When Ultimate Fighting Championship came out on all those different platforms a year or two ago it was heralded as one of the best fighting games. Quite true too, personally I preferred it to the sequel upon sequel of wrestling games that came out. UFC was played in an octagonal ring with two fighters both highly trained in the martial art of their choice ready to beat the crap out of each other. UFC Tapout is the sequel for the Xbox and promises to be something special for the fighting genre.

For a start the visuals of UFC Tapout have increased dramatically since the last incarnation, the graphics are nearly at the point where they're close to life-like along with the lighting effects too. In fact playing against a friend in the octagonal arena is like watching the US pay-per-view UFC events on TV. The whole championship roster of the world's most accomplished athletes in UFC are all there, including current UFC middleweight world champion Tito Ortiz, along with all the classic brawlers too. This time round the game has a more challenging championship mode, all players despite how good they may think they are will have to work quite hard in the game to be the champ. Would-be champions start out brawling against generic fighters in various tournaments as they work towards the ultimate bouts with UFC superstars. Even the cream of the crop will have to train diligently to get the championship title. Along with the championship there are multiplayer modes too, with the ability to play in the normal versus mode or in 8 or even 16 player tournaments that will surely bring a bit of fun between a few mates on a gaming evening. UFC will also be supplying the usual Arcade, and Training modes too.

Crave Entertainment are using the Xboxes power to good use too, they will be using the many 'shading' effects that Xbox can create making every bead of sweat, blood, bruising, and swelling visible. Crave have also been saying that UFC Tapout will be the best overall presented fighting game yet with music, sound, and visuals on par with actual UFC telecasts. Other features that will be included are create your own fighter with their own selectable fighting style, costumes and own voices, you could make it look like you're beating the crap out of your friends, interesting theory that.

UFC Tapout looks to be one of the best fighting games to come out for a long time, and it seems that Crave have managed to balance the graphics, gameplay, sound and overall presentation into a very good game indeed, definitely one to watch.

Preview By: Graham Seward