The semi-regular site giveaways continue with this week the choice of a 360 or PS3 copy of UFC Undisputed 3 going to the winner!

There are several ways to qualify and each one counts for an entry – so the more you complete the more chances to win. The giveaway is open now and will run through Monday morning when the winner will be randomly selected and contacted for shipping details. Good luck! 

One somewhat unheralded new addition to the UFC franchise is the “Highlight Reel” feature. There are actually two different aspects to it – one comes with the “Smart Highlight Reel” which can be automatically generated while the other is the ability to create and edit your own highlight video. All highlight reels can be uploaded to the server for others to watch and/or download and rate.

UFC Undisputed 3 automatically saves the last 50 rounds of fights. That provides the opportunity to dig in and put together compelling highlight videos with a maximum length of one minute. What you do is go into those rounds and cut out “clips” to use in the highlight reel. Then you place the clips as you desire and are presented with the option of adding music, leaving on or turning off commentary, sound effects, and crowd noise, and adding effects. All of those elements can be added to the entire reel or just to individual clips.

The “Smart Highlight Reel” is offered up at the end of fights – only one can be saved at a time on the console – and is based on either the last single fight or can be generated from three or five recent fights. The wait time for them to complete can vary from about 5 all the way up to 30 minutes for the lengthiest ones.

Check out the full tutorial video as well as the second which shows two attempts I made at highlight reels followed by one of the “Smart” reels. Surely the production value on these will be much greater for those who really put in the time and have that creative sense about them in making videos of this nature but these are just to give an idea of the end result.

While continuing to put in an extensive amount of time with UFC Undisputed 3 for detailed impressions that’ll start flowing out Friday a number of videos will be captured and posted along the way. This first set includes my first fight in Career mode, an early Career mode knockout, first Career mode fight in UFC, as well as CPU vs CPU, head-to-head, and User vs CPU fights. Continue on to check them out and leave any thoughts in the comments!

With UFC Undisputed 3 in hand the first thing to check on as always was loading times when playing from the disc up against those when installed to the Xbox 360 hard drive. The loading times in general have shown to be quite reasonable on the disc, with the extra presentation making for lengthier entries into UFC fights (Tale of the Tape can’t be skipped) vs Pride, while the install does a decent job of improving on them. 

Install time- 11:10
Install size- 6.7 GB

Loading Times
Boot to main menu- 49 seconds disc vs 39 seconds HDD (10 seconds)
Load into UFC fight (Mandalay Bay)- 66 seconds disc vs 50 seconds HDD (16 seconds)
Load into Pride fight- 45 seconds disc vs 32 seconds HDD (13 seconds)
Load into an Ultimate Fight- 40 seconds disc vs 33 seconds HDD (7 seconds)
Load out of fight to menu- 4 seconds disc vs 4 seconds HDD (No change)
Load into Career mode - 13 seconds disc vs 10 seconds HDD (3 seconds)

Those are significant savings particularly if loading into several fights along the way which in the past has contributed to making Career mode a drag. Installing to the hard drive is recommended for the reduced noise and wear and tear put on the system in addition to any improvements seen in loading times.

In the breakdown of the pre-order offers for UFC Undisputed 3 one factor that ultimately plays into the decision of which is the best choice for a particular individual is the importance of the downloadable content. Here are the complete details on what is to come – with the “Season Pass” that includes all DLC going for a steep $17 amounting to a savings of $8 over it all being purchased separately. 

THQ and the UFC organization announced today the ability to pre-purchase select downloadable content at a reduced price point through the UFC Undisputed 3 Season Pass Program. For a one-time purchase cost of 1360 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360 or $16.99 USD via PlayStation Network, consumers will receive the following items:

Fighter Packs

•Fight of the Night Pack
Featuring UFC fighters renowned for having the most exciting fights of the night – Joe Lauzon, Rory MacDonald, Charles Oliveira and Sam Stout, along with former UFC fighter Anthony Johnson – the Fight of the Night Pack will be available for a suggested purchase cost of 400 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360 or $4.99 USD via PlayStation Network in March 2012.

•International Pack
Featuring UFC fighters “The Korean Zombie” Jung Chan-Sung, England’s John Hathaway, Germany’s Pascal Kraus, Australia’s Kyle Noke and Italian Alessio Sakara, the International Pack will be available for a suggested purchase cost of 400 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360 or $4.99 USD via PlayStation Network in April 2012.

Ultimate Fights Collections

•Ultimate Submissions
The Ultimate Submissions collection, currently scheduled for release at launch and available free of charge on both videogame platforms, will include:

• UFC 109: Mike Swick vs. Paulo Thiago
• UFC 115: Mirko Cro Cop vs. Pat Barry
• UFC 116: Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin
• UFC Fight Night 19: Nate Diaz vs. Melvin Guillard
• UFC Fight Night 21: Kenny Florian vs. Takanori Gomi

•Ultimate Rivals
The Ultimate Rivals collection, currently scheduled for release at launch and available free of charge on both videogame platforms, will include:

• UFC 92: Quinton “Rampage” Jackson vs. Wanderlei Silva
• UFC 111: Georges St-Pierre vs. Dan Hardy
•  UFC 114: Quinton “Rampage” Jackson vs. Rashad Evans
•  UFC 117: Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen
• The Ultimate Fighter® Season 9: Diego Sanchez vs. Clay Guida

Ultimate Upsets

The Ultimate Upsets collection, currently scheduled for release in March 2012 at a suggested purchase cost of 400 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360 or $4.99 USD via PlayStation Network, will include:

• UFC 92: Frank Mir vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
• UFC 109: Chael Sonnen vs. Nate Marquardt
• UFC 112: Frankie Edgar vs. BJ Penn
• UFC 116: Chris Leben vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama
• UFC 121: Cain Velasquez vs. Brock Lesnar

Mixed Bag

The Mixed Bag collection, currently scheduled for release in April 2012 at a suggested purchase cost of 400 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360 or $4.99 USD via PlayStation Network, will include:

• Best of PRIDE – Final Conflict 2003: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Mirko Cro Cop
• Submissions – UFC 125: Takanori Gomi vs. Clay Guida
• Upsets – UFC 110: Joe Stevenson vs. George Sotiropoulos
• Rivals – UFC 124: Stefan Struve vs. Sean McCorkle
• Knockouts – UFC 120: Dan Hardy vs. Carlos Condit

Alistair Overeem

UFC Heavyweight Championship contender Alistair Overeem will be available at launch for consumers who participated in the limited time promotional offer on (Note: That is still open until February 14) the official Facebook page for UFC Undisputed 3. In addition “The Reem” will be available for a suggested purchase cost of 80 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360 or $0.99 USD via PlayStation Network in March 2012.

Create-a-Fighter Boost

Enabling players to acquire additional points for created fighter development and save an estimated 8-10 hours of gameplay, the Create-a-Fighter Boost will be available at launch for a suggested purchase cost of 240 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360 or $2.99 USD via PlayStation Network.

All Unlockables

The All Unlockables offering will be available at launch for a suggested purchase cost of 160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360 or $1.99 USD via PlayStation Network.

It has become the norm for retailers to offer pre-order incentives and in some cases exclusive ones. That is the case for UFC Undisputed 3 which presents consumers with a very difficult decision between the best value, the strongest content, and the biggest savings. Choosing one means giving up something else and that makes for a frustrating situation. Here is a summary of what is on the table for those considering a purchase of UFC 3.

•Amazon – Best Initial Value
A $10 promotional credit towards a future purchase at the online retailer is the main pull – while the deal also includes the “Ultimate Knockout Artist Boost Pack” to help build up a created fighter faster. Amazon doesn’t charge tax in most states, and release day shipping is free for Prime members or just $1 for non-members, so essentially up to about $16 could be saved when factoring those things in along with the promo credit. (360 – PS3)

•Gamestop – Strongest Base Content
The offering made here is for four exclusive fighters (Nick Diaz, Phil Davis, ‘Mayhem’ Miller, and Brian Stann). They won’t be obtainable any other way until three months have passed when they’ll be offered as paid DLC. The downside is having to purchase from the worst retailer of the bunch and pay full price and tax. If those fighters are important though then it may be worth it.

•THQ Store – Biggest Overall Savings
For those who plan to buy a good deal/all of the downloadable content the THQ store will present the best savings over the long run. Pre-orders there get the “season pass” for free (which will likely end up being worth $12-15). Though the store offers free shipping there is no delivery guarantee and many consumers were stuck waiting for weeks recently on orders of WWE 12 to arrive. So getting all the DLC (minus the four exclusive fighters) is appealing but probably only for those who won’t be stressed if the game doesn’t arrive on or immediately after release day.

•Others: Walmart ($10 eGift card and “Knockout Pack”). Best Buy: Exclusive “Early Access Pack” for unlockables. Kmart: Still unknown.

A few weeks ago the first fighter ratings for UFC Undisputed 3 made their way out with the focus primarily on the bantamweight and featherweight divisions. Today THQ made a sweeping update to their roster profile page which now includes the ratings breakdown for every fighter in the game - speed, strength, cardio, and footwork along with the nine offensive and defensive individual skill categories. Eight heavyweights, eight middleweights, and the majority of the Pride roster are still to come as the site gets completely updated.

Some of the fighter ratings appear to have just slightly changed for the final version. Jon Jones comes in still as the highest at 94 overall, Anderson Silva and Jose Aldo follow right behind at 93, Georges St-Pierre and Dominick Cruz top their respective divisions at 92, while Urijah Faber, Frankie Edgar, and Cain Velasquez sit at 91.

With over a year and a half since its last release the UFC Undisputed franchise had the benefit of considerable time to both improve and polish the final product. From what I experienced at a recent THQ preview event it would seem at least on the surface that they have succeeded in both respects with UFC Undisputed 3.

Mixed martial arts is a dynamic and complex sport. To try and explain the improvements made, and why they make the game more fun and ultimately more realistic, I will use some of my own kickboxing and BJJ experience as a comparison to the various elements in UFC 3. To begin I will start where all fights start – that is on the feet. 

The striking part of the game control-wise has remained the fundamentally the same. That being said a few elements have been added to change the way that exchanges occur and in doing so have introduced a level a strategy that was previously absent from the series.

The most important of these changes is strike interruption. The idea is that if an opponent throws a looping punch you should be able to interrupt their attack by countering with a faster straight punch. While these punches are not as powerful they do allow for more precision and less risk to the attacker.

In my time spent kickboxing the instructors have drilled in the concept of “windows”. Every time a strike is thrown a window in the guard is opened up. The goal in learning boxing techniques is to open and close your windows as efficiently as possible.

In playing the game it now feels much more like a real fight. Throwing combinations become more of a factor – and setting up your power punches becomes a necessity. If you don’t than someone that knows what they’re doing will just pick you apart with the jab.

For the first time in the series I felt that I could play a boxing-style fight if I wanted to. Executing combos in the game do seem to come more natural now as well. I won’t say that there isn’t a steep learning curve to the controls (there has been from the beginning of the series) and that certainly factors in to striking ability. If you take the time to master the controls mixing up your shots between straight punching, power punching, and kicking becomes a lot of fun.

Another element that was added is the kick check. Those who have done bump drills in a kickboxing class knows that this can be a highly effective defense and in some cases a damaging attack. The point of checking a kick is to avoid damage to the soft tissue and nerves of the thigh. In fact if done correctly an attacker can be injured by their own kick as they collide their shin bone to yours.

In UFC 3 damage is caused when a kick is checked and in some rare occasions there can even be a leg break. I found checking kicks to be effective – while it did not seem to be much of a factor against the CPU the human opponents I played reacted to it and their movement and speed was clearly affected. This made the standing exchanges far more technical as you have to be aware of not over using your leg kicks. Also, just like power punches, kicks can now be interrupted by the jab and right-straight.

Once you are able to get a handle on the improved striking you are sure to encounter the new stun system. Good combos will now often lead to a stunned state for the fighter on the receiving end. This new system has a very visceral feel and look and translates into a very rewarding experience when a couple of clean shots are landed.

Circumstances have also changed for the stunned fighter. No longer is being stunned a death sentence as it was in the past UFC games. You can still strike, shoot a takedown, or simply take action to effectively protect yourself. I was stunned more than a few times but still never felt like I was completely out of the fight. The series is now far more real in this aspect.

If there is one thing I have learned while sparring it’s to never assume that you have someone beat until they hit the mat. A major concern from UFC 2010 came with the clinch position which was downright impossible to get out of at times. That problem has been completely fixed here as fighters can escape in multiple ways now. You can punch, transition, reverse, shoot for a takedown, or just guard until the clinch breaks from the struggle.

As the attacker these changes have made the clinch position feel more as though it has to be earned. One can’t just spam for it and expect to be rewarded any longer. When I was able to land knees from the clinch they felt as though they carried much greater impact. There was no longer the sense of being “cheap” by using them as I really had to work to not just gain, but also to control the position. In a real MMA fight this is a difficult position to hold on to and UFC 3 seems to have re-balanced it in effective fashion.

The striking game as a whole comes off far more responsive and crisp with all these new additions. It also is far more enjoyable to get not only big knockouts but also knockdowns with the new stun system. Most importantly though the game never left me feeling cheated by its mechanics while striking. There was always an adjustment that could be made in response to my opponents tactics. In a real fight almost nothing is more important than being able to make the right adjustments at the right time. The level of realism that they have been able to create in the standup game to me was quite impressive.

The ground game stays fundamentally the same as well. The changes that were made are more along the lines of adjustments to the balance. In terms of mechanics the takedowns feel pretty much the same as UFC 2010. The one big difference is that they are considerably more difficult to pull off. They have to be timed correctly and it’s easy to get punished for over using takedown attempts. Setting up your shots with short strikes and feints is now almost a necessity.

If you are someone that likes to stay standing it’s much easier to do that this year – as long as you take advantage of the new interruption system and mix up your strikes. One is really able play like the respective fighter selected this year. If you want to be Vitor Belfort or Melvin Guillard and stay standing you don’t have to worry about getting clinch and takedown spammed-to-death (but takedowns definitely will still happen). This year though even people who struggle with the ground game should find that its possible to get back to your feet. Transitions are easier to complete and harder to reverse in this iteration. While it does detract from the level of realism in the game somewhat it adds to the fun factor by reducing frustration.

BJJ is a methodical sport and a lot of what goes on cannot be seen by a spectator. The shifting of a person’s weight or a change in their center of gravity is a difficult thing to try to represent visually in a video game. Frankly if you are not interested in BJJ it’s easy to find it boring. The last two UFC’s failed to make this area fun because they tried to be too real. The ground game now feels more like flow grappling. In a live BJJ class flow grappling is a way for both students to work on technique at a speed somewhere between drilling and full sparing. Both partners take turns attempting maneuvers and working to a variety of positions.

Things happen much faster on the ground in the game now. You can’t lay and pray on your opponent. You have to always attempt to improve position or the guy on bottom will be able to work his up. New positions have been added to the ground too – the most interesting of these is the seated position. It becomes a real chess match particularly when on the bottom. Using the cage as a pivot point is sometimes the only way to get back to your feet in a real fight. Your opponent has to pick when to hit you and when to try to hold you down – not to mention that a defender can now sway on the ground to avoid strikes as they try to get up. Drilling this position in an MMA class is one of the most miserable experiences a person is likely to have. Thankfully, if you get to this position, you do have a good chance to get back standing.

With all this happening while on mat it can be easy to forget about submissions. Submissions have the new HUD system added to the game which put simply feels like a game of “duck duck goose”. I personally found the HUD a little intrusive visually and it certainly becomes the aspect of the game with the lowest level of realism.

I had a very difficult time with submissions at the event. In fact I was not able to complete one during my approximately 15 hours with the game and it probably became my least favorite part of UFC 3. I was told however that they were aware of the issue and would be addressing it (imagine it would have to be through a patch at this point).

Overall the ground game has removed some realism but is a heck of a lot more fun. If you avoided Undisputed in the past because of the BJJ aspect, I would suggest taking another look now. I am sure it would be recognized right away that getting taken down is no longer the black hole that it used to be.

Stamina management is another crucial aspect of MMA training. It’s odd that when a person is under stress they easily forgot to do the most basic thing and that is to breathe. Regulating your breathing is the first and most important thing you have to learn in any martial art if you intend to go beyond just training. UFC 3’s new simulation stamina makes this very apparent.

In this “simulation” mode you have to temper your attacks. There are crucial moments after you drop your opponent where you have to decide whether they’ve been stunned or hurt. Going in for the kill at the wrong time in this mode can drain your stamina and compromise you for the rest of the fight. I really enjoyed playing with these settings and sincerely hope that there is a ranked mode online using “simulation stamina”. It makes the standard stamina seem more like an arcade game. If they do have this mode online I would not play the game any other way.

It’s also important that it no obvious ways to “cheese” the game were identified. If you want to win this year you have to beat the person you are playing and not the game’s programing. The submission system was the only real sticking point and with a few tweaks could even be corrected. The extra time spent working on UFC Undisputed 3 has made the game the complete MMA experience that many thought it could be.

Ultimately what I walked away most satisfied with is that you have to be good everywhere in the cage to win. There is a counter to every position one may find themselves in and they are effective when utilized properly. This is what MMA is all about – and I am confident in saying that UFC 3 is, at least up to this point, as real as it gets.

THQ has released a handful of new videos – one features a run through of career mode (which was detailed recently), one hypes Pride mode, and two are fight sims that act as previews for Saturday night’s UFC on Fox event (Rashad Evans vs Phil Davis and Chael Sonnen vs Michael Bisping). Continue on to check them out and leave any thoughts in the comments! 

It has been known for a while that THQ was planning downloadable content for UFC Undisputed 3 and now comes some general details on what to expect and when. While specific fighters are not named the “packs” are themed and could hint at who will ultimately be included considering a number of notable fighters were left off the base rosters. 

• ALL UNLOCKABLES – Unlock over 150 attires and nicknames for instant use! (Available Day 1)
• ALISTAIR OVEREEM – Available for the first time in the Undisputed™ franchise! (Available Day 1)
• FIGHTER PACK: FIGHT OF THE NIGHT PACK – A collection of fighters who’ve stolen the show on UFC Pay Per Views! (Available March 2012)
• ULTIMATE FIGHTS: ULTIMATE UPSETS PACK – The unpredictability of the UFC is the focus of this Ultimate Fights collection. Relive some of the most surprising outcomes in the Upsets Pack! (Available March 2012)
• FIGHTER PACK: INTERNATIONAL PACK – A set of UFC’s best fighters from every corner of the globe! (Available April 2012)
• ULTIMATE FIGHTS: MIXED BAG PACK – Download this bundle for a collection of some of UFC’s most memorable fights! (Available April 2012)

While pricing has not been revealed THQ did state that the DLC represented “over $20 value” and that it will come free to those who purchase the game from their official website. Those who get the game elsewhere will have the option to buy the DLC individually or get it all through an as of yet to be detailed “season pass”.

Anyone who really wants the game on release day though should be hesitant to take advantage of the deal. The company was unable to fulfill orders for WWE 12 in November – with some consumers not receiving their copies until weeks later. They offer no delivery guarantee for games bought through the site. If immediacy is not important, but getting the DLC for free is, then it could still be worth consideration. Otherwise it would be best to go with Gamestop (for the four exclusive fighters they are offering) or Amazon (for the $10 promotional credit that is included).