Brutal and complicated. Those two words sum up UFC 2 beautifully, with EA Sports’ second attempt at ultimate fighting doing a fantastic job of conveying the visceral violence of mixed martial arts and then attempting to convey the sport’s multitude of fighting styles by layering control systems on top of each other. This results in a complex multifaceted fighter, that, like the real thing, requires dedication to truly master. However, occasionally this complexity feels a little overdone and a lack of depth to the career mode and generally clunky UI let down the overall package.
What UFC 2 gets thunderingly right is stand-up fighting, with each punch, kick, elbow and knee landing with a powerful thud, and fighters’ bodies gradually showing the effects of their physical wars. Cuts on cheeks and above eyes drip blood, body blows produce purple bruises and leg kicks result in reddening thighs and pronounced limps. All of this generally looks fantastic, with each of the game’s 250 plus fighters rendered in almost loving detail, body and face deformation progressing realistically and animations conveying the impact of each blow, whether a slight lean of the head, a dramatic stagger or a lights out fall to Earth.
The bare bones of the fight system will be familiar to every fighting game fan on the planet, with square and triangle handling left and right punches, elbows and spinning back fists and circle and X triggering kicks and knees. Holding L1 with one of these buttons produces a more powerful strike, holding L2 targets the body and the direction pushed while striking adds further modification. Overall, this gives each fighter a wide variety of attacks and the game rewards you for experimentation. The cumulative impact of different strikes is much greater than the impact of the same strike multiple times. This is a smart addition as it makes fights more realistic and discourages players from simply spamming the same kick or punch.
The game’s stamina system is also vital, throw the same heavy kick or punch over and over again and you’ll very quickly tire yourself out, making your movements sluggish and leaving you ripe for the KO. Stop attacking and your stamina will rapidly rise to its normal level, a process slowed down slightly if you block. In many ways, it’s this stamina system that truly differentiates UFC 2 from other fighters. It forces the player to consider carefully each strike and gives the game’s simulated combat a beautiful ebb and flow, with both fighters attacking and then moving away, attacking and then moving away, a beautiful reflection of the real-life sport’s rhythms.
To counter this, there’s a similar myriad of defensive systems, with R1 and R2 triggering high and low blocks, and L2 initiating head movement, allowing players to bob and weave their way out of incoming strikes. The latter system I never really mastered, but the former is integral to the game, there’s no way to defend your head, body and legs at the same time, so any block also leaves you open to attack and, while protecting high is generally the best policy, body and leg kicks can also eventually end fights, so it’s far from a fool proof one.
All of this comes together in the game’s new physics-based knockouts, with the revamped range of KO animations reflecting just how fighters might react if felled by an overhand right while in the middle of a kick or punch. Essentially the system is all about the balance of the fighters, with the more powerful blows almost always coming after missed or blocked strikes that leave one combatant’s weight thrust forward onto the front leg or transferred entirely onto the back one. Hit at these moments and you’ll generally produce a staggering blow or, if several are landed in quick succession, a knockout. Again, this is a smart, nuanced, realistic system that allows fights to end quickly or become long, drawn-out wars of attrition, and dynamically conveys the impact of each blow. It’s this system that produces most of UFC 2’s defining moments, with nothing matching the satisfaction of landing the split second before your opponent does and watching them crumple to the mat. A personal highlight was an uppercut knockout to an axe-kicking opponent, as they swung their leg up high above my head, my uppercut connected with their chin, resulting in a fall that brought to mind the classic slipped on a banana peel moments of timeless slapstick comedies. Other highlights included a polygonal pugilist nearly doing the splits after being hit with a straight right, side kicks resulting in statuesque falls to the mat and a well-placed punch causing a simple face plant into the foetal position. Overall, it’s a fantastic addition to the series and while it doesn’t quite make every KO unique, it produces enough variety to keep players hooked and fool the brain into thinking it’s doing more than just triggering pre-programmed animations.
Visually, the attention to detail really helps to convey the physical, draining nature of the UFC, with fighters pouring with sweat, blood staining the mat, elbows and fists of combatants, and exhausted athletes staggering to their stools in between rounds. Commentary is another strong point, with regular UFC duo Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan discussing fighter’s strategies and adding to the drama of each KO. The presentation is generally superb with everything, from the walkout music to the victory celebrations, capturing the feel and atmosphere of a UFC event.
The other vital part of MMA is of course the ground game. In an attempt to convey the multitude of transitions, sweeps and takedowns performed in the UFC, the control system relies almost exclusively on the right analog stick, with onscreen prompts showing the desired direction and an indicator completing a circle to show progress. Holding L1 in conjunction with the analog stick performs more advanced manoeuvers, while square and triangle are used for ground strikes. Takedowns are performed by pressing R2 and pushing the left analog stick, and are blocked by pushing R2 and down. Similarly, pushing R2 and the right analog stick in the corresponding direction to your opponent’s movement blocks transitions, and L1 and the left analog stick trigger standing clinches, preludes to strikes and takedowns.
As may have come across, it’s a rather fiddly system and has several flaws. In practice, it’s very difficult to block takedowns unless you know they’re coming and there’s a general sense that ground transitions are too easy to perform and too difficult to block. There are also issues with the clinch game, once you’re on the receiving end, blocking strikes is very difficult and knees from the clinch in particular feel very overpowered, landing strongly even with no stamina.
This is nothing however compared to the infuriating minigame that controls submissions in UFC 2. Once a submission is initiated, the defender must block by pushing different directions on the right analog stick while the attacker must push in the same direction to block these escape attempts, before pushing the left stick in the direction shown to advance the submission. Each submission has several stages that must be completed in this manner and the system feels heavily weighted towards the defender, so a successful submission feels nigh on impossible. This is a real shame as submissions are a fundamental element of MMA, the sport was essentially born out of the dispute between striking and mat-based combat disciplines. In the game however, this complex and imbalanced mechanic means they’re almost entirely absent, an issue that severely harms UFC 2’s credentials as a serious simulation of the sport. Perhaps these struggles merely illustrate how difficult it is to translate this side of MMA into videogames, counting previous UFC games, numerous developers have tried and essentially failed. This however is definitely not the answer.
There are also some elements which I really missed from the THQ/Yuke’s series of UFC games. Firstly, classic fights are entirely absent, which seems like a real own goal, including clips and famous moments could help educate an audience that may not be familiar with the likes of George St Pierre, Chuck Liddell and BJ Penn, not to mention the obvious appeal of rewriting or re-enacting history. Secondly, there’s no PRIDE mode, so no kicks to the heads of grounded opponents or overblown Japanese entrances, an omission that’s bound to disappoint long-time MMA fans.
It also seems strange that when a crushing strike results in a knockdown rather than a knockout, the following onslaught of punches and hammer fists is stopped by the downed party simply being knocked out and the referee calling the fight, rather than the official physically dragging the attacker away from his foe. Again, this seems like an essential part of the iconography of UFC, and the attacker essentially stopping of his own accord feels more than a little anticlimactic.
In terms of game modes, UFC 2 offers an underpowered career and Ultimate Team. The career mode is particularly disappointing, offering none of the verbal debate, insults and hype that powers the melodrama of its real life counterpart. Instead, you’ll create a male or female fighter, have him/her compete in The Ultimate Fighter, earn a UFC contract and then progress up the ladder. The creation mode has some neat touches, like being able to choose your walkout music and victory celebration, but often feels like it has its priorities in the wrong place. There is a frankly ridiculous array of facial modification options so wannabe plastic surgeons will have a field day, but the choice of hairstyles and tattoos feels somewhat limited. The situation is not helped by the real-life UFC’s new endorsement deal with Reebok, while it may arguably make the organisation look more professional and keep its fighters on a tighter leash, it has removed opportunities for the fighters to show their personalities and made the world of MMA a much more monochrome one. As the game is committed to staying authentic to the real UFC, the only meaningful choice in terms of fight attire is the length of shorts desired.
Career mode soon feels like a slog, boring training minigames are played once and then simmed, quickly resembling menus to be ploughed through before the next fight. Moreover, lacking any build up, the fights themselves quickly blur into one another and it’s unlikely that any individual encounter will stand out. In an attempt to add variety, random events occur, but not only are these ridiculous (examples include being unable to train your stand-up game due to your coach being ill), the way they pop up before a training camp makes them feel like Chance cards from Monopoly. Career mode does include fighter challenges but, if these are supposed to be based on personal animosity, the game completely fails to convey this. Instead, the only difference from regular fights is optional objectives, such as completing a certain number of takedowns, for more evolution points, which are required to upgrade your skills.
Perhaps some of this was intentional, EA after all wants you to play Ultimate Team, which it seems determined to shoehorn into every one of its sports games. It’s hard not to be cynical about this, despite its grand billing, Ultimate Team very closely resembles a career mode expanded to four weight classes, except that new moves and perks are earned through packs of cards. Of course, while these packs can be earned through coins accrued while playing, they can also be purchased with UFC points and in that section of the UFC store lies the usual array of microtransactions familiar to any seasoned player of FIFA Ultimate Team. Thankfully, Ultimate Team functions pretty well without the player needing to spend any money but there’s something about one of the world’s largest game developers promoting microtransactions in a full-priced game that leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
This pill would be easier to swallow if Ultimate Team was amazing, but frankly it isn’t. It’s hampered by a clunky UI that, for example, requires players to first select a fighter and then assign cards applicable to that fighter, instead of just being able to select the whole card collection and then apply cards to whichever fighter is suitable.
Moreover, apart from the fact that your created fighters are fighting other created fighters from across the globe, there’s little to differentiate it from career mode and both feel a little pointless. The aim is essentially to win a bunch of fights to win a belt, then win more fights to defend that belt, rising up the rankings along the way. The only satisfaction is extrinsic to the game, with new packs opening up new moves and improving your fighter, so you can fight other improved fighters for made up and essentially meaningless belts. The game generally functions well online, with minimal slowdown, but overall Ultimate Team just feels a little shallow and soulless, and it’s only the compelling nature of the combat that keeps you going. Ultimately, UFC 2 is addictive but it often feels like it’s addictive in spite of the career and Ultimate Team modes rather than because of them.