Authenticity, in some instances, simply isn’t very interesting. I wasn’t fond of balancing my created character’s stats and his fatigue in the first place, but 2010 is chucking another complication into the mix. Between bouts, you’ll juggle your fighter’s fatigue and conditioning, which decrease and increase, respectively, as you train and spar. Keeping your fatigue low and conditioning high is prime when going into a fight, lest your brawler spend half the match snoozing from exhaustion.

You can spend time training online in the Online Camps mode, too, where you and your fighting “clan” can spar and build up together. What makes things even more complicated is the deterioration of stats. You’ll need to maintain your stat points – say, striking offense or submission defense – by using them appropriately during fights. If you can’t keep your head protected, you’ll likely lose some correlating stat points. During the few hours spent learning the career, I spent more than half my time earning my stats through sparring sessions and menu navigation. My heart sank coming out of each fight to see that, despite a killer victory, I was losing points I’d worked for.

Milestones help ensure you don’t deplete below a certain threshold, but I still found this, as well as the other additions to the career mode, to be unnecessary. I understand the strive to hit a certain level of realism, but the fact of the matter is that UFC Undisputed 2010 is a great fighting game; I don’t want to manage my schedule and my stats in a menu for most of my time There’s sure to be UFC fans that get into this level of micromanaging, so your mileage may vary here, but me? I just want to fight. I’m hoping this was a result of being on a (generous) time limit during a press event. Hopefully having nothing but time to dedicate to a character makes that management more tolerable between fights.

I love throwing huge punches and massive kicks, and now that the grappling/clinching controls share a simplified scheme rather than a separate one, I enjoy those aspects more than ever. I’m worried about the intrusions, though. It’s possible that I’m only railing on that aspect of the career mode because the game itself is so immensely satisfying. This touch may reflect the real-life side of UFC, but it’s not something I’m personally interested in dabbling in. Other additions, like pre-fight weigh-ins and post-fight conversations that determine reputation and popularity, also threaten to invade on my action-only idea of a good time. It seems like UFC 2010 is stepping on the toes of developer Yuke’s’ SmackDown franchise, and that’s not what UFC does best.

What it does best, though, it does extremely well, and I’ll be the first to admit how excited I am to test out new fighters and their improved abilities, as well as dig back into my favorites. The fighting feels almost new thanks to its numerous augmentations, both large and small, and that kind of invigoration is exactly what I needed to get excited about this franchise again.

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