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Perhaps this is just me, but my fingers tend to slip from the sticks after a while or just feel uncomfortable, so when I have to transition to the next phase, I am out of sorts or even end up flicking in the wrong direction. Online, most opponents just repeatedly flick in every single direction when attacking so any progress at all is minimal. Offline, the AI turns into AlphaZero, always knowing where you are going and even getting a headstart. I didn’t become friends with it in UFC 2, and it’s the same case here – there just has to be a better mechanic than pushing in a direction and trying to outfox the opposition. While in a submission, an octagonal overlay that’s controlled with the analog sticks is the difference between victory or defeat. The already flawed version found in UFC 2 is replicated in its entirety here except for a couple of new nuances. If this is to promote the ground game of UFC 3, it’s perhaps not a wise decision. In the real thing, it’s unlikely that an opponent would be able to stand up after more than three knockdowns, but it’s commonplace here. Even if you manage to land a hit on them at this point and they hit the canvas, they will more often than not get back on their feet – unless you land an utterly decisive blow that catches them while they’re attacking, UFC 3 tends to devolve into an extreme version of whack-a-mole where the opponent gets up and down multiple times. Once an opponent is dazed, they will defend like their life depends on it and then quickly recover.
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Getting them to crumple up in a heap on the floor, however, is another matter. It’s easy to stagger an opponent a well-placed kick to the head will often do the job. Online play, however, just turns into who can land the meatiest hits most often and the quickest, owing to how crazily durable fighters are. The AI responds to your patterns and starts predicting your next movement based on your gameplan to date, so a varied attack is required.
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Offline, and particularly anything on normal difficulty or above, fights can be fraught affairs, like a bloody game of checkers.
#EA SPORTS UFC 3 REVIEW OFFLINE#
The quality of the fights themselves can be split into two different experiences: offline and online. You have to press the right combination in an exact way there’s little room for interpretation. When these come off and your opponent is staggered, it’s empowering and makes you feel like a titan, but it doesn’t always work, your fighter often instead opting for a low kick, which leaves you open to the counter. It’s also harder to pull off the sport’s more ridiculous and powerful strikes with some rather complex input combinations. This may frustrate players, but it stops matches from always being slugfests that trap the opposition into unavoidable punching loops. Strikes feel meatier, but are limited to short combos of roughly around four strikes. One of UFC 3’s most fundamental gameplay changes comes to its stand-up game, which makes it feel less like a more grounded version of Tekken and closer to the real, bone-crushing, nose-breaking thing. Painstaking attention to detail has been paid to making McGregor feel like McGregor, weird pimp walk and all, so if you’re after a UFC game that looks the part, you’re going to find yourself utterly immersed inside UFC 3. In that regard, it’s a runaway success: fighters’ faces distort into pained and angered expressions when struck, the stadiums feel more alive than ever, and the commentators embellish the magnitude of fights like their real-life counterparts. The key improvements this time out comes in UFC 3’s adherence to the feel of the real thing. There are some meaningful, likely underappreciated improvements to fighter realism and depth, but overall it’s more of the same somewhat satisfying octagonal warfare. If you’re hoping for wholesale changes to UFC 2, you may leave EA’s third foray a little underwhelmed. Similarly to WWE games since they changed to 2K branding, the developer is making progress by the inch, evidenced by UFC 3 and its small gains over its predecessor.
#EA SPORTS UFC 3 REVIEW LICENSE#
It’s safe to say that since the UFC license changed hands between THQ and EA that the latter’s efforts haven’t quite hit the same note with fight fans.