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Graphically I'm really not sure what I can say. The fighters actually look worse than they did in the first game, and as they walk to the ring you'd be forgiven for thinking the first action of the referee would be to pull the pencils out of the combatants butts. If the fighter's weren't bare-chested you'd swear their mother's had sent them to the octagon wearing over-tight ladies corsets. While the character models themselves look realistic, their movements are stiff and awkward-looking. Once the fight begins however, things improve substantially, and you soon forget how much your character resembled a pigeon before throwing his first punch. Oh and another thing, someone PLEASE fix the lip-synching of the announcer! I can't believe the developers have made the same mistake twice (the bad lip-synching was also prevalent in the original game), and it really leaves a rough edge on an otherwise nice opening touch.

Don't get too exciting over the sound effects either, apart from the fact that the ring entry music seems somewhat less defined than the real thing, you can expect the usual voices, thumps, oofs and ouches that we have come to expect from most fighting titles. Each hit is made to sound more powerful than it actually is, which gives the player a good sense of satisfaction when a clean punch nails your opponent. The crowd effects sound fairly lacklustre overall, but you could certainly understand their feelings with the short-lived nature of many of the fights.

Take a good game, revamp it's current gameplay modes, add nothing new but downgrade the graphics, and the result is UFC Throwdown. Those players who have already experienced the first game in the series will know what to expect here, but should be pleasantly surprised with the improvements in the career mode. Fans of the real life UFC should be pleased with the roster of fighters available as well as the various martial arts styles that can be experienced. Overall though, UFC Throwdown is an above-average title which still has a major amount of room for improvement.