Introduction

Fighting is one of my favorite things in life. Sure, I like boxing, kickboxing and martial arts, but nothing compares to the UFC and Pride. In these competitions it is no holds barred -- in other words, anything goes except for eye gauging, biting, hitting the privates and a few other rules in UFC. Naturally, when I heard that there was a UFC game coming out for Playstation 2 I was very happy and waited with a lot of anticipation. Let me break it down into different categories:

Gameplay

There isn’t too much to say; the game is a lot of button mashing. First time I played it I won because I used Vitor Belfort and punched my way to victory. Afterwards, learning submissions and other grappling moves was very easy. Although it was easy learning all the moves sometimes opponents were impossible to beat, which gets very frustrating. Tito Ortiz was made too strong in the game and his standup fighting is even better than Vitor Belforts, which is definitely not true in real life. While grappling on the ground sometimes, submissions are so quick you don’t have time to react and you lose. Of course it is a fast game when you fight certain people, but there should have been a greater time limit to counter certain submissions. The last problem was the lack of secret characters and things to unlock. I beat the game with every character twice in UFC mode and all I got for my troubles were the unlocking of two characters that I don’t even care about. A nice character to unlock would have been Ken Shamrock.

Graphics

The graphics on this game were very well done. The detail on most of the fighters was so well done that they looked very realistic. The only character that they messed up on was Frank Shamrock. The characters face looked nothing like Frank. Other parts were far better. In the entrance scene I would ask myself, " Is that a real crowd, or is it the graphics?" The blood, however didn’t show up on the fighters even though you see it fly through the air and stain the canvas.

Sound

The entrance music gets kind of repetitive because it’s the same music for everyone -- every time you fight. The sound effects for the fighters are good and sound rather realistic.

Additional Features

When selecting career mode I didn’t realize I would start from scratch. Creating the fighter has very few options. You don’t get to change much when creating your fighter -- only things like height, weight, name, fighting
style, the color of the skin and the color of the outfit. You have to earn every skill point by doing various challenges, sparring, and competing in tournaments. After going through five levels you have finished your journey
and can now fight in UFC mode. Once you win, you unlock another character that is uninteresting.

Overall

Although I had complaints, the game overall is pretty good. It’s especially fun when you have two players; perhaps a sibling and you keep beating them. If you’re a die-hard UFC fan then you should definitely rent it for now until Pride comes out for the PS2.