedly, "Rev. Mofat! I want to beat the snot out of people too!" Well, kiddies, looks like you can because UFC is at home on the DC. And even though it has its share of problems, it's still a decent time waster and a pretty unique fighting game in and of itself. 

 "But Rev. Mofat! It looks like it plays like Tekken!" Har. I said the same thing before I sat down with it. Honestly, there are similarities to the fighting style with the controller being set up for each body part but the likenesses end there once the combatants hit the floor. What started as a fight on two legs can quickly (and often does) end up with you on your back, desperately trying to counter and block the right hook to your jaw or the chin lock being deviously applied. Luckily, you have a lot of moves at your disposal for any situation (and position) that you're in. Also, you have to keep track of a interesting fatigue/health bar which helps prevent button mashing. 

 Graphically, this game is great. Character models are seamless, and everyone sports different skin and hair textures and they have clearly visibly detailed tattoos and sweat patches. The frame rate is rather smooth and the fighters themselves look like their real life counterparts. The ring entrances are also a blast to see as your character showboats and appeases the crowd in a gladiator-like way. The only flaw I could really see was the crowd sprites sort of looked blah, as they could of looked more excited and riled. Also, it would have been really cool to see the fighters show better reaction to pain, but as a whole, nice package overall. 

 (Expect to get stuck in the chest.....often.)

Sonically, the game's environment is just thumping and slapping sounds with the crescendo for the crowd. Well, it's not like we were expecting the London Symphonic here. It's fighting, and it serves it's purpose well. The announcer, however, I feel wasn't nearly as pumped as he should've been, but it sounds like he's really trying so he gets cut a little slack. A little. The menu music sucks, but you don't play menus so it's no problem. 

Control wise, I really want to say that this game is a complete and utter skill beast. The fighting styles are all awesomely represented and magnificently executed. I know, hope and pray deep, deep down if you spend a lot of time with it and learn how to counter effectively and attack efficiently, it can be as fast paced and frantic and absolute fun as DOA2. 

 But.... 

 That having been said, the fact of the matter is I felt that once a fight hit the floor, I really felt as if I had no control whatsoever. The computer would slap submissions on me with me being unable to answer. Button mashing looks as if it could run mad rampant in this game and the computer can run a cheap game. My 2 biggest problems were as follows.

1. One hit kills. Like the actual UFC tournaments, you can force your opponent to tap out through submission. This can be applied with relative ease, but the counter for this move was not explained in the instruction manual (or at least, not clearly) and truly makes the game more irritating. Had this move been explained better (and the countering system...) I would have enjoyed this game immensely more as I personally dislike games with one hit moves (unless it was the basis of the game, a'la Bushido Blade) 

2. Blocking. Due to camera angle changes, whatever direction your character is facing, the opposite is the blocking direction. That's all well and good, but in the heat of battle (especially ground battles) that could get tricky to figure out for beginners. This is one of the few cases where I think having a block button IN ADDITION to having the back directional block would have helped. 

 As a whole, Ultimate Fighting Championship is one of those games you'd say is a "When I get around to it..." sort of game. When you get around to figuring everything out instead of button mashing the hell out of the game, it is a very good game with an interesting and quite realistic fighting system. Unfortunately, it will prove too realistic for some and not pickup-and-go friendly enough for others. Personally, I'd give it a try, only because let's face it. You can see beat-ass, or you can see UFC beat-ass. I'd take the latter. 

The Reverend Mofat Jones wanted to play as Tank Abbott. Where is Tank? GIVE US TANK!!!! TAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK!

(Pictures courtesy of IGN.com)

-Mofat

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