UFC: Sudden Impact

Ever since Anchor got their heads together and came up with the original game based on the Ultimate Fighting Championship for the Dreamcast, I’ve been hooked. The heady cocktail of the showmanship and pyrotechnics of the WWE, mixed in with real mixed martial arts fighting is for some reason, irresistible. The fact that the fighting engine contained more catches, reversals, blocks and downright brutal attacks than any other was also a bonus. However, since that first incarnation, the series has lost its way somewhat, and each title has been far too similar to the last to warrant any serious playtime.

UFC: Sudden Impact tries desperately to be different, though. The addition of a story mode where you must create a fighter and train him up over three years, is something which fans of the series have been wanting for a long time. With this mode, you must select a fighting style to learn at the beginning of each of the years, with each month allowing you two opportunities to build your skills and learn new moves. It sounds like it should be really fun and addictive to the UFC (or indeed WWE) fan, but there are problems. For starters, every time you select a training option, thirty seconds of loading commences. This wouldn’t be a problem if the training lasted for more than that, but given that some of the tasks are in the form of “punch your opponent twice”, they rarely are.

On top of this, should you fail in your “Focus Training”, you still get a nice amount of skill points added to your fighter’s stats, which kind of makes the whole thing pointless. The same goes for learning new moves. Quite how taking your opponent down twice will teach your fighter how to do a fireman’s carry is beyond me, but there you go. If your “New Move” training doesn’t go well, you still learn the move, although it isn’t as effective when used in a match.

I’m glad to say that the fighting engine remains intact and make no mistake, is still as pleasingly complex as ever. I’m sure that if two really good players got together for a few bouts, you would be able to call them videogaming classics. Added to this version of the engine is the ability to use the octagon walls to your advantage, with pushes to the cage and the infamous “Fence Mount” grapple can be devastating when used correctly. However, given that most players either won’t bother to pick up the intricacies of the engine and will successfully end a match in less than a minute using the old favourite of “mash the buttons as fast as you can” – it pretty much all goes for naught.

What did disappoint me with UFC: Sudden Impact is the overall feel of the game. The frontend system looks like it has been pulled from a PSone title and the loading times are about as quick, whilst in the octagon, the fighters seem to have lost a little definition and gained a few of the dreaded “jaggies”. The in-game part doesn’t matter a great deal, since you’ll be too busy trying to avoid a low sweep or front slam grapple, but during the introductions and suchlike, the problem makes itself known in a big way.

For those of you who don’t fancy creating a fighter from scratch, more than 35 of the top combatants from the UFC are included (with more to unlock), along with the standard arcade and championship modes of play. Just like in UFC: Throwdown, then.

Every series is allowed one poor title, isn’t it’ I hope so, because it would be a shame to see the UFC licence be wasted in subsequent below-par games. The ideas are most certainly starting to come through, and would have made UFC: Sudden Impact into an engaging experience was it not for the fact that the implementation of almost every single one of those ideas was so poor. This feels like a step back for the series, and hopefully the next iteration won’t feel like its been tapped out.