For any mixed martial arts fan, Pride FC is the best 20 bucks you could spend on an MMA game!
Fast forward to today, with the rise of the UFC and the MMA world in general. Today, there's 2 big dogs in the MMA world, a lot like video game consoles. Like the X-Box, the UFC is the best known and most popoular MMA organization in the country, but like the PS2, PrideFC is the most popular orgainization in the WORLD.
Back to video games, these small UFC and Pride games start to become manufactured again, and while most places sell 1 (if you're lucky) copy of UFC for 25 bucks, the better value is PrideGP.
Gameplay combines the pickup and play, but tricky to master elements of Tekken with different positions real MMA fighters find themselves in. Like tekken, you have your typical standup position, slugging it out for a KO. Then you got the jujitsu gaurd, muay thai clinch (a new concept for the game series at the time), and of course, the full mount. Reversals are available too, and for jujitsu moves, a simple button mashing sequence occurs (which looks kinda cool when the submissions guy is cranking on the limb to get the guy to tap).
The AI's solid and pretty good. You notice differences in fighting styles and preferences between each fighters. You got the quick slugging Wanderlei Silva and Don Frye as compared to Carlos Newton or Royce Gracie, who loves takedowns and submissions.
Graphics are great for its time and still pretty good for today's standards. You got good facial expressions for each fighter, who looks a lot like their real life counterparts. You got the emotionless Sakuraba, and the enraged Ken Shamrock, and their emotions range from the wincing of a submission, to the roar of a win (for some fighters), to even that glazed look of getting KOed.
Sound's okay. You got the usual grunts, and pops of punches, which sound pretty exagerated most of the time, which is okay, since in a real life fight you can't hear those sounds anyway.
As far as depth goes, there's actually not much here to work with when it comes to today's standards. There's no long winded story/career mode, like in Fight Night, which could've been cool to see, but I honestly don't know how something like that could be done. No online feature either, since it wasn't even developed back then. You got your survival mode, which is a gauntlet of opponents one after another, your single fights, and the meat of the game, the Grand Prix. Like in real life, PrideGP is a 16 man, open-weight backet tournament. You can have up to 16 players in it, fighting 2 at a time.
Other cool features are a training mode and my personal favorite, the create a fighter mode. It's actually pretty deep as far as moves set-up is. It's almost as if you're playing a Smackdown game. You can pick your combos, takedowns, and grapple moves, for every single position. Even your entrance music, moves, and fighting stance.
So all in all, PrideGP is a great MMA game for the MMA fan. You don't get this much in-ring depth playing any of the UFC games. I'd rather not spend 24 bucks for Sudden Impact and isntead save my 5 bucks and buy Pride.