EA Sports UFC was a strong first effort when it released in 2014, but EA Sports' debut as the holder of the UFC license was far from perfect. In addition to a repetitive career mode structure, the ground and grapple mechanics were difficult to understand and the game lacked overall depth in the modes it offered. We recently got our hands on the sequel to get a good idea of how UFC 2 looks to improve over its predecessor.
The striking of EA's first UFC was great, and that appears to have remained mostly intact. Some new animations and improved knockout physics made my time operating in the stand-up game more satisfying, but it largely felt the same and my skills learned from the first game were transferable.
The team realizes that many players view the striking of the UFC series as its most enjoyable aspect, so for UFC 2 they added the all-new Knockout mode. In this slugfest, players take their fighters into the Octagon with the sole purpose of taking out their opponent's health. Individual stats don't matter as much as it's all based on a fighting-game-style health bar, which can be handicapped prior to entering the match. Once you're in the match, successful body and significant head strikes remove one segment of health from the victim (jabs and leg kicks aren't included due to their ease of connection). The first fighter to lose all health goes down hard and loses that round. Like a traditional fighting game, you can adjust these Knockout matches to crown the winner based on one round or the "best of" multiple rounds.
To add an extra twist to the health-bar formula, fighters in Knockout mode can earn back health segments by performing a successful parry. While that may not sound like a big deal, the thrill of being down to your last health segment only to execute a successful parry to climb back into the fight and land a successful counter attack brought me to my feet on multiple occasions. By nature of taking the multidimensional sport of mixed martial arts and simplifying it down to its most basic facet, the mode doesn't seem like it has the most depth, but I don't know if the excitement of a close match in Knockout mode will ever fully go away.
Those playing the more traditional bouts can expect marked improvements to the ground and grapple games. EA's first UFC used almost a turn-based mechanic where if one fighter initiates a movement when engaged with the other, the other fighter had nothing he or she could do aside from defending that move. Now, when two fighters are engaged – either in grapple or on the ground – they can try to execute moves independently of one another. This means that more strategy comes into play since how long the inputted moves take to execute plays a role in their success. For instance, the top fighter might want to transition from the full-guard position to full-mount, but it's quicker to slip into half-guard, making it the safer bet.
Also new to the ground and grapple mechanics are interfaces that tell players what each input aims to do. In EA's first UFC, players had to memorize what movements did what from each position, but with the new interface, I know exactly what holding right on the stick will cause me to do from the side-control position. In the last UFC game, I never fully grasped the ground game because of the way it worked, but in my time with UFC 2, I felt much more adept and confident in operating in the clinch and on the ground.
On the next page, we look at the new modes brought to UFC 2 and look at the improvements made in career mode.
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