Developer: Steel City Interactive, Ten24 Media
Publisher: Plaion, Deep Silver
Platform: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: PS5
Undisputed – Review
Many (slightly) older gamers will probably remember when boxing games were a common sight, be it realistic ones or silly titles such as Ready 2 Rumble Boxing. The genre competed quite evenly with dozens of wrestling games at that time, as well as many other more obscure sports titles. After the popularity waned, hardly any new titles were released in these genres. Only titles such as FIFA, NBA 2K, and several others were able to remain in the limelight, and new attempts at reviving specific sports titles often resulted in poor sales. Now, however, Undisputed steps into the ring with a valiant attempt at reviving the boxing simulation genre.
Story
While the career mode in Undisputed could technically be viewed as a story mode, there is not really any story value to be found. Even when picking a legendary boxer, there is no real story to experience. It would have been nice if we were able to replay a few key fights from some of these famous boxers’ pasts, but sadly that is not the case here. It’s in essence a typical formula of going from zero to hero by winning fights and making a name for yourself.
Graphics
Graphically, Undisputed isn’t a bad-looking game. Sure, we encountered a few uncanny valley-like moments when examining certain facial expressions or when looking at a few stilted movements, but things still ended up looking good. The digital versions of real-life boxing icons look great, and we were impressed with the overall variety of fighters. On top of that, the boxing rings you can fight in look great, and there is a lot of animation in the background as well. All in all, we were quite surprised by the visual appeal of this simulation title. Perhaps a bit more referee variety would have been nice, but that’s only a minor remark on our end.
Sound
The sound design wasn’t too bad either. We were actually surprised with the overall commentary quality and the soundtrack managed to entertain us at times. We often see the opposite in slightly lesser-known sports titles, as they tend to skimp on the little details that give the game an extra layer of polish. The SFX also do a decent job at adding another layer of realism to the mix, even though we felt that many of the heavy punches sounded exactly the same upon impact. While we could actually ‘feel’ the impact when a powered-up hook connected with our opponent, we just would have loved a bit of SFX variety here.
Gameplay
Undisputed is a boxing simulation game in which you can opt to play through the career mode, dive into quick fights, or duke it out online. It’s a very straightforward experience without too many bells and whistles. You have a fairly big roster of famous boxers to choose from, but you can also make your very own fighter. The game follows the typical formula of other sports titles, and we don’t see anything wrong with that.
If you’re not that interested in going online to battle other players, you’ll probably spend the bulk of your time in the career mode. The career mode, whether you pick a licensed career path or one of your own making, is nothing new either. You start out at the bottom, and you’ll have to win fights to earn money, gain experience, and find better managers who will in turn earn you even more money. It’s standard fare for titles such as this, but it’s an enjoyable experience nonetheless. It’s great for newcomers to sports games to learn the ropes while also making the character of their choosing stronger.
That being said, things also do feel rather basic in the career mode. Training happens by setting up your training regime and pressing the button to train. There are no real gameplay elements tied to the training sequences, which is a shame. You’ll also have to negotiate for upcoming fights, which once again happens via menu input. When all is said and done, you’ll adapt your training regime to the upcoming fight, and you’re good to go. This made the career mode feel more like a long way of setting up fights, rather than actually getting attached to our boxer of choice. There is a bit of staff management on the side, but it all boils down to always replacing undertrained staff with more qualified personnel.
The controls of the game are fairly simple. You have your basic punches and jabs to the face, but you can also do body shots or add power to your punches. The latter does consume a lot more stamina but dishes out so much more damage when it connects with your opponent. We figured out the controls quite easily while trying to keep our guard up during matches. You can also weave a bit, which adds even more defensive options. While the controls felt a bit floaty at times, Undisputed proved to be quite accessible. We barely have any experience with realistic fighting games, yet we managed to find our footing quite easily. We did struggle to estimate the distance between us and our opponent quite often. This also had to do with the actual reach of our chosen boxer, of course.
For a sports simulation title, we did find some areas to be slightly lacking. Like in real life, it would have been nice to have the referee in the ring at all times, and as mentioned above, it would help with immersion if you were able to actually train your chosen fighter. The latter is something that bothered us during the career mode, as we simply clicked through menus, fought in tournaments or single fights, and then we just set up the training via the menus again. Other than that, we felt that some hits that clearly connected on the screen had little impact, and this was made worse by the power move system. We noticed that normal moves barely did anything, so the overreliance on power moves (by pressing R1) got old really quickly.
Conclusion
Undisputed is a fairly entertaining attempt at making a modern boxing game. For the most part, the game succeeds at bringing boxing to the current generation of consoles and PC, but the overall shallow gameplay modes and the lack of polish prevent it from being an excellent addition to the genre. We found ourselves having quite a bit of fun when fighting against friends locally, but the career mode felt a bit shallow as a solo experience. That being said, if you’re new to sports games, Undisputed is a very accessible game. If you’re looking to pick this one up, we suggest waiting for a sale, as it currently feels a bit overpriced.
No Comments