Ultimate Fighting Championship: Throwdown

"Trash."

The first Ultimate Fighting Championship game for the Dreamcast (with a game of the same name on the PSX) arrived in the summer of 2000 with a lot of hype, as it appeared to do justice to shoot fighting, something many thought the first game based on it wouldn't be possible. Amazingly, that game did a wonderful job at capturing the intensity of the sport inside the octagonal cage, and featured a fair assortment of fighters as well. UFC Throwdown was the second game of far too many born from the DC original's fighting engine, and while I'd come into it hoping for a much better game, I left it yearning for the DC original, as this one fails are far too many levels to be worth a purchase.

While the roster is enormous, which helps lessen the blow, the game itself seems to have fallen behind even the original, as things that were once easy to do are now a chore, and things were slowed down and changed considerably, making a worse game than the original UFC game, which is just sad. All of the modes from the original (and the second UFC game, Tapout) are intact here, they aren't done better than they were before, barring the enhancements made to creating your own fighter. Winning and defending titles is the same, as is everything else about the modes. This wouldn't be all that bad if the game at least had substance to fall back on, but it doesn't. It ends up being a very shallow game, and leaves you wanting more for your money.

What saddens me most is there is no really good reason for the drop in game quality. The first UFC game had everything clicking. Graphics, gameplay, control, even the creation aspects were done well. Here, it all comes off as a pale imitation of that, as everything is somehow much worse than it was when it was first done. Nothing has been changed for the better, and far too many things have ended up worse for ware.

All of these things tragically combine to form a game raped of all of its fun and originally. What is left is a hollow shell of what the UFC games originally were. Everything is just monotonous now. The career mode, numerous championship winning modes, even the core game, which used to be quite enjoyable. Not even the many weight divisions can help spice up this dull game.

The GC's pad just doesn't work for this game either. The face buttons are too far apart given the countering scheme used, and you can't do things as easily as you could in the original game. Just punching your foe can be a chore due to how sloppy the controls are. And just forget about intuitive countering, as rudimentary countering is hard enough, with the advanced stuff being all but impossible. I'm not sure if this was the first $20 UFC game, but judging by how poorly it plays, it certainly should have been.

The graphics were damaged as well, perhaps even more than the gameplay. Character models that were nice and bulky, with a realistic build to them are gone. In their place are malnourished fighters who look pretty scrawny no matter what their class. Comparing Mark Coleman from the DC game to this is just tragic. In the original, his body had just the right amount of detail to it, and no horrid shine all over it, as has become the norm for athletic games for some ungodly reason. Here, there is no muscle definition or muscle tone, there is no distinct skin color, and his face just kind of blends in with all the rest. Details went the way of the dodo here, and that simply shouldn't happen as a series increases in hardware power. Maybe the budget for them decreases as well, but still, the visuals are just…ugly and lifeless. At least the animation is still great, but I can't recall too many new ones from the DC game. So it just kind of inherits that positive trait, and earns a whole bunch of negative ones on its own.

The audio is in the same sad league as the rest of the game: it was better the first time, and just horrid now. The once-impactful sound effects are now dull and generic slaps and smacks. The fantastic crowd noise that added a sense of importance to every bout is now a muted roar, and even the announcing and refereeing voices have taken a hit, as they are also now lifeless. The pre-game music is nice though, as is the menu music. The game's sound effects aren't strong enough to carry the sound throughout a fight, unlike shoot fighting aspects in the Firepro games, where they were just supplemental, and yet still done better.

This is where I'd normally put a replay value section, but since this game doesn't have any of note, due to the core gameplay in the multitude of modes all being Hell to play, I'm going to use it as a summation of my thoughts on the game, which mainly boils down to: this game is garbage. Everything is worse than how it was before, and even at $5, I feel ripped off. For about the same price, you can get the first game for the DC, which does nearly everything else this game does, and does it better.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 08/02/04