An Outstanding Debut
EA, which apparently turned down the UFC license years ago, has crafted their own MMA title based, primarily, on the Strikeforce group. With UFC firmly in a position of dominance in real life and in the video game world, can EA's upstart new franchise provide an alternative?
Well, yes. Yes it can.
The biggest plus MMA has is that it controls significantly differently than the UFC titles. While UFC relied on precise movements on the sticks for submissions, MMA relies on timing and management of stamina to achieve submissions and escapes. No matter your skill level, the odds of the AI taking you down and keeping you down for an entire round is not very high. Escape can be done if you can master the timing and avoid button mashing which wears you out. Punching and kicking basically work via the Fight Night hit stick system and are very easy to grasp.
Its in the game's best interests that the controls are easy to use because career mode --- just like with Fight Night and UFC --- is a bit of a bore. Bas Rutten is your coach but his advice seldom seems to be more than cliches. The rest of the time, you get texts with fight contracts and you manage training camp visits.
One thing that I did like was how training camps work. You aren't expected to master combos to unlock special moves...you instead have to complete challenges, like parrying strikes or avoiding takedowns for a minute. It provides useful info on playing the game while you develop new skills to power up your fighter.
Your career lasts 40 fights and has you traverse 3 different promotions of different tiers. The rule sets vary league by league, which is a nice touch. One league has 20 minute fights with no rounds...so the rule variations can be considerable. Now, while I do follow MMA somewhat, I have to confess that I have no clue if the leagues --- outside of Strikeforce (which airs on Showtime and likely got itself booted from CBS after their last card on the network) --- are real. I assume not, but don't know.
The biggest flaw this game has is name recognition. Just like in real life, there is a marked difference in talent level for Strikeforce as opposed to UFC. They have some great fighters (Fedor, Overeem) and some legends (both Shamrocks, Couture), but the big names are mainly in UFC. Without big names, it will be hard for this franchise to compete long term.
Visually, this game exceeded expectations. I saw videos of this game for a while and, to be gentle, thought it looked horrible. Animations looked wonky and the characters just looked bad. The visuals have been cleaned up nicely and it looks really good. I think UFC looks better, but its not a big drop off. Mauro's commentary is as good as MMA commentary in a game can be. I gave up expecting life like commentary long ago.
I rented this, so I didn't bother playing online after watching a few online fights (those dudes have 900 fights under their belt). The online fights seemed to be lag free based on both fighters performances, but who knows?
EA Sports MMA is a really solid title in the MMA genre. It has great gameplay innovations that UFC titles would be well advised to rip off wholesale. But the lack of big names is a pretty big stumbling block.
