EA Sport UFC Guide

While there are training challenges that you can take part in to fine tune your standing, clinch, and/or ground game, we found these to be a bit too easy to complete EA Sport UFC. We managed to get black belts on almost every clinch and ground attack training drill, but all too often we had to resort to button bashing when we went to use our new found skills in the octagon.You’ll spend most of your time in the career and online modes. In career mode you have to fight your way to the top by progressing though the UFC’s The Ultimate Fighter. The game stitches video segments from previous series of The Ultimate Fighter into your career mode and while it’s a nice way to pad out the game, it does feel a bit gimmicky, as the scenes don’t really add anything to your career.The online mode works quite well and we didn’t experience any lag or sore losers that ended a match early, which was a welcome surprise, and better yet, because you’re fighting real people and not the game’s AI there’s a lot more variety to your opponent’s fighting style. The new control scheme does still require a certain degree of finger gymnastics in order to perform particular techniques, but by moving each offensive move to the face and shoulder buttons, the right stick is freed up to be used exclusively for ducking and weaving, while the left stick is dedicated entirely to movement, allowing you to throw strikes and move at the same time. Once you're comfortable in the octagon, the aforementioned G.O.A.T. Career Mode is on-hand to test you against the world's greatest fighters. With a few fights on the regional circuit under your belt, it doesn't take long until you impress Dana White enough to earn a UFC contract and can begin climbing up the ranks for a shot at a championship.

Ultimate Team returns and continues to be a curious addition to the world of mixed martial arts. With one-on-one fights on the agenda, sport UFC  particular flavour of Ultimate Team lacks the appeal of concocting your own unstoppable dream team. Instead, card packs are bundled with not just fighters, but tiered moves, perks, and bonuses as well, essentially painting each fighter as blank canvases for you to outfit with whatever moves you choose. It's a fascinating idea, and there are a number of single and multiplayer modes for you to unleash your Frankenstein's monster on. Microtransactions are still a factor, letting you spend real-world money on premium card packs, but there's enough in-game money to be earned from various fights and challenges that paying real money never seems necessary. Time will tell whether this changes once you fancy testing your mettle at high-level Ultimate Team play.Sweeping and passing is just too easy, since you will always succeed unless your opponent does the correct counter. That might sound fair on paper, but in practice it takes all the urgency out of the ground game. I’m never more than a single click of the analog stick away from getting back to my feet if my opponent misses their counter window, which makes fighting for a dominant position more or less meaningless. If you do manage to take your opponent to the ground and get them into a submission hold then a mini-game of sorts pops up and it then becomes a battle of who can out wit their opponent first. An octagon shape appears on screen and it’s the defender’s job to break out of the hold by flicking the right stick, while the attacker tries to strengthen their hold by flicking the left stick.

You’ll spend most of your time in the career and online modes. In career mode you have to fight your way to the top by progressing though the UFC’s The Ultimate Fighter. The game stitches video segments from previous series of The Ultimate Fighter into your career mode and while it’s a nice way to pad out the game, it does feel a bit gimmicky, as the scenes don’t really add anything to your career.The online mode works quite well and we didn’t experience any lag or sore losers that ended a match early, which was a welcome surprise, and better yet, because you’re fighting real people and not the game’s AI there’s a lot more variety to your opponent’s fighting style. Fighters in UFC have slack zombie faces and dead eyes, but their bodies take cringe-inducingly realistic damage. More than once, my immediate reaction to a knockout was "that person is dead now." Damage is done to specific areas of the body, and you can see how well you're whaling on someone via a diagram of their body in either corner of the screen. As an area gets weak, it turns red, signaling its increased vulnerability. EA Sports UFC allows you to use every limb, elbows and knees, even your shoulders to do harm; to target either leg, the midsection, the head. And it doesn't seem to give a shit if you get any of it, or learn anything about its systems. My solution playing through career mode was to get taken down to the mat as infrequently as possible, and to furiously push in the left stick when I was down, praying to get back to my feet.

You have to fight your way to the top by progressing though the UFC’s The Ultimate Fighter. The game stitches video segments from previous series of The Ultimate Fighter into your career mode and while it’s a nice way to pad out the game, it does feel a bit gimmicky, as the scenes don’t really add anything to your career.The online mode works quite well and we didn’t experience any lag or sore losers that ended a match early, which was a welcome surprise, and better yet, because you’re fighting real people and not the game’s AI there’s a lot more variety to your opponent’s fighting style. The new control scheme does still require a certain degree of finger gymnastics in order to perform particular techniques, but by moving each offensive move to the face and shoulder buttons, the right stick is freed up to be used exclusively for ducking and weaving, while the left stick is dedicated entirely to movement, allowing you to throw strikes and move at the same time.

Sweeping and passing is just too easy, since you will always succeed unless your opponent does the correct counter. That might sound fair on paper, but in practice it takes all the urgency out of the ground game. I’m never more than a single click of the analog stick away from getting back to my feet if my opponent misses their counter window, which makes fighting for a dominant position more or less meaningless. If you do manage to take your opponent to the ground and get them into a submission hold then a mini-game of sorts pops up and it then becomes a battle of who can out wit their opponent first. The new control scheme does still require a certain degree of finger gymnastics in order to perform particular techniques, but by moving each offensive move to the face and shoulder buttons, the right stick is freed up to be used exclusively for ducking and weaving, while the left stick is dedicated entirely to movement, allowing you to throw strikes and move at the same time. Once you're comfortable in the octagon, the aforementioned G.O.A.T. Career Mode is on-hand to test you against the world's greatest fighters. With a few fights on the regional circuit under your belt, it doesn't take long until you impress Dana White enough to earn a UFC contract and can begin climbing up the ranks for a shot at a championship.