In an effort to keep the series fresh and avoid a cycle of so-so annualised sequels, THQ made the salient decision to hold back the extremely popular UFC Undisputed series of mixed martial arts fighting games in 2011 following the release of two successful franchise entries in 2009 and 2010.

The hope for THQ was that its development partners would be able to introduce truly useful and groundbreaking features in the 2012 edition of the series, while the publisher itself went about the important business of gathering fan feedback in order to improve and evolve different features of UFC Undisputed 3 to deliver the best game possible.

From what we’ve seen of UFC Undisputed 3 so far, changes have indeed been made, improvements have been massaged into the gameplay and those useful features are definitely present and accounted for.

Will UFC fans love or hate the changes made to the series?

The biggest complaint I levied against UFC 2009 Undisputed and UFC Undisputed 2010 were the laborious load times between the menu selections and actual gameplay. In those games, it takes an age to navigate around the menus and simply get into a fight, for example – a fight that may only last a minute before you’re kicked back into the menus to start again.

Thankfully, it seems as though UFC Undisputed 3 has largely addressed this issue. Menus are much snappier and easy to navigate while load times are minimal. Still, I could always do with less waiting for a 30 second fight, but the developers have done a fantastic job in reducing inactivity time.

While previous UFC games boasted very satisfying and technical fighting mechanics, the responsiveness of your fighter always seemed a few split-seconds too slow with actions being carried out just too sluggishly for my tastes. Again, UFC Undisputed 3 is improved in this regard and response time between button press and your on-screen actions is faster, contributing to that all important combat ‘feel.’

Punches and kicks are fluidly performed by your fighter of choice and impact your opponent’s head, face and stomach with tremendous weight – the subsequent animated reactions to your attacks are tight and only slightly exaggerated to once again add force and ‘feel’ to combinations of high kicks, uppercuts, wide and lumbering hooks, flurries of quick jabs and backhand pirouettes. These fighters can be pretty elegant when they need to be!

As in the 2009 and 2010 editions of UFC, the controller’s face buttons will carry out punches and kicks, while your left shoulder and bumper buttons will act as modifiers, allowing you to either change the height of your attack or perform special moves. The right trigger and bumper is dedicated to upper and lower defence, but it’s still a bit of a guessing game as to which part of your body you’ll need to protect as opponents rain down high and low attacks. It’s a safe bet to simply protect your head for most of the fight.

In keeping with UFC Undisputed 3’s focus on player accessibility, the developers have included a ‘Pro’ and ‘Amateur’ control set, used for transitions between clinches and grapples, as well as during the intense ground or submission portion of fights. This is where the sticks come in, and depending on your chosen control scheme, you’ll be furiously twiddling, flicking and rotating the right stick to move into advantageous fighting positions standing up or on the ground.

If you find yourself on the ground, a quick click of the left stick gets you back up again. This is very important and a vast improvement over previous UFC where guessing games over which direction to twiddle the stick could have resulted in many a lost fight. Similarly, if you’ve pinned your opponent on the ground, a simple click of the right stick will transition you into a submission manoeuvre – also an important improvement.

Once you’re in a submission (and attempting to twist and pull the other fighter’s limbs into places they’re not meant to go i.e. backwards), you’ll enter into a little mini-game where you essentially ‘chase’ your opponent’s icon (either red or blue) around a 2D octagon shape, the objective being to ‘cover’ the other icon with your own. Success depends on your reaction times and stick rotation abilities, but things like fighter energy, skill and position will also determine whether or not you ‘pull’ off a successful submission.

While it can’t be denied that this is a much more effective approach to submissions in UFC, it is a little silly and your focus completely switches to the little red and blue dots running around and around the 2D octagon, rather than your own fighter. Couldn’t the developer have come up with something that made greater use of their meticulously created 3D models rather than switch the player’s attention to a 2D mini-game?

UFC Undisputed 3 is visually much more impressive than previous series entries and it may just be me, but fighter animations also appear more fluid with a greater range of movements. Presentation-wise, it’s just as bombastic as before with great pomp and circumstance surrounding every fight as a commentary team discuss the combatants, fighters enter the stage to lights, music and applause and mainstay announcer Bruce Buffer elongates vowel and consonant pronunciation like nobody’s business.

There also seems to be greater variety in the sorts of comments the commentator’s will utter, with entire anecdotes related to players. Hopefully these don’t get too long in the tooth in the full game.

UFC Undisputed 3 is destined to once again reign supreme in the realm of technical MMA-based fighting games, especially with no real competition to speak of (except for 2009 and 2010’s UFC titles). With 150 fighters spread across seven weight divisions, the inclusion of the brutal Pride fighting rule-set, loads of training camps, an entire career mode and character customisation options, this game is improved and enhanced in just about every way that matters, and because it’s such a technical game with dozens and dozens of moves to learn and chain together, the real challenge will begin as players head online to do battle in The Octagon.

Will UFC fans love or hate the changes made to the series? I’m going to bet on the former.

We’ll dig into the full range of features included in UFC Undisputed 3 in our review of the game once it’s released on February 14th in the US and February 17th around the rest of the world

For now, you can sample the game for yourself with the demo on Xbox LIVE and PlayStation Network, read El33tonline’s previous hands-on preview of the game from our time at gamescom, and browse through our past coverage for more screenshots and a collection of videos.

Purchase: