BUY EA SPORTS UFC 4 PLUS

Perhaps more important is the way the release puts an emphasis on personal taste. There are a lot of reused animations from the previous game, but kickboxing is still extremely entertaining, as you attempt to read your opponent and break through their guard. Faces warp and ripple as they receive stern blows, and combatants visibly bleed and bruise over the course of five brutal rounds. To be fair, the new submission mechanics work well, as you chase your opponent’s coloured bar in a minigame that tests your tactical nous – but it’s the on-foot striking gameplay that still undeniably takes centre stage.įortunately, this retains the crunchiness of EA Sports UFC 3, and while the presentation hasn’t exactly progressed as much as you may expect in two years, it still feels really good. Moreover, ground and pound still doesn’t feel quite as brutal as it should, despite the sound effects being cranked up to compensate for the slightly slack animations. While it’s a much improved format for those simply looking to pick-up-and-play, we found it difficult to predict defensive manoeuvres without assists on – and these are disabled by default when you play online. The same is true of submissions, except you push to the left to perform that. For example, if you want to blitz your sparring partner with a flurry of punches while you’ve got them pinned, you just need to push to the right and your fighter will automatically assume the optimal position.

While the complicated legacy controls are available to those who want them, a new assisted grapple system enables you to wrestle by simply pushing in different directions. To be fair, the developer’s put in some serious legwork to try and make the ground game more appealing. But play new entry EA Sports UFC 4 online and you’ll find no shortage of stand-and-bangers – in fact, the inclusion of real-world boxers Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury is almost a tacit admission from EA Vancouver that it knows this is its fans’ preferred style of play. It’s been almost a decade since the last Fight Night game, as the juggernaut publisher has coveted the more commercially viable MMA crowd. We suppose the biggest challenge that EA Sports has always faced with its line of officially branded UFC games is that players clearly prefer to box.

BUY EA SPORTS UFC 4 PLUS

Republished on Wednesday 26th January, 2022: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of February 2022's PS Plus lineup.

Buy ea sports ufc 4