UFC - Ultimate Fighter Championship

Graphics- 8
Sound    - 8
Control - 7
Replay   - 6


I read many reviews on this game to determine if I should buy it or not.  I found many good reviews on it... I don't understand why.  I love fighting games, and I love sports games.  This should be right in the middle. Well, this game just doesn't work for me.  The fighting system is just too lame for me.  Fights lasting only 30 seconds because of one mistake, is just stupid.  If you bought this because you figured the single player experience would be fun, then you just screwed yourself. 

The single player mode is not only boring, but extremely frustrating. The computer is perfect and never makes any mistakes, but since I'm only human, my ass got whooped over and over again.  It just wasn't any fun.  I tried button-mashing, and I tried strategically fighting... didn't get anywhere either way. 
I am pretty good at sports game, average at fighting games.  In UFC, I guess I need lots of training just to be mediocre.  On the easiest game setting this game can still kick your ass 5 times before you know it, and let's just say I'm lucky GD-ROMs are stronger than CD-ROMs, or I'd be owning BlockBuster some moolah.

Graphically though, this game could have been much better.  Yes, the graphics are nice, but they really could have done much more.  Like bruising, and blood that doesn't magically disappear into the mat.  UFC is supposed to be bloody as hell... this isn't.  You punch em, blood flies, then it gets sucked into nothingness by some evil invisible blood eating monster or something (not literally of course, but it really pisses me off blood doesn't stay!)  AND WHAT THE HELL IS WITH THE PIECE OF SHIT BODY MODELS DO I GET TO CHOOSE FROM FOR CREATE-A-FIGHTER?! The damn models are models of fighters already in the f-ducking game!!  The create-a-fighter could have been great, if they allowed you to choose what you wanted your guy to look like!  Lame effort here...

Sound, well, you've got the punching and kicking sounds, and impact... the crowd and the ref.. the announcer, some music... uhh... let's just say it sounds like it's supposed to, but they could have beefed it up a bit.  They could have made the punches/kicks sound harder, to make it feel a bit more fun.  Sometimes it's hard to tell whether they were going for an arcade of sim type of game.

Your 4 basic controls are left/right punch and left/right kick.  The control is very basic for a fighting game, except timing is EXTREMELY stressed in this game.  You miss one of your punches, and it could land on the mat tapping out in no time.  The entire aspect has you basically waiting for the opponent to punch you, and to counter it.  Chances are against the CPU, when you throw a kick out of the blue, you can expect it to block you, then kick the shit out of you, or counter you, throw you to the mat, and then kick the shit out of you (and this is just on the easiest setting).

If you're a UFC fan, then I would recommend this game to you.  If you're a fan of Tekken, Soul Calibur, or any other fighter like those, then rent it first.  Note that this game isn't like other fighting games out there, so don't expect to do killer 30-hit combos.  If you manage to do a 5-hit combo, then you've probably got the game mastered!  This is a tough game, and for fighting-game fans out there looking for a new challenge, this game is for you.

- The Drop