EA Sports UFC 2 (Xbox One)

I don’t normally write reviews for anything, especially games as I think it always depends on what game modes you play them.
Starting off with the gameplay – Graphics are good as you’d expect, commentary is good during the fight, some of the KO’s you can do are insane and good fun. Bad points on the gameplay is the submission and clinching. If you play career mode, which is what I concentrate on, well thought I would, as you move through the ranks and get to about 20 you will find it increasing hard to submit your opponent or win a clinch battle, so really the only way you can create your fighter and expect to do anything noteworthy is to make them a Kick Boxer or a Boxer. Moving onto the career, this is the mode that I was really excited about leading up to the release, but Im very disappointed. I got the game on Thursday, I have already played 4 careers, 2 of which got legendary status and won titles across 2 different divisions! Okay the first one was more a fact finding mission but still. There is a lack of any real depth to the career mode. You only get a certain amount of fights due to the longevity bar, which goes up depending how entertaining your fights are and by gaining more fans and you lose fans if you lose a fight but bar stills goes up. I really feel EA could have added a lot more to career mode. The walk ons become samey, theres no real story line apart from the initial Ultimate Fighter piece. Once you have won that, thats it. They could have at least introduce so pre and post fight press conferences or maybe develop a rivalry during your career..?! Even when creating a fighter you’d think Bruce Buffer would be able to say a first name, instead you just get the surname of your fighter the nickname you’ve picked.
To sum the game up, its a great laugh playing with your friends with the KO mode and general striking that you can achieve but if you are going to play this on your own and play career mode its good….for about 3 hours. I would have given the game 4 stars, but solely down to the lack of depth and the way career mode plays.

Good game and graphics, takes longer time to master it .

A good technical game. Strategy plays an important role in it. Multiplayer is fun too.

Awesome experience. Still there are more than 5000 players online with whom you can compete in online mode. The graphics and gameplay is very realistic. It is still worth buying in 2018

I am a huge UFC fan and this game is fantastic. High end Graphics and real alike movements and moves, especially the knockouts. But if you want to play online, you have to master it and have your own strategy …

So I’ve had the game coming up to a year now and can say that I love this game but there’s a hell of a lot of room for improvement. I’ll focus on the good first. The graphics have improved greatly and the knockout animations are truly amazing.

I quite enjoy the striking mechanics and although some may not like I do think the ground game is fairly clever. Frequently the game works well at “catching” someone with a knockout strike when they try a takedown.

However there’s room for improvement in a lot of departments and online is one area that suffers. Although it’s less so playing “ranked championships” (playing online using ufc roster) there’s a horrible matchmaking system on “ultimate team” (fight online with a crested character). It was not fun the first few weeks playing for the first few times online and being matched up with division 6 and above players with nearly a 1000 fights in their records. What makes this worse is that because the higher ranked created fighters have better stats you struggle to have a fair fight (despite what others argue saying it doesn’t matter, try surviving heavy combos when your character’s block is 70/100 and chin is 60/100 when their punch speed, stamina and power is 100/100). As a result the higher players get more coins and buy more packs whilst us at the bottom struggle to win and thus can’t improve without coins. A good example is I had nearly 100 straight losses in ultimate team with my 83 overall character against 99 overall and 100 overall fighters. It’s pointless.

The next problem and I stress is the worst is the lag. It absolutely ruins the game. You’ll play offline and be used to the response rate and react as appropriate playing against the cpu or even with friends. However online the lag is so bad you almost have to predict what you expect in order to block and counter. Also very frequently the commands don’t get through. Now don’t get me wrong it ain’t my connection etc. I play mortal kombat, tekken among others and online has no lag. I’m wired, have 100 mb/s with 8ms ping. But the game will freeze and bug loading fight animations. It’s horrible.

So this game is fun for a laugh. Get it second hand and play with some friends or dabble but don’t take it seriously as the online gameplay needs desperate improvement.

Firstly, I’m a big fan of the UFC so playing this fills with a bit of joy knowing that I don’t have to wait ages until each event comes alogn as it is really just like having it on all the time!

My review is based on evening of playing it for 3 hours so may come back and revisit this review if my views change

— Graphics —
They’re just awesome. You get totally immersed in each fight and the cut scenes for the entrances haven’t become tedious yet because it just adds to the experience. I can imagine months down the line, my opinion on this may change but for the time being, they’re really not a hinderence but are quite enjoyable.

The gameplay graphics are just as good and are not compromised. You can tell EA put a lot of time and effort into this. brusiing appears cuts, blood.. the whole lot. It really does feel like a first class experience watching the game as you play it.

— Stand Up Game —
In comparison to the other reviews on here, I have struggled more with the striking aspect of the fights. I just can’t seem to time my punches as well as some of my opponents who have obviously been playing it longer than myself. Whilst the fighter footwork sometimes can feel quite heavy / lethargic, if you’re holding a directional button, this can be quickly fixed by just double flicking the direction you want them to move in which adds a bit of pace to the movement (albeit at the expense of some energy)!

The punches and kicks feel awesome when you land them and the massive amounts of different types of punches and kicks you can through based on which button you press accompanied by a flick of a direction with the analogue stick is awesome because it really does keep fights interesting and doesn’t fall into the bracket of ‘every fight looking the same’

— Ground Game —
This is the area I’ve found a little bit easier to master right off the bat. It is pretty self explanitory really when you have the onscreen instructions (which by the way don’t take away from the immersion). If you’re in a position on the ground where you can try to lock in a submission move, you hold the L2 button and that will reveal whether or not a submisison is possible and also which ones are available from the position.

Otherwise, transitional options come up on screen for you to move and hold the right analogue stick in that direction to perform the transition to gain a beneficial position on your opponent, Oppononents can counter these trasitions but I find this completely acceptable as this is true to real life… you opponent wouldn’t naturally let you simply move through the motions to impose yourself on them

The take downs and transitions also depend on how susceptible you vulnerable your opponent is to them at that time which is displayed at the top of your screen in a red / blue bar.

To submit someone, an onscreen display and if you are the aggressor, your opponent will try to get out of the moves by pointing their analogue sticks in various directions and you need to counter that by moving your stick in the same direction before the bar escapes the square. (much simpler than what it sounds like from my typing)

— Stamina Bar —
I really don’t understand what peoples issue with this is? Surely you understand that in any sport at all, you can’t go balls out all the way through and not expect to get knackered? When your bar depletes, your punches are weaker and slower (obviously) your takedown attempts are more lethargic (obviously) and you are more susceptible to taking a big old punch / kick on the melon with more devastating affect.

This is just how it is and adds to the realism. All you need to do is bide your time a little and let your fighter regain some composure which is the tactical element to the game. Yes it can be frustrating if you’re laying the smackdown on someone, got them on their last legs and your fighter decides to start blowing out of their backside, but that’s just how it is, it’s a fight, it’s tiring… manage your fight better!

The game is a big learning curve for someone like myself whom has never played an MMA game before and whilst the first 2-3 fights were frustrating like mad, that is no different to me playing FIFA and getting spanked on it because someone is better / more experienced than myself. With practise, you will OBVIOUSLY get better.

The game is not ‘broken’ as some reviews will have you believe, I think the issue with these players is that they would expect to just be able to pick the game up and play without any practise which is not the case.

I’m enjoying it at the moment, and whilst it is difficult on occasions to beat a more skilled apponent, I will defo be picking it up many more times to keep improving and enjoying it as I get better.

Good game for the UFC fan aand someone who is willing to actually give it a chance