It’s been a gruelling seven rounds for Arturo Gatti against Mickey Ward, and not in the same way that it was in real life when these two fought three times in the early 2000s in what’s regarded as one of the greatest boxing trilogies of all time. While these were closely contested affairs in real life, here in the online multiplayer beta forUndisputedmy poor simulacrum of Gatti has been outboxed by Ward for almost every round going into the final round of this fight. It’s been a mundanely one-sided affair.
So for the final round of the fight, I completely change my strategy. Instead of slugging it out much like Gatti did against Ward in real life, I go for the ol’ ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.’ When I move back to create distance from my opponent, there’s a strange transitional moment where it almost feels like the game doesn’t know what to do about the fact that with 90% of the fight behind me I suddenly want to switch from being a face-first brawler to a twinkle-toed Muhammad Ali wannabe. But once the game untethered Gatti from his slugger stance and I began circling my opponent, popping him with jabs to the face, straights to the body and mean right-hand power shots that he kept walking onto, I finally got into a flow.
I could sense my opponent’s frustration at this new tactic, as he began expending his energy by throwing telegraphed haymakers that I easily eluded. He had no need to worry, really. Realistically I was floating like a butterfly but also stinging like one; there was no way I was going to do enough damage at this point to get the KO, but the resounding ease with which I won that final round is testament to the game rewarding mid-fight tactical changes, and distinguishing between rugged in-fighting and elegant out-fighting.
Developed by UK-based studio Steel City Interactive, Undisputed (formerly known as eSports Boxing Club) is a bold attempt to revive the boxing game genre, which has been all but dead since EA’s Fight Night Champion in 2011. While the game’s been in development for a good couple of years, and shown off dozens of real-life boxers past and present (far more than EA ever procured for Fight Night, curiously), this is the first time the public got to play the game.
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While the experience was as uneven as you’d expect from a pre-Early Access build of the game - designed to test network capabilities more than anything else - it’s hard to express as a long-suffering boxing game fan just how good it feels to actually be playing a new game in this genre. Starved as we’ve been of such a game in so long, there might be some desperate hope mixed in with my genuine optimism, but I really do feel that there is plenty of promise here.
Given that Champion was a great game, it’s not too surprising that Undisputed borrows quite heavily from it. First, there’s its iteration on Fight Night’s Total Punch Control system, where you flick the analogs in different directions to throw different punches; you may use face buttons to throw punches instead, and I myself like to mix things up between the two.
Blocking is universal, so you don’t need to do high blocks, low blocks, or adjust blocks depending on the type of punch you’re defending against. Some accuse this of being too ‘casual,’ but I’m a big fan, as it makes for more aesthetically pleasing fights (I still remember online fights in Fight Night Round 4, or was it 3, where opponents would do this strange rotation through all the different blocks in the hope of catching your punches - it was bizarre). Besides, blocking drains your stamina, so true to real-life boxing those punches will eventually start penetrating your guard if you don’t throw something back or get out of whatever pickle you’re in so that you’re able to recharge.
So how does this all manifest during actual gameplay, at what I reiterate is asuperearly stage for the game? A bit sluggish, a bit frustrating, but the potential is very much there. I found that combos just didn’t flow as well for me as they did in Fight Night, with my boxer struggling to keep up with my analog-flick combos, and the head movement was too stiff to elude punches in a satisfying manner (and also throw from awkward angles, which the Fight Night system allowed for very well). I feel I may be missing a trick here, and perhaps slowing down andtimingthose punches is more important here than just speeding through combos Fight Night-style, but its slickness was more Rock-em-Sock-em Robots than Floyd Mayweather.
Crucially, there’s a distinct lack ofoomphat the moment to the punches. Only in one of my five or so fights did I so much as experience a cut, with no knockdowns to report. It seems like damage is purely attritional at the moment, with little sense that going in hard and fast Tyson-style can yield you those explosive early knockouts (which can of course be avoided by a smart and slick opponent). Hagler-Hearns only lasted three rounds and was one of the greatest fights of all time, and I’d hope that the game allows for these kinds of matches as well as the chess-match 12-rounders.
But this is pre-early access, and there are already plenty of positives to focus on. Some of the punch animations are really nice, and the inside/outside fighting distinction feels solid, even if transitions between the two aren’t that smooth yet. On the inside, the two fighters are almost leaning on each other, digging in those short sharp punches, and there’s already a nice gracefulness to the way fighters move around on the outside, flicking out jabs and frustrating their opponents.
Undisputed is a big deal among boxing game fans, bearing the burden of a long-dormant genre. The demise of boxing games can be attributed not so much to the games themselves (Fight Night Champion was and still is excellent) but rather the growing popularity of UFC, and the ease with which EA could get the UFC license to include all the fighters they wanted in the games, as opposed to having to negotiate individual contracts with boxers. I’m still trying to figure out how an independent studio from Sheffield has already managed to procure more boxers for this game than EA ever did, but it certainly won’t have been as simple a process as EA now has with UFC.
Now that EA has long since relinquished its boxing titles, I couldn’t be happier to see a passionate independent studio step up to fight for them. Even though Undisputed is going up against an old warhorse in Fight Night Champion, it still has some way to go before it matches it, but with the help of the community there’s no reason why it shouldn’t surpass its spiritual predecessor and become truly undisputed.
