UFC: Throwdown

 E3 2002

Somewhere between FX’s Toughman Competition and professional boxing lays The Ultimate Fighting Championship.  In comparison, UFC makes boxing look like a round of mini-golf.  This no holds-barred intense fighting competition is infamous for its brutality and innovation of matching different fighting styles against each other.  Crave Entertainment’s third UFC title, UFC: Throwdown, is coming to PS2 and GameCube consoles this June.  Get ready to rumble. 

For those not familiar with the previous UFC titles, Ultimate Fighting Championship for the Playstation and Dreamcast and UFC: Tapout for the Xbox and Dreamcast, the UFC series features standard stand-up punch and kick fighting as well as a complex grappling fighting system.  UFC isn’t a standard fighting game, nor is it a standard wrestling game.  It happily stands between the two genres, combining the best of both worlds into one.  Players looking for another WWE or Tekken title won’t get either with UFC, but should be pleasantly surprised with this unique take on the tired fighting genre. 

The fighters all look menacing, and plenty of detail was put into the graphics.  Scowls, roars, and fist-pumping are standard emotions that erupt from the massive modern-day gladiators.  The GameCube version uses over 9,000 polygons for fighters for maximum realism.  Repeated punches to the face, rolling counters, and swift kicks all flow smoothly and look terrific.  Fighter entrances are also incredibly detailed, inciting a near riot in the crowd and hyping up competitive to explosive Chernobyl-like proportions.  Gamers will swear they’re at the match thanks to the incredible replication of the atmosphere of UFC.  Fireworks explode, music blares, and players taunt in the true UFC spirit of pummel or be pummeled. 

The various fighting styles are easy to pick up, but difficult to master.  Want to be a master of Jiu-Jitsu and specialize in forcing your opponent to cry “Uncle”?  No problem.  Prefer to puree your enemy with a barrage of Thai Kickboxing kicks?  No Problem.  How about laying your challenger out with one brutal street-fighting punch?  No problem.  All the fighting styles of UFC are here, and boy are they devastating. 

The best part of the game is creating a fighter in Career mode.  Arrange his looks, height, weight class, dress, and moves with ease and take him to the ranks of the elite through a series of progressive challenges.  Once he’s ready, throw him in to the UFC tournament for a shot at the title belt against 25 other real UFC competitors including Tito Ortiz and Jens Pulver.  Other game modes include UFC mode, Arcade mode, Tournament mode, and Training mode.

UFC: Throwdown makes its way to the PS2 and GameCube this June.  Beating people to a pulp never looked or felt so good.