Once you’ve got a gym, you get 100 training points to spend for every week of training, and everything you do costs a certain amount of points. You have a meaningful choice of how you want your character to spend the time between fights. But resources are limited and better gyms require more cash per week of training, leading to tough decisions regarding whether you want a gym that’ll offer better training rewards but fewer weeks to train, or a lesser gym that will give you more weeks to accomplish everything you need to get done but smaller returns on your training. First, you get to choose which gym to train in, each with its cost of membership and its own focus, whether it be boxing, wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, or other forms of martial arts. The big, differentiating thing this time around is that you have a meaningful choice of how you want your character to spend the time between fights. Like its predecessors (and career modes in virtually every sports game these days) you start with a fledgling fighter working your way up through the ranks to get to the UFC. There’s something for everyone.Īlso in the win column, UFC 3’s new career mode is a big improvement over prior years. Or, if you hate the striking, there’s a new Submission Showdown mode that removes all strikes. Knockout Mode is particularly notable as it now has hilarious commentary from Snoop Dogg. Thankfully, if you hate the ground aspects of MMA, UFC 3 includes both Knockout Mode and Stand and Bang mode, both of which remove the option to take your opponent down. It's hard to tell what went wrong when the tables suddenly turn. In online mode, no such prompts exist at all. In single-player mode there’s at least a prompt to let you know which direction you need to block, but it’s very light colored and sometimes can blend in with the mat. More feedback with regards to whether you were too slow on a transition, don’t have enough stamina, or pressed the wrong direction would go a long way, because as it is it’s hard to tell what went wrong when the tables suddenly turn. The biggest problem is that there’s still just not enough information to let you know why you’re losing a dominant position. It would’ve been nice to see the same attention paid to the stand-up spent on the ground game, which hasn’t changed much since UFC 2. Even if it sometimes looks a little janky, the stand-up in UFC 3 is one of the best in the combat sports genre: it requires a ton of thought and stamina management, skillful use of your fighter’s combos, and a careful balance of offense and defense. Other times, you’ll get hit with a high kick in the armpit and fall face first on the mat.
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Sometimes a knockout strike will look like it hits just right, giving that satisfying crack and appropriate collapse. One area that could still stand to be improved is the impact of all these strikes, which is inconsistent at best. It's super satisfying to pick up on an opponent's tendencies and punish them. That being said, there’s a risk factor as well: swaying into a hook or ducking into an uppercut or knee can lead to big damage, which opens the door for all kinds of baits and mind games.
If they have a penchant for throwing lots of straight jabs, for instance, that can be dealt with by swaying left and right as you move inside. It’s super satisfying to be able to pick up on an opponent’s tendencies and punish them accordingly. You can now freely sway with the right stick to dodge and duck under punches and throw any punch or kick while moving – a combination that leads to a dynamic striking system that feels much closer to how actual fights in the UFC play out. In UFC 3 there are no parries, but that doesn’t mean there are no counters. Previous games adopted a Fight Night-style approach of using parries and counters, which always felt a bit out of place in an MMA fight.
UFC 3’s biggest change to its usually exciting fights is the complete reworking of its striking system. However, the sleazy, microtransaction-infested Ultimate Team mode casts a dark shadow over it. Its best moments, it’s a combat sports game that truly captures the excitement and depth of an MMA fight. While it still has some substantial holes to fill in, UFC 3 is certainly the best game yet in the series, thanks to its fantastic overhaul of the striking system and the much improved, goal-oriented career mode. The task of emulating the complexity of Mixed Martial Arts in video game form is not an easy one, and for the most part, the first two EA Sports UFC games have done a fairly admirable job of it.