UFC 3 Review

UFC 3 was developed by EA Canada and published by EA Sports, it's available on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

UFC 3 is the latest game in the series and has a few new features, although it's still very similar to UFC 2. One of the biggest new features in this title is the new career mode, similar to other EA Sports career modes like “The Journey” from FIFA. This career mode has you working your way up as a new fighter, or you can skip the creation suite and import your favourite UFC fighter to play as. (I chose to import Conor McGregor). You then have to work your way up by winning fights and completing career milestones to earn the greatest title in the UFC; G-O-A-T ( greatest of all time) the career mode was fun however it lacked features from previous games like being sponsored by companies, which while a small detail, added a sense of accomplishment as you worked your way up. This career mode has you earning money by winning fights, allowing you to move to a better gym, however by the end of my career I was overflowing with millions of cash and nothing to spend it on. You also have to train in career mode, once you take a fight you'll have a training camp based on how long the fight has given you, gone are the days of boring minigames and repetitive action, as this year they have made huge changes to this side of the mode. You have 100 action points a week to spend however you wish, the options range from tweeting fans to promote hype for your upcoming fight to sparring in your gym to learn a weakness of your opponent.

Overall the career mode was a great experience, however it lacks depth. It becomes repetitive late in the game once you sign the superstar contract and are just grinding to complete your lifetime goals.

There are a few upgrades to this years formula with one of those being the stand up game. You can now dodge, duck and dive however you wish there are no prescripted animations anymore instead you control your head by moving the right analogue stick around. This works very well and allows you to feel awesome as you are doing it.

This game looks stunning, absolutely one of the best looking sports games available on Xbox One or PlayStation 4. From the amazing lighting to the beautiful character models this game looks so good. The fighters actually look like their real life counterparts, the moves actually connect with opponents and you can see it connecting in game. That last one may sound like it's unimportant but this series has had a past of moves not connecting at least for me. But in this game there haven't been any collision issues and the fights really do look realistic from seeing huge amounts of blood running down your opponents to seeing your opponents jaw get disconnected, this game is gorgeous.

The soundtrack is good and has some decent tracks and is very current, as with all EA sports the music is very important as you'll be spending a fair bit of time in the menus. The commentary is good and isn't repetitive, it sounds just like it does on TV. The sound of a fist hitting someone's face is great.

There is an online mode called online champions and has you playing five matches to try and win a title, once you earn the title you have to defend it over and over until you lose a match and the belt. This is of course against other online opponents and scales in difficulty depending on how many matches you have won. This mode was very fun and was the mode that I spent most of my time in.

There is an ultimate team mode in this game however it is so microtransactions heavy that I didn't spend too much time in this mode. You have to buy packs to unlock moves, fighters and contracts. The strange thing here is that there isn't a transfer market like there is in FIFA so while in FIFA it would take you months to earn coins to but someone like Messi or Ronaldo, you can still buy them by playing the game. In UFC 3’s version you would literally need to spend some money to earn any decent fighters as the rate you earn packs by playing is so little, and there just isn't a transfer market.