Yeah, UFC 3 is a pretty good game!
And this is coming from a guy who isn't really a fan of UFC, hasn't played first two games and don’t know any of the fighters in the game apart from McGregor and Rhonda. I went in blind, didn't expect much from it and I was completely overwhelmed by how great it was.
If you played any EA Sports game then you already know what to expect from UFC 3 in terms of game modes. The usual stuff like Quick Fights, Career, Online Tournaments and *not so* surprisingly enough Ultimate Team are all present here so you’ll keep on coming back for quite a while.
Career is an interesting mode even though it doesn’t really do anything groundbreaking. It the same "underdog to alpha dog" journey of your character which you’ve been playing in other games since forever. You start small, a low-level nobody and you fight your way to superstar level.
As far as I know, all of the fighting styles are here from boxing to kickboxing, jiu-jitsu, wrestling etc. and you have to choose one when you start. After that you start building up your character, training in your basement, slowly getting your stats up, fighting other fighters, earning small amounts of money which you can use to buy memberships to better gyms where you get a little bit better, fight some more, get invited to join UFC and so on.
This is as basic as it gets, choose an opponent, train in the gym, spar with someone from the gym, do a little promotion for the fight each week and at the end the big fight. It’s a nice gameplay loop and even though it’s basically the same thing from the start till the “end”, it still felt awesome each and every time you bashed someone’s head over and over again with hooks, jabs, uppercuts and the occasional high kick.
You feel great while playing this game, you feel great when a punch or elbow to the head connects and you feel awesome when you find the opening and the body kick goes through. Maybe I sound like a little psycho here, but god damn the game feels extremely satisfying.
The high graphical fidelity plays a major role in this with realistic character models, realistic animations and flow and a satisfying player feedback for anything you do or that happens to you. You feel immersed, you feel every punch and kick, you feel when you're tired an when your stamina is low, you feel the public shouting and reacting to what is happening, you feel vulnerable when your opponent starts throwing punches, you are there in the octagon and that’s really really cool.
As I said at the start, I didn’t expect to like it as much as I actually did. Of course, there are a few parts that I don’t like eg. the whole grappling and submissions. And this not only in the game but also in real life. I mean you can’t put your balls and ass on someone’s face and contort his arm or leg in ungodly ways... that’s just wrong in all the possible ways. The in-game mechanics of getting out of a submission made no sense whatsoever and no matter how hard I tried, I failed every time and ended up restarting the match.
Brawler was my style and I reached a level were my punches were devastating, like they were made out of steel and it felt amazing. I turned McGregor’s head into a punching ball, he never stood a chance. And that’s how you should play this game, just kicks and punches, forget about the boring grapples and submissions.
Another mode I quite enjoyed playing was the Online Divisions mode which is exactly like the Online Divisions in FIFA. You fight against other players and well, all the matches feel unique as you’ll never know what to expect. Some players are just bad and you end up destroying their kidneys, but some other ones will whoop your ass in ways you wouldn’t even begin to comprehend.
I enjoyed Career a lot and by the looks of it, I will keep going back for more glory. Ultimate Team is interesting if you are into the whole cards thing and Online Divisions is always cool since you don’t know what to expect. UFC 3 is a fantastic fighting game and I am so glad I got a chance of playing it. Thanks for reading!
