UFC: Tapout is worth buying, in my opinion. (1 Viewer)

[James Zos]

I've had it as a rental for three days now. At first I didn't like it that much--the sound effects, particularly of the crowd (which just sounds like white noise) are pretty bad. And the fighters can look sort of strange, especially when they are walking down the aisle toward the Octagon.

Ever see the movie Halloween? The killer in that film wears a rubber William Shatner mask. That's what the fighters in the game look like--like they are wearing rubber masks of the real people they are supposed to be portraying. Some look better than others, while some don't look much like the real fighters at all.

But as soon as you start fighting, the quality goes way up. You have a basic array of kicks and punches, and when you go to the ground the game really shifts into overdrive. I've been a fan of NHB events for a long time, and this game really does a good job of capturing the basics of real ground fighting. There are, of course, places where the realism suffers quite a bit, but overall it is pretty believable, especially at the harder settings (If only I had a fellow video game fanatic in my area to fight with!)

The only other criticism I would have--and I think this applies to a lot of games, not just this one--is that I think the developers cheat on the frame rate a little bit. Everything moves really fast, with no slow-down, but it often looks like there are missing frames of animation: more frames would equal a more fluid, less jumpy look.

To sum up--everything outside the actual fighting--the menus, the options, the sounds, could have used more work, and almost feels rushed, but the fighting itself compensates for it. It definitely keeps drawing me back to my Xbox, which hasn’t happened in a while.

For what it is worth, this is the second game, after DOA3, that I have played for the system that I would actually shell out fifty bucks for. If you like the UFC and similar events, I think it will be a pretty safe bet for you as well.

 

[Kelley_B]

The UFC game for the Dreamcast was pretty good, and I was going to rent this last night at Hollywood Video, but they were out of it....matter in fact they were out of most of their XBox games, plenty of GC games though.

 

[Matthew_S]

I have a hard time once i get pinned/put into the underneath position. I think i'm going to sell this game just becuase it's soooo frustrating once you get thrown down.

 

[Ryan Peter]

Matthew, there are escapes built into the game I believe.

 

[Duane Robinson]

To me it seems like it's a crappier yet more beautiful version of the DC version which I had an actually liked. They screwed up the career mode, included a half-assed create-a-fighter mode and still didn't fix the crappy ass blood effects. That one thing just made me so damn angry, especially since the developers had explicitly stated that they were going to take advantage of the Xbox's shader technology and include realtime bruising, sweating, and blood effects that stayed on the fighters. Instead of going for the realism that a game about the UFC requires they stuck with the dancing cranberries for blood that magically appear and disappear. And they still use the stick-up-the butt walk from the DC version instead of motion capturing one of the fighters or any human being for that matter. That is just plain laziness or incompetence in my mind if you think about all the delays this game went through. I'll stick with my DC version until they get it right or at least stick to their promises. Which they obviously weren't able to do despite the lengthy delays.

 

[James Zos]

Not having played the DC version, I can't compare the two, but even so I would have to say that Duane's criticisms are on the mark. There should have been blood/bruising effects. Don't most boxing titles out now have this? And there is basically NO career mode. A training mode from the DC version--which would have been very helpful--was also left out. I think the motion capture is pretty good for the most part, except for the referees, who look and walk like they have watermelons shoved up their posteriors...

But, even with those criticisms, I still like it enough to buy it. Maybe if I had played the DC version I wouldn't like it as much, I don't know.

 

[Jim Can]

matthew_s Do you want to trade it for mx 2002? I have a mint copy for the xbox I would trade UFC for.