UFC Sudden Impact Review

The wrestling genre has long been a tiresome venture for me. The pointless attacking of fellow human beings, while using chairs and bats just doesn’t appeal to me. If that’s the type of wrestling you think this is, you’re wrong. UFC: Sudden Impact is a realistic take on the sport.

Sudden Impact has a few different game modes, including tournament, story, versus, training, arcade, and champion road. The story mode allows you to create a wrestler. You choose his face, trunks, tattoos (and body placement), height, weight, name, date of birth, etc. Although you can be no younger than 18, your looks don’t vary by age. You could be born in the 1950’s and still look like you are in your early 20’s.

Once you select the character model most suitable for you, it’s time to choose an academy and fighting style. Fighting styles include wrestling, sumo, pit fighting, etc. Some fighting styles start off locked. You don’t jump directly into the UFC. Instead, you will go through a series of challenges.

Not only do you train, but you learn new moves in story mode. Matches begin simulated during the training stages, but will play out during tournaments. I’m not actually sure if it’s possible to lose a simulated match, but it is likely that if your skills aren’t high enough, you might lose a simulated match. Each month you hit a punching bag to gain more experience. Think of this as a simple slot machine with only 1 (instead of the normal 3) dials.

Here is a quick rundown of the controls. The left analog stick is used to move your character. Triangle is used to right punch, square to left punch, circle to right kick, and X to left kick. Combos are obviously taught throughout the game, but the building blocks of the combos are shown above.

The stadiums aren’t all that bad looking. Lasers and television screens add nice touches to the environments. The one problem is I didn’t notice much difference between arenas. In the audio department, the announcer at the beginning of each fight will repeat the same thing. Animations and sounds don’t change during this introduction. There is a nice variety of player models, though some of them seem low in resolution and detail.

When it comes down to fighters, UFC: Sudden Impact is just another game in the pack. I haven’t played previous UFC titles, but I presume that the gameplay mechanics from one game to the next, in a genre like this, can’t change too dramatically. Thus, purchasing Sudden Impact should only be reserved for the greatest of fans.