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A little less than two years after its launch in early access, Undisputed finally went to 1.0 on October 11. Boxing video game fans have been waiting for a worthy successor to the series for 13 and a half years now. Fight Night ofEA.
As I wrote in January 2023, comparisons with the different opuses of Fight Night were inevitable and Undisputed – who was called eSports Boxing Club when the project was launched – quickly announced that he wanted to do justice to this noble art that he loves so much.
First, there are a ton of partnerships that have been concluded with the WBC, the IBF and the WBO, CompuBox, BoxRec and so on, but also the Riyadh seasons since October 2024.
Graphically, there are not necessarily any major complaints to be made, except that the games run on the machine Unity they all end up looking the same. The options for customizing the boxer we created are interesting, but not extraordinary either.
The game is not particularly complicated to master, even if the tutorial offered at the beginning had the advantage of being more complete and exploring more facets of a fight such as grappling instead of focusing on combinations and knowing how to get up. of a fall.
Finally, there is a happy mix of boxers from the present and the past – there are 70 in total – but there are still big absentees like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and the new undisputed light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev to name just a few. There is also a lot of room for women, a must for any game these days.
Anyway, this all sounds pretty good and as an aficionado of Fight NightI was waiting for Undisputed with great interest. Bringing together Benoît Brière, Martin Drainville and Luc Guérin on the big screen in 1996 also boded well and everyone knows the result.
Let’s not exaggerate anything, Undisputed is not the Angelo, Frédo and Romeo from video gamesbut it remains an ordinary boxing game that does not live up to its pompous pretensions.
If the quick combat mode allows you to get to the heart of the matter and loosen your fingers, it’s the complete opposite of career mode, which is a series of missed opportunities and failures. It is completely unacceptable to present such a shoddy product like this in 2024.
One of the pleasures of this game mode is obviously building your boxer from scratch and Undisputed completely failed in the task. In his first steps, your boxer will be slow, very slow. Three-four hits and your stamina gauge will be completely empty. What’s more, there’s no need to throw your jab, it will never land on your opponent’s face or body.
No reward if you manage to dodge an attack and respond quickly and no real interest in attacking with the body because the blows don’t seem to have any effect. In fact, several of the frankly interesting conventions that have been implemented by EA over the years are absent and make the experience significantly less interesting.
It’s also difficult to know how your boxer or your opponent is doing. He can find himself with a bloody face after a single right hook to the face and come back fresh as a rose the next round following a divine intervention from his cutman. Very realistic!
The lack of a mini-game or choice to make between rounds is disappointing, but unacceptable between fights. That of the targets to be achieved on a mannequin in Fight Night Round 3 allowed you to master the controls and transfer your learning into combat. In Undisputedthere are a series of decisions to make to improve your statistics or boost your popularity on social networks, but you get tired of them extremely quickly.
Finally, when it came to online play, it was a disaster until the first update on November 14. A player knowing he was losing could leave the game without adding a defeat to his record, a real shame. Note that the problem is still present on PS5 and will not be resolved – in principle – before the next update scheduled for December.
Steel City Interactive had set the bar high by announcing its boxing game in 2020, but it was far too ambitious a project for the independent studio from Sheffield, England. It’s a shame, because there was a hunger for a boxing simulation. Despite all the possible improvements, the start was too laborious and is simply unrecoverable.
Life is far too short and precious to waste time playing games. Undisputed.
Note : 2/10.
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