I didn't quite know what to expect when I first popped in
Ultimate Fighting Championship Tapout 2. Having never played a UFC game, and only seeing a few bouts, I was relatively unsure about what awaited me. Graphically,
UFC 2 is rather impressive. The animation is top-notch and the fighters have a very clean look to them (or as clean as sweaty men can get, anyway). However, it wasn't the fighters that impressed me the most, but instead the crowd. If you've read some of my past reviews, you'll know that crowds in sports games are usually among the members of my 'graphical hit list'. I know I may be asking too much, but frankly, I'm tired of blurry, 2D crowds.
UFC 2, however, uses fully 3D audience members who move around the octagon and look like a crowd should look. Sure, the crowd is significantly smaller than say the crowd in
Madden, but it's great to see that the spectators didn't play second fiddle to everything else in the game.
The audio portion of the game gets thumbs up all the way around, simply because it includes custom soundtrack support. I was so happy to see that someone was finally taking advantage of what I think is one of the most underused features of the system. Besides, in an odd sort of way, it can add a bit of humor to the game by picking tracks that obviously shouldn't be used during fights. The best example of this is when I used my DOA: Beach Volleyball play list in the game, and had guys duking it out to Toto's Africa, Bel Biv Devoe's Poison or Do Me, Baby, and the Bangles' Walk Like an Egyptian. Just wait until I get my hands on some Perry Como or Johnny Mathis - then the real fun begins!