The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an organization that promotes martial arts fighting tournaments and championships worldwide. If you’ve ever looked at your pay per view television channel, you’ve likely seen quite a few of their events available to watch. The UFC fighting bouts are visceral and real, and though this may be an unpopular opinion- I find them certainly more entertaining than the highly-scripted wrestling matches that I’ve seen. EA Sports UFC takes this experience to a mobile platform, letting you step into the shoes (so to speak, the UFC actually prohibits footwear in the ring!) of your favorite fighting champion, and to rise through the ranks as you take down other memorable fighters. The game has over five million downloads and a cumulative 4.4 star rating out of 280,000 ratings given. It’s safe to say most people who play the game enjoy it, so let’s see what all the fuss is about.
The first thing I noticed was that there are additional files required to download once you’ve downloaded the app from the play store. While the app does not give us an official figure as to the size of these additional 162 files, they appear to be considerable in size, as it took me about 20 minutes to download them on my home wifi connection. This isn’t a game you should initially download over your mobile internet connection, especially if you have any sort of limited data plan. The game itself does require an internet connection at all times, which means you cannot play it offline. This is a niggling issue- as it doesn’t require all that much data once you have the app downloaded. If you do have a severely metered data plan though, this might be a game you play only with wifi.
Speaking of that always online connection, I ran into an issue when starting up the game where I couldn’t connect to the EA servers until I force-quit the app and restarted it. I’m hoping that it was just a random bug that doesn’t occur again, but I mention it so that anyone reading this who might have the same problem can get a bit of help- just quit the app and restart, and it should work fine afterwards.
But man, am I glad I stuck through that issue, because this game is just beautiful. The first thing I was struck by was how nice this game looked, despite being on mobile.You can easily identify the likeness of the characters you play as- from their chiseled jaw line to their signature tattoos. When you finish a match, you can see the blood in their mouths-it is quite frankly one of the prettiest games I’ve played on mobile. Sports UFC is optimized for tablets, so those pretty visuals are a big draw if you happen to have one of those devices.
The game is good as well as pretty. You step into the Octagon, choose from one of 70 unlockable player characters- each with their own set of abilities- and progress through the ranks of one of four divisions. You win each match by either forcing your opponent into submission by using abilities, or knocking them out by getting their health meter to 0. The controls are actually wonderfully intuitive and fluid for a mobile game. You can hit someone by simply tapping on the screen, two fingers blocks, swiping backwards dodges and swiping forwards throws a different punch. There is an ability carousel in the bottom left of the screen where you can select and use abilities to help win your fights. Overall, this game is great from a control perspective- allowing a good deal of strategy in well-timed blocks and combos, culminating in a new recharge of your abilities.
Freemium
The game is free, and does have optional microtransactions. You have to buy the fighters and abilities in blind-buy packs, which you can get with in-game currency or for real life currency. There are also special limited edition fighters which you can only get for real money, which is disappointing- but since these fighters are not needed to complete or enjoy the game, I’ll give it a pass. There is no energy mechanic to worry about limiting your playtime, but there is a boost feature which boosts the stats of your characters for a single fight-you can buy these with ingame currency, real money, or wait and have them recharge for free. Overall, I’d give the game an B+ for fremium features- there are no intrusive ads, and the majority of the things in the game are purchasable with in-game currency. If the game offered you a way to get the premium currency in-game, I’d give it an A for sure.
You’ll need to have gold and coins to unlock all of the fighters in EA Sports UFC. Some fighters can only be unlocked using the premium in-game currency, gold. If you don’t want to spend your money buying gold, then you need a hack.
The hack for EA Sports UFC allows players to add unlimited amounts of gold and coins directly to their account for free. It’s available for both Android and iOS devices and has been tested to be safe. You can download it here at AppGameCheats.
After downloading the hack, you’ll see the options menu on your screen. The instructions below will show you how to complete the hack.
The EA Sports UFC hack will install automatically after you download it. Start by picking the kind of device you are using to play the game. Now you can type in the amounts of gold and coins you want to add.
After you’ve filled out all of the information for the tool, just tap the “Start” button to begin the hack. It takes about 25-30 seconds for the hack to finish working. When the hack is complete, open your EA Sports UFC app and you’ll see the gold and coins have been added to your account. Have fun fighting and unlocking all the fighters with unlimited gold and coins!
The biggest tip I could give anyone playing this game is this: don’t mindlessly button mash. Yes, you can get through the first few levels by just tapping and swiping endlessly on the screen, but soon enough you will come upon enemies who are stronger and smarter than the initial ones. These enemies will require strategy and timing to defeat.
Use basic attacks to build up your ability meter and then unleash your powerful abilities when the time is right. However, you should also do your best to not get hit- the best offense is a good defense, in my book. Your abilities recharge when you successfully dodge attacks as well as when you hit people (swiping left instead of right when timed right is a successful dodge). Using these abilities when you’re on the ropes can turn the tide in a fight and mean the difference between winning and losing.
There is no energy mechanic- you can play the game as much or as little as you want to. That said, as you begin leveling up, you need progressively more and more money to upgrade your abilities. This can be circumvented by paying real money, but it is better for your wallet if instead of that you just play more. Playing the easier matches can help you earn money to level your character up so that you can take on the higher level enemies. This does turn into a bit of a grind, but with no energy mechanic limiting you it’s not so bad. Keep in mind that you can use that in-game currency you earn from grinding to unlock new fighters and abilities!
Using your boost wisely is another matter for discussion. It’s a free way to power up a character of your choice for a single fight- great for taking on a tough fight that you can’t otherwise pass. While I personally find it more challenging to not use the boost whenever possible as I prefer to rely on my skill (and sometimes luck!), this is a limited resource and you should be careful not to spend it all too quickly. It recharges for free over time but it is slow-don’t waste it.
Artwork: As I said before, the game is simply beautiful for a mobile game. While it certainly doesn’t hold a candle to the latest PS4 games in graphical fidelity, it’s one of the best looking mobile games I’ve ever played. I’m not sure what else I can say here other than it’s amazing looking, with high definition graphics. I’d certainly recommend playing this one on a tablet instead of on your phone so you can really appreciate it. 10/10
Music & SFX: Music is appropriately epic, with lots of drums and orchestral poignant moments. It served quite well to get me pumped up. There were actually several times I found myself not playing the game anymore and just enjoying the soundtrack- it’s certainly on the same level as a good movie’s soundtrack. While it’s not anything you’d expect from John Williams, it’s certainly far above average for a mobile app. The issue is that while the music that is there is very good- there’s simply not that much of it. The same few good songs continue to play over and over. If you’ve ever listed to summer radio for a few days- you know what that song fatigue is like. Given the storage limitations on the android platform, however, this lack of music choices is forgivable.
The sound effects themselves are great, with you being able to hear the crowd cheering and with your punches landing with a satisfying crunch sound. The cheering does have a noticeable chirping to it-indicating a less than ideal sound quality, but what do you expect from a mobile game trying to save space on your phone? 10/10
Story & Originality: The game doesn’t have any story to speak of. You take control of fighting characters and proceed in a linear fashion to beat up every other fighting character one by one until you’re the best- Mortal Kombat style. There have been plenty of wrestling and fighting games out for many different consoles, including mobile- and EA Sports UFC doesn’t bring anything too new or exciting to the table in terms of mechanics. 4/10
General Gameplay: The game is generally very solid, with good mechanics and intuitive controls. There’s nothing particularly innovative or new, but it’s solid. It’s satisfying to chain together combos and successfully dodge attacks, just to culminate in the usage of your strong abilities. 7/10
Addictiveness: There is no energy mechanic or any sort of limiting mechanism to the game except your own desire to play it, which is a great thing in a mobile title. The game allows you to pit your own skill against the opponents, but doesn’t have any online multiplayer, which would really increase replayability. Once you finish the game by beating all four divisions, there’s no reason to pick it up again. 6/10
Overall: 7/10
Definitely pick it up and give it a try if you’re a fan of the UFC or fighting games in general. If you’re not generally a fan of this genre, Sports UFC probably won’t sway your opinion. It’s fun to see the same fighters you’ve seen in person or on TV in your game and to control them to beat each other up, but after you’ve beaten the game there’s little else to do but move on. The fact that it’s free is a definite bonus.