Undisputed

When I got to preview {Undisputed} last January, I was mightily impressed, because what I've been missing since EA chose to discontinue, or at least pause, {Fight Night} to focus on UFC is a proper boxing game. It's a sport that does so very well as a game, but a genre that has fallen into oblivion. {Fight Night Champion} was released more than 13 years ago, and now {Steel City Interactive}'s {Undisputed} is here and I was more than excited to finally play the final product.

So, did it turn out as well as I hoped? Well, yes and no. It's a really good boxing game, but it has its problems. Since the preview 21 months ago, there have been tweaks with updated punching animations, and balance changes in the fitness system, and adjustments to get the right feel, movements, and characteristics of each fighter, and not least has a Career Mode been hammered in.

Undisputed offers boxing treats.

But anyway, Early Access changes aside, what is {Undisputed}? This is a pure and simple boxing game with a focus on nailing the real boxing feeling. There are no flashy animations, over-the-top characters, or any daft story mode. There's a weight to the punches and the chance of getting knocked out is only a few punches away, no matter how dominant you've been. I like to be aggressive in games like this, but {Undisputed} doesn't let you just stand and punch without remorse. Your boxer's stamina goes down with each punch, and the lower the meter, the slower your punches become, until eventually, it can look like you're trying to fight in a pool filled with syrup. It's not just your own punches that are affected, as your guard gets worse and easier for your opponent to break through, in addition to the boxer being so tired that their movement becomes slow, so it's more difficult to escape if necessary.

Luckily, there is no button mashing to get up after being knocked down.

The boxing system is mostly controlled via the right analogue stick. Moving to the left leads to a left hook, slanting up to the left offers a left jab, slanting down is for uppercuts, and so on. By holding down LB/L1, these punches are instead directed to the body, and all this can also be done with the usual buttons (Y, X, B, A on Xbox) for a more old school feel. Blows to the head hurt more while blows to the body tire out opponents in long matches, and according to the developers themselves, there is over 60 different punches. They also claim to have the largest licensed line-up of boxers ever with over 70, where they mix old favourites like Muhammad Ali and Rocky Marciano with current boxers like Canelo Álvarez, Tyson Fury, and women like Claressa Shields and Cecilia Brækhus.

Everything about the boxing itself is excellent, and {Undisputed} is the boxing game I have been waiting for. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows. By far the biggest problem is the poor animation on encounters that happen within the fight itself. When you knock an opponent down, it doesn't matter where in the ring you do it because in the knockdown sequence where the referee counts, the fighter will always be in the centre of the ring. A punch to the jaw so the opponent falls on his arse and flails against the ropes? The next second, the referee counts for someone lying prone in the centre of the ring. There also seems to be only three or four different animations when someone tries to get up, and in my first 15 knockout wins, the opponent tried maybe 13 times to get up in the same way after the referee counted to nine and then collapsed when he reached 10. The same applies in the breaks between rounds. One fighter sits and nods to what the trainer says while the other sits and breathes heavily, over and over and over again. It's way too repetitive, which can also be said about the substandard commentators. I have heard several sentences many times, and sadly this also spills over into the otherwise great Career Mode.

The Career is very deep.

As you climb up the rankings, many of the boxers in the leaderboard are created by the computer with made-up names. This wouldn't be a problem, however there is no voiced dialogue for these generated names, meaning when the commentators talk it gets very confusing to tell who they are referring to. "He has a longer reach" or "he won that round hands down" means nothing to me when I don't know if they are referring to me or my opponent. Fortunately, that's the only thing I have to complain about in the game's primary mode.

Here, you create your own fighter using a complex character creator, before hiring a trainer, a manager, and a cutman. These will also accompany you during matches and are visible in your corner of the ring. The higher up the rankings you climb, the more money, and the better staff you can hire. To earn this money, you can either take an offer from your manager (better managers take a bigger percentage of your earnings but provide a better chance of moving up the rankings by arranging better fights) or negotiate a better deal yourself. Once you've chosen an opponent, it's time to pick a gym for training camp where the higher quality ones are more expensive, but give better training bonuses. Each week leading up to the fight, you can choose to train a specific thing, like skipping to improve your speed and endurance, but it's important to balance what you do, as if you train every week, your boxer will be exhausted by the day of the fight. It's possible to rest for a week and get your energy back, but if you rest too much you won't be in the best shape physically.

"The greatest collection of boxers of all time", according to the developers.

You can also play "Prize Fights", which are three different matches at three different difficulty levels. These are rotated each week and depending on how well you do, you will get a point and end up on a leaderboard with others who have completed the same match. This week you can play as {Sugar Ray Robinson} against the man with the same nickname, {Sugar Ray Leonard}. If you want to go online instead, you can play either ranked or unranked matches.

{Undisputed} is exactly the boxing game I've been waiting for, for over 13 years. It looks fantastic with realistic damage and plays well thanks to the excellent and complex controls. Unfortunately there are some minor issues with repetition in animations and commentary, but if you can look past this, I see no reason not to dust off your boxing gloves and punch someone (even world's strongest man Eddie Hall) in the face. Great effort, {Steel City Interactive}.