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EA Sports MMA

EA Sports MMA

EA Sports steps up to challenge THQ and UFC for the belt. Does EA Sports MMA have what it takes to dethrone the champion?

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I appreciate the difficulty that lies in trying to create a balanced and entertaining MMA game, suitable for the hardcore Fedor fan as well as the casual fan who happened to flick on the latest TUF episode and just wants to see some ass whopping.

Despite the problems, and thousands of aborted animations, hard to portray nuances of different martial arts disciplines and the unique styles of the fighters themselves, Yuke's managed to turn UFC 2010 Undisputed into a pretty good game. Sure, the boxing was almost as robotic as in the predecessor, and the clinch system wasn't great. But the balance of styles, the pace and the ground fighting was good.

Perhaps there weren't a lot of people who thought EA Sports could take on and defeat UFC in their first try, but I had high hopes for EA Sports MMA, and felt confident after a couple of hours with the game a couple of months ago. But after a week spent in the hulking frame of Alistair Overeem and more than 50 hours with EA Sports MMA I am sad to have to say that EA Sports MMA wouldn't last the first round with THQ's title.

What works well in EA Sports MMA works really well. The online mode feels really solid and polish as in all games from EA Sports. Stats are sorted in various categories and the fights flow without any real lag and I didn't experience any technical problems.

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EA Sports Live Broadcast is the most exciting part of the online component and something I predict will become very popular among those who look for a bit more depth than the repetitive career mode. Once a week EA will put together a real fight card with carefully chosen players from all over the world, and this weekly events will be broadcasted on EA's website an idea that sounds terrific to me.

The graphics in EA Sports MMA are also incredibly realistic and the animations outclass those found in UFC 2010 Undisputed. The ambition is easy to see from the start. EA Tiburon wanted to make a game with enough depth to please the hardcore fans without scaring away the casual players who may have caught a glance of an UFC event once or twice. The result is a game system to simplifies the complexity of mixed martial arts to greater extent than UFC 2010 Undisputed, and in the end offers a repetitive and shallow experience.

The main problem with EA Sports MMA is found on the ground. Every time you go from kick boxing to wrestling and brazilian jiu-jitsu the flaws are easy to see. All ground fighting is controlled with a single button. By quickly pressing the A-button (X on PS3), your fighter works to improve his position, while the same button pushing from the fighter on the bottom helps him prevent the advancement.

After only a few fights it becomes apparent that EA Sports MMA largely relies on and incourages button mashing which feels all wrong in a mixed martial arts game. At times it comes down to timing your button presses with the pulse of your fighter, but most of the time your best strategy is just pushing the button as fast as you can. If your opponent presses as fast or faster your attempt to advance your position fails, which creates stalemates worse than any I've encountered in a sports title for many years.

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Sure you can strike from the ground. Ground and pound is obviously a big part of EA Sports MMA as it in the sport as a whole. But striking from half or closed guard is as futile as playing pool with a piece of string, at least as long as the fighter on the bottom is mashing away on the same button. When this occurs the same hopeless stalemate happens. In the end you just lie there, both of you and look at each other, while the Track & Field fingers do their thing.

This system is obviously something the developers should have looked over and structured differently. In UFC 2010 Undisputed you can rotate the left analogue stick in different direction to perform transition. A far from perfect system, but it still puts higher demands on the players than EA's button mashing.

After learning to hate the ground fighting in EA Sports MMA after a few hours you will have to learn how to keep the fight standing. Something that is easier said than done as EA Tiburon has gifted the wrestlers a distinct advantage, and even if most of them (Couture, Randleman, Lashley, King Mo, Melendez) quickly have to tap against submission aces like Aoki, Diaz and Werdum if they aren't careful about placing their wrists, takedowns are important in the eyes of the judges and key to claiming the belt.

Apart from that the balance of styles and fighters is okay. Fedor is the best fighter in the game, which is only natural, and he is followed by Gil Melendez and Nick Diaz. It quickly becomes apparent that EA Sports MMA almost completely lacks fighters from the largest MMA organisation and the roster doesn't feel very exciting at all.

Sure, we've got Alistair Overeem with his massive frame and crisp kick boxing. Randy Couture is also there, thanks to signing on with EA Sports while he was in between UFC contracts, and in the lightweight division we find Dream's Shinya Aoki and his colourful tights. Apart from these fellows, Diaz, Mousasai, Melendez and Dan Henderson, there aren't a lot of superstars in the EA locker room.

Fighters from the past such as Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Jeff Monson, and Bas Rutten give the game a scent of old dried up skin that is hard to shake. EA could just as well have skipped this old timers, as they are not exactly relevant these days (I'm trying hard to erase the last seven years of Ken Shamrock's career in my head).

When it comes to the boxing and kick boxing in EA Sports MMA it feels more natural and dynamic than in UFC 2010 Undisputed - if it weren't for the fight stick system that no matter how much you train all to often resembles a lottery. You wave, pull, and rip the stick and the precision boxing of say a K.J. Noons is nowhere to be seen. You can change the settings and use the buttons to strike, but this also changes the rest of the button layout radically and creates problems with the clinch fighting among other things.

But to be fair, the boxing in EA Sports MMA looks much more realistic than in UFC 2010 Undisputed. The punches look more loose, all fighters move better and more natural, and mixing punches and kicks are rewarded in a better way than in rival games. It's a great please to step into the role of Overeem and open with three quicks jabs, get in close and land a solid right hook to the body, and then move out and finish the combination with a K-1 style leg kick.

Another part of EA Sports MMA that works well is the clinch. To clinch with an opponent is very simple. While you try and clinch up you open yourself up to uppercuts or knees every time, but once you have pressed your opponent up against the ropes or the cage you can quickly overwhelm him with short elbows, knees to the thighs or body or back out and land a couple of deadly uppercuts.

The difference between fighting in a traditional boxing ring (as in Dream or the late Affliction), and doing it in a cage (Strikeforce) is just about big enough to make a difference to the fighting without forcing you to reinvent your style. In the ring wrestlers don't have the same advantage they have in the cage (just as in real fighting), and the sense of freedom when fighting in a Dream ring after being locked inside a Strikeforce cage for 50 fights is great.

EA Sports MMA is hardly a fighting game I would play when I want to measure my gaming skills with someone or when my mma fanatic friends come over for a visit. The most obvious holes in the game system quickly create frustration, and the casual accessibility of the fighting doesn't rhyme well with the serious tone of the presentation. EA Sports MMA is unlike UFC 2010 Undisputed an arcade game that will only be used for quick fights where you measure your button mashing skills. Which is a shame.

Apart from the problems with the fighting systems there are other weak points of the game that I find it difficult to tolerate. Among these are the fact that the rounds consist of five real time minutes, and the rounds feel extremely long. Nintendo seconds with rounds that are about two minutes long would have been more fitting, and would have created more intensity in the actual fights.

EA Sports have looked at UFC 2010 Undisputed and other sports games from within the family of EA Sports title to create the career mode. You start off at Pancrase legend Bas Rutten's place and he gives you a few words of encouragement as you aim to reach the top of Strikeforce. The career mode is okay, even if it's not as deep and detailed as I would have hoped for. It becomes repetitive rather quickly and it feels a bit like EA Tiburon played it safe.

The worst part of EA Sports MMA is the ground fighting. The second worst part is the exaggerated loading times and awful and repetitive commentary from Mauro Ranallo. The visuals are easily the best part of the game. The camera is more zoomed out than in THQ's latest effort and you can spot every facial expression from the fighters during bouts. All fighters look exactly as they do in real life, and the animations are amazing. This is not enough to save the game from what is really a rather mediocre first attempt. Better luck next year, EA.

HQ
EA Sports MMAEA Sports MMAEA Sports MMAEA Sports MMA
06 Gamereactor UK
6 / 10
+
Beautiful animations, great fighter models, Dream ring and Strikeforce cage, dynamic boxing.
-
Weak presentation, awful commentaries, terrible ground fighting, bleak roster.
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

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