Game Reviews

If you're uncertain about the difference between full guard, half guard, and side control, you might think of UFC as merely a couple of barbarian-like men punching and kicking each other (and occasionally rolling around on the ground) until one of them falls unconscious. While that's not entirely untrue, there's really something of an art to most UFC fights that an untrained eye may not recognize. THQ and Yuke's second MMA effort, UFC Undisputed 2010, does an admirable job of translating this art into a videogame, surpassing their successful, inaugural effort in almost every way.

Undisputed 2010's controls are fairly straightforward, though jumping into a fight without first going through the game's thorough tutorial would be ill-advised. While strikes are performed simply enough with the face buttons, nearly everything else is controlled by gesturing with the Right analog stick. Grapples, takedowns, reversals, transitions, and submissions all require some sort of Right stick movement, from a simple flick left or right to full-bore spinning. As nuanced as the analog controls may be, however, having so much tied to one stick can occasionally make matches feel like nothing more than crazed twirl-fests, complete with thumb cramps and worn-out controllers.

Though the game's core mechanics remain unchanged, nearly every other facet of the fighting engine has been tweaked in some respect. For starters, a new "sway" system opens up the striking game, enabling fighters to dodge and counter far more realistically than before. The game's grappling system now more closely matches the ground transition system, simplifying things a bit. In addition, the ground game has been refined to even better capture the jockeying for position prevalent in nearly every UFC conflict. However, even with all of the gameplay tweaks to improve realism, there's still an issue with finishing fights. It's not uncommon to have your opponent "rocked" (the term for the real-life equivalent of those little cartoon birds circling thier head), only to find yourself on your back and submitting within seconds of your initial offensive.

Undisputed 2010 includes the usual Exhibition and Tournament modes as well as the arcade-like Title modes. And updated for this edition is the Ultimate Fights Mode, which allows you to reenact classic UFC match-ups (and even includes pre-match interviews and commentary). Completing matches under stringent conditions rewards you with different unlocks; however, due to the strict guidelines for each match, it's curious that there isn't a simple retry option. If you want to have to start a particularly difficult challenge over, you have to go back out to the menu.