It’s another high-water mark for the return of boxing video games, which has been 13 years in the making, since Fight Night Champion. As first announced back in November 2020, this highly anticipated title from Steel City Interactive can’t help but have the weight of the boxing fans’ amps strapped to its back.
The build up to Undisputed was huge — and as hype goes it’s a winner. The game starts with a lengthy first-person boxing tutorial led by a real-life trainer Dave Coldwell that covers hitting a fellow player with a jab to ducking and weaving. It is strongly recommended, because knowing the controls early will save you much from frustration later on.
Visually, undisputed has successfully been touted as the ‘most authentic boxing experience we’ve seen so far. The graphics are fantastic; you have fighters that are nearly carbon copy representations of their real-life counterparts.
The rings, arenas, and gyms are all just as detailed, together with the realism provided by the attention to detail in the rings, arenas and gyms, it’s all a stark visual masterpiece. But there are difficulties with this search for realism.
But Undisputed is unbelievably tight and precise, and that hyper realism sometimes weighs down. There are over 60 different individual punches you have to learn, so when you first start playing, it feels overwhelming.
Its dazzling variety of punches both helps and hurts — it feels powerful and lethal while it also creates a mechanical stiffness and you don’t always feel fully in control.
You have more than 70 authentic boxers like Canelo Alvarez and Muhammad Ali so you have full options for each punch, each unique to the fighter you choose. However, many fans will be left wanting of key names such as Anthony Joshua and Naoya Inoue.
In particular, the vast amount of customization that is possible in the game is true in Career Mode, where players can make a fighter in whatever way they want.
You’ll find very little you can’t customize in respect of eyebrows, gloves, tattoos – everything even arrived to suit fighter. In Career Mode, you play as a budding boxer and you get to choose your trainer, manager and cut man, as well as everything in between.
This is some impressive depth when it comes to the career management system, it really does feel like the career of a boxer, from moving up the ladder to becoming a world champion.
This adds a strategic layer to the game, cutting out a lot of the time spent managing contracts, training, etc. Your management team become that aspect of the game that takes only a little bit of time to manage.
Despite being edge of seat on some fights and performances, the online isn’t all that and a packet. Like many online games Undisputed suffers from occasional bugs which, in Undisputed, feel more prevalent.
An example is that there is a noticeable delay between the time we press a button and that punch actually comes, this mucks up the flow of the game.
A minor lag in a boxing game can effectively ruin the experience: it’s very hard to compete with an opponent and to execute moves in real time.
There’s also a weird bug that your coach can block you from seeing the action if you play online, or they pop up and appear in front of the fighters. Fortunately, this is only an issue online, but that’s still a glaring oversight.
Like other modern games, Steel City Interactive has promised that they will keep Undisputed alive, beyond launch, with bug fixes and content updates. But there is a feeling that the game wasn’t finished before release.
Hardcore boxing fans might be in for some disappointment, though, as it isn’t possible to clinch when in hurt. This feature was removed from Steel City because they weren’t happy with their quality, but it stands out as missing.
One major dissenter is the recurring absence of highlights or instant replays when online matches take place, leaving the players without their opportunities to revisit their greatest hits and claim bragging rights.
Conclusion
Undisputed may be flawed, but it’s a welcomed return to the boxing video games. While not as dynamic or as exciting as the beloved Fight Night series, this is a solid, realistic boxing experience that boxing geeks will enjoy.
Career mode is deep in the game, which is beautiful to look at, and is worth a play, in particular for boxing fans wanting a title after such a long gap.
Undisputed has built a good foundation for Steel City Interactive to build upon, but with further updates and improvements Undisputed could very well be a great boxing game. It may not yet have a knockout punch, but for now it’s a promising contender in the ring.
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