UFC: Sudden Impact review (PlayStation 2)

Every once in a while, you'll be presented with an evaluation challenge at the end of the month, but you don't actually do anything during these evaluations except hit a punching bag in a timing-based minigame or you do nothing at all while your created character sits in the corner of the screen, punching and kicking at thin air, which is supposed to represent sparring against another recruit or fighter. To be fair, at the end of each year, you do get to take part in a real UFC-style tournament against a bunch of generic characters, though the outcome of the tournament doesn't seem to have any real bearing on whether or not you graduate to the UFC level. Additionally, graduating to the UFC level only means that you can use your created fighter in the remainder of the game's modes. Once you've hit year three, if you make it to the UFC, the mode ends. Again, the idea of a career-based training mode to design your own fighter is a great idea, but Sudden Impact's career mode barely scratches the surface of a mode of this type's potential, and the mode ultimately fails to be anything more than a tepid, dull waste of time.

Though the UFC games up to this point have always managed to sport some generally attractive graphics, Sudden Impact's visuals are decidedly lackluster. Most of the basic character models for the fighters look roughly the same as they always have, though the faces seem a bit lower in resolution, by comparison, and the body types seem more exaggerated and less-to-scale than in previous games. The fighting arenas look almost exactly like they always have, and nearly all of the same fighting animations from earlier games have been recycled as well, save for the animations for the few, new fighting positions. Overall, the look of the game just seems extremely dated. The same can be said for the game's less-than-stellar audio, which mainly just consists of the standard theme songs that play during fighter entrances, the usual grunts and impact sounds of punches and kicks, and the flat ring announcing of Bruce Buffer.

When it comes right down to it, UFC: Sudden Impact is just another languid translation of the exact same game you've been playing since the days of the Dreamcast. Sudden Impact is pretty much on autopilot in every aspect of its execution, presenting just the bare minimum to make a playable UFC game. If you own any other entry in the UFC franchise, you don't need to own Sudden Impact, because the minimal number of additions--such as the few added fighting positions and the incredibly lame career mode--do absolutely nothing to further the UFC name in any meaningful direction.