Game Review: Brawl it out in UFC 3

There are a few things that you are guaranteed with an EA Sports title - one is that you will get fully licensed players and second is that it will, at least, be a passable experience, if not a great one. Previous versions of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) have been interesting. While they struggled to bring the intensity of the sport to the videogame, they were decent games to play. The latest, UFC 3, has moved away from the previous games by learning from the mistakes and rebuilding the system to make one of the best UFC games yet.

The biggest change is the Striking mechanics - they have been revamped and the result is a complex range of moves that can be controlled in a simple way. You can stop moves midway, belt out a flurry of attacks or just block everything that comes your way. The stamina bar lets you know when your moves are tiring you out and the small coloured lines under the stamina bar let you know what part of your opponent you are damaging. While this is great, the landing of actual hits is awkward and once you are on the floor, the controls get sluggish and the game slows down to a crawl. We usually just try and knockout the opponent to avoid the wrestling bits.

What we really loved was the create-a-player mode, where you get to create and design your own player in your likeness and assign the best moves. The process is still cumbersome - it involves clicking a few pictures of your face, perfectly enough to match the example and uploading it through your web browser. If you don't match the example, be prepared to see a nightmarish version of yourself being pummeled by the likes of Conor McGregor. You don't have to use the feature - you can always sculpt a face, which allows for some nice cartoonish characters.

The career mode is entertaining; it has training and hype management, important factors when heading towards a match. Most opponents in the mode are easy to defeat, but the end bosses of every round are tough. The mode really makes you part of the entire circus that surrounds UFC and includes interviews with prominent personalities in the sport.

The fight and tournament modes are tame compared to the career mode - they feature ways to entertain. The UFC Ultimate team mode will have you collecting coins, fighting opponents and searching for rare cards. EA's take on UFC has been largely successful over the last few years. If you love UFC, this game is probably the best in the series and makes the complex systems involved in the fight, simple and approachable. However, if you don't care about UFC, there have been a few good fighting games out lately, including the recently reviewed Dragon Ball game.

UFC 3
Rating: 3.5/5
Developer: EA
Publisher: EA
Platform: PS4, XBO
Price: Rs 3,999