UFC - Fun but flawed

Played UFC 2009 on Monday night... well, played the demo anyway. Finally a game I can beat James at, but I found it essentially flawed. It takes a little getting into though to find the problem.

I was the talented kickboxer and James had the super-quick Muay Thai fighter. First fight took a while while we wrested with the controls, blocking when we wanted to punch and throwing body blows when a head shot would have finished off our opponent, so we got well into the second round before the outcome was reached. After that though, a pattern emerged. Head kicks from the kickboxer quickly wore down his opponent and once he was on the ground, some solid punches to the head finished off the round. I think the fastest result was a mere 30 seconds since the bell rang. Crazy!

And here is where the problem became apparent. Unless the assailant stopped attacking and allowed the referee to halt the match so we could stand, there was nothing the guy on the ground could do, not that we could find anyway. I tried again at home and there was a hold move that could be done, but I only saw it once and had no idea how the AI managed it. So really, once you were on the ground, you were toast.

Realistically, there should have been more options available to defend yourself. I think I'll stick to Fight Night 4, if and when James or I get it.