EA Sports UFC 2 Review – Not Quite The Knockout Punch We Hoped For

Despite a rash of injuries and supposed oversaturation, mixed martial arts is more popular now than ever before in North America. This is largely thanks to EA Sports UFC 2’s two cover stars, Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor. Both boisterous fighters have had recent setbacks inside the Octagon but can the game that bears their likeness succeed where they have stumbled as of late?

The good news is that EA Sports UFC 2 is a definite step up from last year’s gorgeous yet underwhelming offering. This can largely be attributed to the game’s totally revamped ground game that communicates jiu jitsu to the player better than any MMA game before. While transitions are still handled by using the right analog stick, gamers are no longer making quarter circles to move into position. Instead, it’s been streamlined to where players will have different choices by either moving the stick in the four main directions. These choices are effectively communicated on-screen at all times, so there’s never any confusion as to what you’re doing on the ground.

Submissions, which are applied by holding the left trigger in and using the right analog stick, work the same as in the last game once applied. The player escaping the hold is still trying to reach the edge of the on-screen indicator while their competitor tries to block their progress. These grappling exchanges typically end up being intense affairs that go down to the wire before someone either escapes or taps out like Mystic Mac.

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“These grappling exchanges typically end up being intense affairs that go down to the wire before someone either escapes or taps out like Mystic Mac.”

Grappling is only one part of mixed martial arts, however, and sadly the stand-up game still has some issues in EA Sports UFC 2. Movement can often feel awkward and too robotic as most strikes cause the player to completely stop in their tracks and stop moving forward to throw attacks. This is, of course, proper striking technique, but anyone who watches MMA will know that sometimes fighters will strike while moving forward or backwards. This is almost impossible to do here, and makes it way too difficult to finish off opponents that have already been rocked by successful strikes.

Other bits of awkwardness rear their head on the feet such as the game’s head movement. Players can choose to simply lean back and avoid every single punch thrown at their face. It’s almost comical when seen in the game. Proper head movement is apparently as simple as keeping your head in the exact same position, since your opponent will strike the air repeatedly (even if they are one foot away from each other) instead of changing their punch trajectory slightly. The game isn’t broken by any means, and the counter is to simply throw shots to the body instead, but it kills any potential realism.

Minor complaints aside, the striking mostly feels solid in EA Sports UFC 2. You’ll be throwing exotic strikes such as question mark kicks in no time, and it’s simple to learn with some nice depth. It’s just a shame that the movement felt more fluid in EA Sports MMA, a game that was made in 2010.

While the gameplay is improved in the sequel, there sadly isn’t many worthwhile modes to experience it in. The career mode is the most compelling offering as it has a few neat ideas in it. Much like in real life, your fighter can get injured during training camp by overtraining. This makes managing your camps feel like a tactical decision, although any realism is killed by some bad gameplay decisions. For example, you can’t choose to just rest a week to avoid negative consequences in a fight, and random events will occur such as your wrestling coach getting sick and you becoming unable to practice your grappling. High level MMA camps aren’t so small to where one person getting sick is going to cause an entire training camp to get derailed.

Sadly, the promising career mode is once again over after a few hours as you’re forced to retire after 30 or so fights. It actually handles this situation rather poorly in-game, as the amount of brain damage taken will cause your retirement. However, if you become popular, your career will be prolonged. Apparently being popular makes additional brain trauma totally fine, who knew. The lack of a longer career mode is disappointing, especially when you compare to the weeks you can spend playing Franchise mode in Madden. Perhaps the ability to run an entire gym full of competitors would’ve been a good way to extend the mode.

The other offerings are comprised of a mode where you can create your own events, a terrible striking-only mode where your goal is to land 5 successful strikes to win (seriously), and an Ultimate Team offering. While I typically can’t get into Ultimate Team in other EA Sports titles, this one was at least interesting at first. Your card packs aren’t filled with fighters, but instead you’re gaining new moves. It’s a cool setup and initially promising, but considering you have all of the same freedom to learn new moves during the game’s career mode it felt like a convoluted way to create a fighter. It’s also filled to the brim with in-app purchases.

Other than Ultimate Team, the rest of the online modes you would expect from an EA Sports title is included. You can try to improve your ranking online, or just face off against players in friendly exhibition rankings. There isn’t any incredible hooks to the experience, with online seemingly staying the same as last year’s game.

EA Sports UFC 2 still isn’t fully where the series should be at by now, but it’s a step in the right direction. The lack of compelling modes really hurts the product, especially considering how THQ was able to put out games with more variety to them. The overall gameplay has been improved substantially from last year’s outing, but striking still feels rough around the edges. Die hard mixed martial arts fans will find some fun here, but also some disappointment after they play enough exhibition matches.

***An Xbox One review code was provided by EA Sports***