Undisputed Review

Knocking on the door of EA’s Fight Night franchise with hopes of knocking it out, Undisputed has a real chip on its shoulder as it tries to wrestle the heavyweight belt from Fight Night‘s prestigious waist as a cocksure but hopeful and ambitious challenger. Ding! Ding! Undisputed holds up its dukes hoping for a thrashing punch-out in the first round, but little did it know that it was up for a gruelling bout against the king of all boxing games. 

Undisputed is the first big boxing game in over 13 years and unsurprising it’s thrust into the position of number one contender, entering the squared circle with a cocksure swagger and plenty of bravado, and while it does put up a good fight, Undisputed gets knocked out in the closing minutes of the seventh round, so let’s find out why this is the case.

Supposing you weren’t aware, Undisputed is developed by Steel City Interactive and backed by veteran publisher Deep Silver. Undisputed is further bolstered by its markers of authenticity stemming from the meaty roster of boxers to play as like Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder, Anthony Joshua and a sizable variety of gloved punchers from Heavyweight to Bantamweight, including two female weight classes as well. The good news for Undisputed here is that it has shown up to the fight with Fight Night with two fully-functioning fists, and does hit hard to force its competition to block when necessary.

Where Undisputed does come clothed in lavish elegance for its big-money opportunity at boxing game greatness is with its bustling presentation. There is a pleasing assortment of boxing arenas, from dingy bars and quiet and unassuming gyms, to sold-out WBF arenas and majestic theatres that Shakespeare would certainly approve of to satiate his thirst for blood and bruising violence. Undisputed‘s venue variety is excellent and helps give off the impression that it has some grandeur to go along with those furious fists.

The work on the look and feel of a golden gloves champ is undone somewhat by the repetitive commentary of Todd Grisham and Johnny Nelson. While their lines are authentic, they start repeating themselves before long, and it begins draining the boxing action of its drama as though they’ve brutalized Undisputed‘s allure with a thunderous body shot. Lines like “a punch from the gods themselves” is nice hyperbole once, but hearing it over and over again elicits a groan as you try to concentrate on dealing your foe devastating flurries – just try not to let the commentary knock you out. You may want to turn the commentary off and enjoy the blunt force trauma without the gratingly rote comments driving a wedge between you and your enthusiasm for trading punches, it’s just too bad there isn’t an option available to silence it. Now let’s not even start on the dreadful soundtrack and its dire rap flavourings.

 Another recurring presentational annoyance are the WBF screen wipes between rounds. These wipes don’t signal the round ending with a clean break in the action, instead you can still tussle with your opponent between the bell ringing and the wipe obscuring the screen en-route to the corner break. The ref should be seen separating the boxers like a dinner lady trying to stop a food fight at lunchtime, but instead Undisputed wants these boxing kids to keep on squabbling until a screen wipe breaks up the action.      

Sadly, the career mode is very forgettable and uneventful. You’ll be taking your create-a-fighter or a real-life fighter through a path to greatness by accepting fight offer, engaging with media and PR, and training hard to get yourself into shape. It’s all rather bare-bones without the excitement and fervour that should come from ascending your fighter up the ranks. At least you begin your journey fighting in a bar and progress to bigger and badder arenas, but so much more could’ve been done to make the career mode worthwhile.  

The actual in-ring action of the sweet science in Undisputed is fluid and flowing in a way that feels up to date with expectations, even if Undisputed is the only pristine boxing game in town as of writing. The basic necessity of the boxing action is to throw your fists at your opponents while keeping an eye on your stamina meter regularly so that you can tactically attack and defend effectively. The temptation of digging in a combo of shots to the body and head, and an energy-diminishing haymaker is insatiable, but depending on the stats of your fighter, you’ll do well not to be reckless with your shot selections. If you keep ignoring your stamina, your opponent will capitalize by busting you up with significant punches, some of which may floor you suddenly. The ideal approach is to keep your opposition punching away as you block, then he/she will get tired, and you can unleash your barrage of jabs, hooks, uppercuts and haymakers to send ‘em reeling. 

The physicality of trading blows in Undisputed is very gratifying in a way only two sweaty and gasping men or woman can display in close proximity inside the ring ropes. Jabs feel forceful, and counters are registered in swift and exacting fashion by momentary flashes, devastatingly reminding the receiver to throw with caution, lest he or she finds him or herself knocked down and staring glaze-eyed up towards the rafters.

Haymakers are a sheer highlight. The explosive propulsion of uncorking these face-rattlers sends a satisfying surge of physicality through the controller, making them empowering and moreish to an obscene degree. Every bout will come with a remarkable temptation to unload a haymaker in the hopes of turning the fight in your favour, but be mindful that a failed attempt will drain your stamina meter dangerously-so use them sensibly and sparingly!  

Undisputed does a great job of making you feel the fight as it progresses in the ring. The synthesis that exists between the movement speed and the power of landing bruising bombs is scintillating, and thus puts up a good fight without throwing in the white towel. Sure, Undisputed isn’t as rousing as EA’s take on pugilism, but it’s a tough slugger that keeps taking a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.   

The lack of ring-rope physics and usage prevents knockdowns near the edge of the ring from feeling gratifying. This ain’t Fight Night, but the ring ropes aren’t merely set dressing, they should be used to rebound fighters after you’ve knocked them senseless.

Body shots don’t fold fighters as convincingly as they would in reality either. Usually, a boxer takes a knee as if proposing marriage when they’ve taken a big blow to the liver, yet every time a body shot knockdown occurs, they place a kneed onto the canvas and take heavy breaths until they’re ready to answer the ref’s 10 count. 

While on the subject on the ref’s ten count, you will have to play a meter-based minigame by holding down the triggers inside a coloured zone whilst a meter at the centre of the screen fills up. If you don’t fill the meter by the count of 10 then you’re out for the count, and expectedly the more knockdowns you suffer the harder it is to get back up and continue. The A.I tend to regularly answer either the 5 count or the 8 count when they’ve been knocked down, which makes many of these knockdown predicaments seems predictable, so be prepared to keep pouring on the punishment until they stay down for good. 

Sometimes the ref will step in to check on cuts and asks the fighter if he or she would like to continue. When your opposition is asked whether they’d like to continue you’ll be keen to tell them through the TV screen to quit, but if they don’t, you’ll keep bludgeoning their face until the ref steps in. It’s not easy to tell when a fight will be stopped due to a cut and the AI’s call can be random, but either way it’s really satisfying to cause a cut because you’ll either win the fight or make the cut even worse until the ref has no choice but to stop the fight.  

The online sessions are where Undisputed can become gruesomely choppy and outright unfair. Unregistered shots and unrecognized punch defences are criminal realities of the current state of Undisputed‘s online multiplayer. There is a cool Prize-fights mode with daily and weekly challenges to complete so you can level up your experience, but their true worth is fogged by their general uneventfulness and lack of spark.

Conclusion

 Soo…what about that knockout in the seventh round mentioned earlier in this review? No matter how good Undisputed looks or how crisp and ferocious its punching is, it falters in various other areas. The soundtrack is awful, the commentary is rote, the career is an afterthought, the roster is half-baked and needs more protein, and the online scene is a mess. Yes, if you’re thirsty for a boxing game after all these years without Fight Night, then Undisputed does fit the bill well, but with so many areas that are unfinished, it’s a bit of a hard sell. Undisputed gets the fundamentals right though, and if the fundamentals are all you care about, this is definitely a good boxing game, but it could’ve been so much more than that.