The Demo was released today on the PS4 and XBO in case you didn't know, so what did you think of it?

I played the hell out of UFC 3 and thought it was a great game, made things a little simpler in terms of mechanics (i.e. submissions) while also adding in the ability to go through the career as an actual fighter. So right off the bat EA has a lot to achieve for me to really care about the game, and I hoped they succeed.

But after just playing the demo for about...30 or 45 minutes I can't say I am excited anymore. I felt like a little step foreword in general but steps backwards in other areas I really care about.

First and foremost the controls were very confusing. The demo didn't help to clarify things that much but when I actually fought I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing, mainly in ground transitions and specifically submissions. Submissions are my favorite part of the sport and something I thought THQ nailed in the last game, a stupid but self explanatory mini game that made more sense then spin the R stick in a certain direction...no the other direction...wait was it the other direction that the first two games had. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing in this game, you point the stick in either 4 different directions and something happens...it made no sense and right there, kills the day one sell for me because submissions and the ground game are just as important as the stand up and striking. If the submission game is just going to end up being something I avoid entirely (like 09 and 10 games) then I don't care about your game.

Second it looks nice, some weird looking stuff here or there, the entrance shot of Jones and Gus was goofy and Jones looked stoned off his ass but the game looked fine. I don't think it looks significantly better than the previous game, but new hardware and first try at this which means the next game could look phenomenal. Animations were a bit repetitive, like getting taken down the same way, every time was frustrating to watch. But the controls (when working) felt responsive and had somewhat controll over my character, would really like the swaying ability that was in the previous game but that was way more of a boxing mechanic, if you watch MMA, head movement is few and far between.

Third a lot, A LOT of repetitiveness in the game in general. I talked about the animations but that is understandable in my book, fighters tend to do the same move, strike, takedown a lot in fights many times, my problem with that was an elaborate slam took me down over and over again in one round. But the commentary is forgettable, terrible, and awful. At the end of each round they highlight the 3 "important" events that took place during the round and Rogan said the same thing, each time. That was just depressing. I wish Buffer would be more enthusiastic, its a championship fight, not the first fight on the card. But he was pretty monotone and not very excited to be there announcing the rematch between Bones and the Mauler, seemed like he had a plane to catch.

In my time with it I was....my worries were confirmed for the most part, it is an ok entry from EA and gives me hopes for the next UFC game where the things that I don't like, are typically made better. This will not be a day one purchase from me unless by all accounts reviews are glowing and the tutorial is explained better and some of these worries I have listed above are proven wrong, but I doubt that. This will probably be a game I get when its around the 20 or 15 dollar mark in September and have a little fun with it, all the time I wish I was just playing the previous entry. To be honest I really wish they would put out the next one within the next 12 to 18 months, I think they can improve a pretty ok game a lot during that time.

So what did you guys think?

Tons of stuff to absorb with that tut.

Looks very good. Animation still ehhh.

@nightriff:

I've recently watched a trailer on its submission system. I thought the HUD was intrusive, but it seemed to make sense to me. Have a look.

Yeah I'm not going to lie, as a huge fan of the 3 THQ games, some of the footage I've seen has made me very skeptical.

Animation is a little stiff and awkward in some situations, but all-in-all I think it's probably the best MMA based game since EA MMA.

Ya, after the tutorial I pretty much forgot everything except the striking. I couldn't figure out how to stop transitions or begin a submission or anything. And I played the 3 last THQ releases and EA MMA.

EA MMA's submission system, if I remember it correctly, seemed a lot better than this new one. Graphically it seemed good but I agree Jones and Gus look kind of weird. It looks like they gave Jones 20 extra pounds of muscle around his shoulders and neck or something. He just looks off.

And some of the robotic movements here and there and odd transitions from scenes (mostly during intros) still bother me. Seems like it's always in these games, but I end up not noticing them.

Will buy. My expectations are lowered though.

@seppli: Thanks for posting that, somewhat makes sense now compared to the tutorial instructions. I think it is a bit overly complicated and I prefer the UFC 3 method of the cat and mouse chase but this seems fine.

The in game tutorials are not great and make the control scheme seem harder than it is, if anyone playing the demo is having issues with it you can go here:

http://www.easports.com/ufc/news-updates-gameplay/article/ea-sports-ufc-tips-and-tricks-video-tutorials

edit- Also there is a pretty good dodging and parrying mechanics (including head movement) in the game that is not explained too well with the in game tutorials, same with the submission mini game.

Getting this really weird visual glitch.

Yeah, I think it's about time I just tried to buy a new PS4. This thing has been messed up since I got it. Ah well.

I liked it. But then again I really liked the last MMA game the put out. And I thought the THQ games got worse as they went on. So I guess I am in a different boat then the rest of you. I'm more excited for this game now. The career mode looks amazing. I like playing on the show to get your start. And the ability to play as women fighters is cool. I do agree the ground game needs work. It doesn't seem like anything was improved from their last game. And it also feels more clunky. The striking seems way too fast also. But overall I liked it.

My opinion. Not ready for prime time. Animations, especially transitions and take downs are not smooth and captured well at all. Controller input just doesn't seem to match the action on the screen. Combat lacks impact. Overly complicated controls. I could go on but I going to agree with the Op, I'm incredibly disappointed because anticipation for this game was the tipping point for me to jump into next generation. What makes it even more disappointing is that this is coming from the Fight Night Champion team who I thought was a perfect choice to take over the reins. Instead we get another example of just cause it's pretty doesn't make it good. I do have to give EA credit though for putting a demo out there so that consumers can make a informed purchase. Or in my case a used purchase far down thread.

I really liked it, I was actually hoping it would control closer to the old EA MMA game but I am fine with it going with the THQ style. It certainly feels like one of the old Undisputed games but with a bit more polish. It is tough to judge too seeing as you can only play on Easy with accelerated time but it does feel a bit more accessible than the undisputed games. The game looks great both in the main fidelity but also the touches of the blood dripping and stuff like that. While the animations can get kind of clunky at times I do like the variety that there is and how animations can tie together pretty well.

The general feeling of landing a well timed or counter punch is really good to me. I can a good sense of hitting open air when not landing a strike but then also good feedback when landing a solid strike. I have only won by KO/TKO so far, I like that they standardized submissions but it is so tough to pull off in the demo because of how fast it is.

My hope is that in the full game with the normal clock speed and higher difficulty the game will be slowed down. That way you won't be able to spam strikes and setting up submissions would be easier.

Also man I hope the full game has way more commentating, cause most of it in the demo is so bad. There both isn't much commentating and what is there isn't very well tailored and not very clear.

It seemed ok, demo didn't immediately grab me the way the THQ demos did (I've never owned a full UFC game). I did like the way blood was working, though. Like some other people in the post I almost immediately forgot everything about grappling and submissions once I got into the full fight, all my takedown attempts were failures while dude kept suplexing (fucking OS X Mavericks not knowing that word and auto correcting to duplexing over and over) me. I got knocked out early in the second round by a superman punch.

I also had the same problem that would plague me in Fight Night Champion where I'm throwing as many as 100 less punches than my opponent and yet I still seem more tired (eventually I just became a homeless man's interpretation of Floyd Mayweather and made my way to Isaac Frost where I promptly gave up as I'm sure many people did). It was hard to read the status of the fighters throughout the fight, it seemed like the health and injury indicators kept refilling and going from red to blue. I'd like to be a defensive player in this, too, but defense doesn't seem nearly as fun as offense.

The standing game seems way too arcade-y. I should be punished for attempting dumbass flashy moves with no control, not rewarded for it. I went from "definitely buying" to "probably not" just from the demo.

It needs some basic tweaks. For starters, defending agsinst takedowns (that the game telegraphs a year in advance in animation) should not be this unnecessarily complex and difficult to pull off (and as a side note to that; "highlights" are pretty boring when the game sees a slam takedown as the gold standard for mma action).

I wish block was R1 instead of R2 since you need to use it all the time.

While I understand the general grappling techniques, I am still not sure what decides if I get out and up from under an opponent. I feel like I click L3 and swirl around on whichever analog does the transitions in order to get up. But I don't feel like I know what matters.

Sometimes I feel like I am fighting my opponent AND my character's own animations. Especially if they get "rocked". Having the game force my character to shield himself instead of letting me decide the course of action (but with some risk of losing, i guess) would be nice.

Opponent on easy being this relentless and aggressive is just crazy.

That all being said, I am having fun with it and I feel like I am learning as I go. When you get a nice counter combo going, it's really satisfying. While I have some issues with it, I can see myself getting into it.

I lost the first three matches I tried. I don't think it was actually difficult, if it was just me not being able to master the controls. Or remember them from that crappy tutorial.

@sterling: It's not difficult per se, but how fast you get beaten (if you mess up) and how much you have to work to win on such a low difficulty feels off to me. But maybe I got used to cakewalk easy fights with the earlier ufc/ea mma games.

No, Easy mode on any sports/fighting game should certainly be a glorified training mode. I definitely thought this game was on Normal during my first fight. The second fight went better even though I still don't understand grappling as well as I did on the THQ demos. I won in a split decision after 3 rounds and one knockdown (also from a superman punch). So far I don't really like the button commands, to be honest. The THQ demos always felt really natural but there's something sort of robotic about this one. Both fighters in the demo seem pretty similar, too, and I don't follow enough UFC to know if that's actually the case.

I also threw 120 less strikes than Gustafsson, again. I just landed a significantly higher percentage of my significant strikes.

It's a mess.

You don't have to work to win at all actually. There's two very simple ways to do so.

1. As others have said it's arcadey and not realistic in the least. The AI throws and throws and throws to the tune of roughly 100 strikes per round. Dodge until they're low on stamina, which won't take long, take them down, you'll probably be in side control, transistion to top mount. This is the only time stamina actually does anything, since they're undoubtedly out of it at this point press up on the left stick to "posture up". Hold LB + RB then press X and Y to throw big elbows. Since they're out of stamina they can't properly block or prevent you from posturing up. Spam them until you're out of stamina or they're done. If you don't spam them then they'll probably get a transistion themselves as stamina seems to have absolutely no effect on that and defending those transistions seems to just not work. (All of these things contribute it to being a mess.) Click left stick to stand up if you haven't won and repeat.

2. Run up to them and hold LT then button mash to throw body shots and they'll be down in 15-20 seconds. They're too busy trying to throw 100 strikes per round to block low.

I think it's really fun actually. Though wish I could try it on different difficulty since I've won every time, though probably because the game makes the hits you can take pretty generous. Another thing is that I've really only played around with striking since I haven't really needed to grapple or go to ground.

Looks great too, hope they have entrances though. The UFC games always missed those.

Oh and funny thing is that when I was playing for the first time my brother was watching and told me to skip the tutorial. I go to skip and then Dana White yells at you for not spending five minutes to learn the game. It was actually really funny when both of us didn't expect it.

From the comments I've been seeing about the demo it just seems to me like the negative reactions about it have been coming from people who have only tried it for a few minutes and gave it no chance. I played the hell out of the previous mma games starting with UFC 2009. I didn't play UFC 3 because I got tired of the horrible animations from THQ which is funny because the same people who praise that game are complaining about the animations in EA UFC. I played a ton of EA MMA and this game feels nothing like that which is expected because it's not made by the same people, a fact that a lot of people don't seem to understand.

As far as it being a slugfest and the computer just throwing bombs all round, it makes sense because the computer is on easy, they keep throwing like idiots and blow their stamina in just a few moments making it super easy to counter and knock them out in the first round. I've gotten to the point where I wish it would let me change the difficulty so that I wouldn't just KO them in the first round after a parry or two. The ground game is tricky to get used to at first because you have to be paying attention to your stamina and the animations of your opponent to know what buttons to hit to stop them whether they are trying to get up or transition or submit you. Honestly though I'm glad the controls are difficult to learn because that means there is some depth to it.

It's not an absolute perfect representation of mma but knowing what the fight night guys have done before, why was anyone expecting it to be? It has its flaws but overall I'm still very happy with what I've played so far. I wish the ref was more interactive and I really don't like the way they are handling TKO's, or not handling with what is in the demo anyway. But presentation wise and graphically the game looks fantastic to me and I really can't complain about the way the game looks.

I would say to give it a little extra practice and at least get to understand the controls and how to use parries and counters because this game is all about that. And keep in mind this is just a demo, I don't know why people are getting so upset with a demo of a game that hasn't even come out yet.

I feel like many of the AI issues come from it being on easy and with accelerated time. I'm of two minds on the controls. Sometimes I really enjoy the feeling, and other times I cant tell what does what (the strike modifiers were confusing to me). I liked the new submission minigame. It seems like a few steps forward but a few steps back.

It has issues, some of which can be patched easily, some that will likely be fixed just by being able to change the difficulty/clock speed, and some that I'm not sure will ever be fixed and we're just going to have to accept it as growing pains of a new team's first MMA game.

The tutorial in the demo is garbage. It really is. It doesn't go over half of the stuff that's explained in the tutorial videos online like technical transitions, and the pause menu doesn't even have a controller map (also available online). It also doesn't give you the opportunity to practice moves more than the 3-5 times you're required to pass that section of the tutorial. You can retry specific sections, but that's obtuse. I hope that the full version has a practice mode or some advanced tutorials. Blocking transitions and making sure you transition in the direction you want is very difficult to get the hang of in a live fight. This is aggravated by the fact that the controls are incredibly complex. Everything except for straight punches requires a modifier, whether it's a direction on the left stick, a shoulder button (or two), or both. It's kind of ridiculous. Hopefully future iterations will streamline that.

The easy difficulty makes for very boring fights. It's extremely easy to get KO's once you understand just a little defense to able to counter and the only time the CPU has escaped one of my submission attempts is when I screwed up the left stick prompt. EA has talked a lot about how advanced their AI is for this game, so hopefully once we have the option of turning up the difficulty we'll be able to see some of that.

That's a lot of negative, but let's end on the good stuff. The graphics are gorgeous and the physics are second to none. Fighters are easily recognizable, and while striking animations are a little stiff, body deformation, facial expressions, and limb interactions have never looked this good. You would never see a guy go for a head kick and get his foot stuck on his opponent's shoulder momentarily in the last gen MMA games. I'm also really impressed with the transition animations on the ground. There's no clipping of legs or arms (though there is still some with shorts) and all the guard passes look smooth and realistic. Once you get past the learning curve of the obtuse controls, you have so many options and it all looks so good.

I'm incredibly excited for this game and can't wait to pick it up later today.