Last year, Dana White went to Yuke’s, a small game developer who was used to making wrestling games. A new UFC video game was a very risky idea considering every other UFC game was a complete failure and this was a bad time in this recession. Together, they made a sensational video game that reached out to both the hard core UFC fans and those new to the franchise, such as myself.


When looking at UFC 2009, you could ask yourself “how could this be improved”. Frankly, that game was great and there wasn’t much to improve. But surely enough, they doubled the amount of characters, added moves, introduced a sway and decay system, and added some modes.


So, how does this game fair compared to its predecessor, its slightly better. The reason its slightly better is all of the improvements. The only one that was bad is the decay system. I understand why it’s implemented but there’s a better way to do this. They do this because the career spans over 12 years and I’m guessing they don’t want you to max out all of your stats. But they could have just reduced the points you earned from sparring. This kind of makes the game feel like The Sims in a sense of the multitasking. And you have to do this or else you will have half of your stats high and the other half low. Another problem with the sparring is it rewards cheap tactics and spamming. The system is a little like who punches who more. This means that if you get into a position where all your opponent can do is block while you’re constantly striking, you’re going to rack up a lot of points.


The new career mode is very much improved. Your fighter starts as an amateur then goes semi-pro in a small league but then gets inducted into the UFC. You get a good feel for a fighters life in a sense.


The customization has also improved a lot. Your fighter now has a voice, a winning animation, and moves set to his play style. Ill touch on the moves later considering there’s a lot to talk about. They added some really cool hair styles that fit normal people better. The tattoo system has improved a lot also. The color system also changed. Instead of set colors, there is a spectrum of selectable colors kind of like something you would see when you define custom colors on something like Microsoft Paint. And just like the last game you can customize your equipment, but this time its not just trunks. You can customize the shirt and also hat you wear in end of the fight where Bruce Buffer gives the official decision.


Back to the moves I was talking about before. In career mode, your character can call certain fight camps over to learn specific moves, and I really mean specific. Certain transitions, suplexes and other throws from any position, submissions from anywhere, and even certain fighters unique moves ( GSP’s head kick, Chuck’s straight, etc. ). This means you don’t have to be something certain like Kickboxing, Muay Thai, etc. You can now mix and match styles to get exactly what you want. A boxer that does BJJ, a Karate figher that does Greco-Roman Wrestling, you name it. This makes for interesting fights online, you would think.


Not only is the online vey laggy for everyone, but people care about winning way too much. People will shut their systems off just to keep a perfect record. This truly makes for an unentertaining bout of fighting. People will sometimes make characters that were made just to do certain things. This story actually happened. I chose my custom character to fight and I’m waiting for my opponent. He chooses his fighter named “Submitty McSubmittington” I laugh at the funny name. Now, we start the fight and I certainly have the upper hand. Then, I throw a sloppy punch, he sees this and goes for a takedown. Nothing out of the ordinary but then he submits me in seconds with my stamina nearly full. But hey, I don’t really care about my record so much. I go to find other fights but everyone usually deploys the same cheap tactics such as extreme clinching, crazy submissions, and such. But this is no fault of the game, only the players.


In conclusion this game deserves to be the fun game its predecessor was last year. This will keep you entertained for quite some time. The various modes will keep you from getting bored. You’ll have a great time, just don’t try and go online. So, I would give this game an 8.5 / 10.