EA Sports MMA

When EA Sports MMA it was pretty exciting. UFC was firing on all cylinders and at first, EA wanted nothing to do with the sport, until they realized they could make a ton of money from it of course. Well, the UFC was mad as hell, president Dana White stating that any fighter who teamed up with EA on this project would not be part of the UFC. Of course, fast-forward just a short while later and EA actually scoops up the rights to the UFC, killing this “franchise” before it even got started.

The Champ Is Here

The career mode that is on offer in EA Sports MMA is pretty awesome. You create your fighter and then you start your journey to become the king of the MMA world. It is not “story-driven” like many other fighting and sports games were doing at the time. Instead, the career mode on offer here is all about the fighting.

Rotating Sticks

EA struck gold with their Fight Night series and the way that they had you control it all with the analog sticks. EA Sports MMA uses a very similar control method. Rather than using the left analog stick to move and the buttons to attack. This game has you using the right analog stick to do your moves as well. It makes for a much more “tactical” and skill-based fight, eliminating any button mashing.

I think that this control scheme is fantastic, but I will admit that if you came into this game with no experience with the Fight Night series. The gameplay here is going to take a while to get used to and it does have quite the learning curve to get used to.

You Can’t Fight Without Rights!

A huge problem that EA had with this game was the roster. The UFC locked down their roster and only Randy Couture was able to be in the UFC and this game. Do not get me wrong there is an interesting cast of characters here, Bob Sapp, Dan Henderson, Ken Shamrock, Nick Diaz, and Frank Shamrock were a handful of the characters I was excited to play as before the game was released.

Needs More Standup

I think that EA Sports MMA plays great, I liked how it is skill-based, but the game is severely lacking in-game modes. The career mode is great and very well done, but outside of this, the game is all about playing with others. The online servers are long dead and to be honest, this game never really caught on when it was released so it never had the best player base. The real fun to be had here is playing with a buddy sitting next to you.

It’s In The Game!

Say what you want about EA, but they always bright their A-game when it comes to presentation and that is the same here. While the game looks great, the fighters are well detailed and the animations are awesome. The presentation suffers the same way that the roster does and that is a lack of a UFC license. As a result, the game feels more like a “knock-off” than a proper fighting league.

Pros:

• The actual fighting feels very solid
• The game has a TV-style presentation
• Despite the lack of a UFC license, the roster is solid
• Career mode is very well done

Cons:

• The lack of the UFC pretty much kills this game
• There is very little in terms of game modes on offer