UFC Undisputed’s authenticity in portraying the sport of mixed martial arts is both its greatest strength and weakness.

Devoloper Yuke’s demonstrate a keen understanding of the sport by breaking down the complex fighting into 6 distinct martial arts:  Boxing, Kickboxing and Muay Thai for striking and Wrestling, Jui-jitsu and Judo for grappling.  Each discipline feels right too.  Finding your striking range as a kickboxer and punishing your opponents legs with kicks only to set him up for a knockout high kick, or using wrestling to slam and push your opponent up against the cage both feel like authentically gratifying experiences a real UFC competitor would have.

The damage system created for UFC Undisputed makes me never want to see a health bar ever again.  Each body part takes damage individually.  Take enough damage to any part and you could get knocked into a “rocked,” dazed state where your opponent could finish you off for an easy TKO.  Guard your head, especially, because UFC Unleashed is the first game where flash, one hit ko’s can happen and feel completely organic.  Guard your head too much and your arms will take a beating, making your punches weaker.  It’s all very deep and realistic to the sport.

UFC Undisputed’s authenticity has drawbacks, however, and most of them surface in it’s baffling ground fighting.  Not only is the ground game, where wrestlers pound their opponents and jiu-jitsu players look for submissions, extremely foreign to casual game or fight fans, but navigating the ground game with Undisputed’s controls feels like guesswork.  I can foresee so many annoyed questions from new players:  “How do I advance my position, how do I even know which position is best and most frequently, how do I get this guy off of me?”  I’m not a controller thrower but being checkmated on the ground is the closest I’ve ever been to hurling plastic, especially because it feels like there’s nothing you can do.  I’m sure having Brock Lesnar on top of you is even more frustrating and scary, but as a wrestler myself, I felt that some of these moves seem to be easier to pull off in real life.

The game roster depth sets a new high standard, and most of the character models look incredible, although I did notice a slight preference to the UFC’s current stars, both in stats and look.  It’s certaintly understandable, but I had to laugh when I saw a scarily photo realistic Frank Mir go up against Mark Coleman, who looked like he’d been dropped into a vat of tan makeup.  Anderson Silva and GSP look perfect, Rampage Jackson looks idealized and poor Mac Danzig, who’s lost his last three, looks like a bobble head.

The Career mode is a refreshing look into the life and training schedule of an up and coming UFC prospect, complete with angry letters from Dana White and assigning workouts to the eight or so weeks given to you before a fight, with the emphasis on balancing training with rest so you don’t go into a fight completely beat.  Visiting the various real life fight camps to learn techniques from masters like Anderson Silva was a high point, but it’s a bit disapointing that Xtreme Couture was changed to Xtreme MMA and Team Militch to Team Militant.

Future versions of the game should clean up minor issues like the labyrinthine menus that make create a figher and designing shorts a chore.  Additionally, a UFC game should really offer the option of unlocking UFC legends like Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock.  And I wonder if fan favorite Clay Guida was excluded just because they couldn’t  simulate his flowing mane of hair correctly.

Final Word:

UFC Undisputed, like the sport it simulates, offers action found no where else in the world of sports and gaming but suffers from a somewhat bewildering ground game . Even so, UFC Unleashed is the start of of something great and a solid nomination for Sports Game of the Year.

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