I don’t usually like sport games that much, mostly because they’re the same thing since 1994, but with enhanced graphics, but Fight Night is an exception to the rule.

At its base it might be a fighting game, but it features a completely different gameplay style that is made to replicate the actual sport of boxing.

I quite liked Fight Night Round 3, but it lacked SOMETHING. It didn’t feel exactly as realistic as it should and the gameplay felt like it lacked a lot of polish.

Does FNR4 correct the problems from its predecessor, or does it KO itself?

Read on!

Developer: EA Canada
Publisher: EA Sports
Date of Release: June 23 2009
Platform: Playstation 3, Xbox 360

Genre: Sports/Fighting
Players: 1 or 2 players, online and offline

Looks and sounds
Well, the boxers look great. If you’ve watched a few trailers and videos of the game, you know this already. They look really fateful to their real-life versions. There’s still an artificial look to them, of course, but what game doesn’t? The detail is great, the animation is top notch, the physics used to calculate muscle-flexing and other random stuff handles everything really well and adds realism to it. The audience is also not too bad, it’s pretty believable, but there’s obviously less work put in the crowd than on the boxers.

The near lack of graphic glitches is also quite welcome. FNR3 was plagued by multiple graphic issues. Mostly having to do with some models going through others, and most of the time it was the pants that just didn’t work well at all. Not it still does have a few issues here and there, but most of the big problems from FNR3 are gone.

The sound is a bit of a problem. The announcers, while doing their job fine in delivering the lines and all, are just not very good. They keep repeating the same stuff all the time, their timing is horrible, sometimes they talk for 20 seconds about something that happened 10 seconds BEFORE that, and after a few matches they keep doing the same lame comparisons and sometimes repeating themselves in the same match. And sometimes they change their opinion in seconds … EX: “Tyson is having trouble here” *Tyson throws a punch* “Tyson has been dominating this fight!”. I think the announcers are a bit on the crazy side. And it’s strange how EVERY FIGHT IS THE BEST FIGHT THEY’VE EVER SEEN.
But the big problem is the music. I thought the music in FNR3 was bad, but now I WISH that the horrible music from FNR3 would be back. I don’t like rap as a whole, so I might be a bit biased on this, but this is by far the worst rap I’ve ever heard. And most of the songs are actually about the game, which just seems… weirdly out of place. The music lacks energy and… just about anything good songs should have. The lyrics suck, the music is pretty much non-existent (a simple beat and that’s about it) and there was seemingly no effort into making a fun and interesting soundtrack. I mean, there’s probably some good rap out there, they could’ve made an effort to get some of it in the game if they really wanted a rap soundtrack.

Anything else sound-wise is fine. You get good sound cues to know if your punches hit or not and such, no problems there.

The presentation is nice, other than for the crappy music.

Gameplay
Controls
The controls are really good. The removed the button controls, but it’s fine that way, since there’s not nearly enough buttons on the controller to do all the punches AND have all the modifiers(unless you resort to having some punches on the d-pad…. but that would suck since you move with the left analog stick… and even then there probably wouldn’t be enough).

When you first start up the game, you get a tutorial for the basic controls. This is a MUST to do, since otherwise you’ll have no idea what you can do. There’s 10 punches you go do with just the right analog sticks: right hook, left hook, jab, straight, right uppercut, left uppercut, right body hook, left body hook,  right body uppercut and left body uppercut.  Yes, that’s right, NO MORE LEANING if you want to do body shots. So there’s no more “Hey I’m leaning so you can start blocking your body now” crap, you can do body blows whether you’re leaning or not now, which is a GREAT step up. For straights and jabs you still need to lean to hit the body, but that’s no big deal anymore. Holding R2 makes any of your hooks or uppercuts into strong haymaker versions of them. Pressing X makes you do your signature punch, which is either set on the “real boxers” or you choose which one you want when creating a boxer. So if you can count, there’s 20 different punches you can do just with the right analog stick and 2 modifier buttons. And a 21st punch with the X button. There’s lots of punches you can do and each of them have their uses.

Other than punching, you can lean back and forth, using L1. This prevents you from moving around, but you can avoid punches that way. Avoiding at the right timing gives the opponent a little big of cooldown before being able to do anything else AND gives you a counter opportunity. Holding R1 let’s you block. There’s 2 ways to block: blocking your head or blocking your body.  Blocking at the right timing does the same thing as leaning at the right timing. The first thing you’ll realize with the blocking system is that they removed the parry system from it since FNR3. Which is great since the parry system was completely stupid. Blocking is also not 100% fool-proof. As you get hit in your block, it loosens and you have chances to get hit anyways when you block. Makes you strategize, since you can’t block your way into a match.

Countering is a bit tricky. You have to block or lean at the right timing, and you have about a second to throw a punch that hits. This causes a lot more damage than usual, and from what I’ve seen it has more chances to cause a Flash Knockdown. Most of the time you get a little zoom-in effect when you get the timing right for an opportunity, but sometimes you don’t, making it harder to know when you have opportunities. But overall the counter system is a step up from the crappy parry system from FNR3.

Otherwise, L2 switches your style from orthodox to southpaw, or vice versa(not that I have any idea what use this has). Circle makes you do a headbutt(illegal blow that will affect your points on the judges’ scorecards). Triangle makes you clinch(also affects your score, but lets you recover some stamina). Square makes you push the opponent (there are multiple uses for this, though I rarely use it).

The last thing I didn’t mention is weaving. I can’t say much about that one since I never use it. I think you can get a counter opportunity from it, though I never managed to get one myself (the CPU did, plenty of times). It’s done by doing a certain motion with the left analog stick. I didn’t find THAT much use for it, but I’m sure other people can and did find use for it. I just can’t be arsed to find out on my own.

The control, overall, are very good. They’re really easy to learn, but actually doing GOOD with them is a whole other story. A lot of training is required to handle it perfectly in an actual match.

Fighting
The fighting is pretty much what you’d expect from a boxing game. 1 on 1, you punch the opponent until he gets knocked out enough so that he can’t get up anymore. It’s mostly like it was in FNR3, but its taken a level higher.

In FNR3, there was an invisible 1 foot thick wall between you and your opponent and you couldn’t get closer than that. Now you can get really close to your opponent and actually touch him. In FNR3, a punch either hit or miss (either because it was blocked or avoided). There was no middle ground. He you have glancing blows and clean hits, each with different effects, each determined by physics. The gameplay is more realistic because of all this, since you get different effects based on various conditions.

Another modification here is the inclusion of an HUD. It’s not exactly NEEDED, since you can see the state of your fighter just by looking at him. If you block too much, you’ll know that soon the block will loosen. When your punches get slow you know your stamina is low, and the overall look of you fighter’s state can give you a good hint as to what his health is like. But the HUD helps quite a bit, since you can more easily adjust your strategy depending on the situation.

When an opponent is close to getting knocked down, he is stunned. That prevents his health meter from going up, and a few hits will most likely knock him down. That’s basically the part where they’ll either run away from you or try clinching. If he clinches and you have enough stamina, you can mash square to break away from the clinch, and the person clinching can mash triangle to stay clinched. It’s also possible to get something called a Flash Knockdown. Instead of going through all the stunned part, the opponent gets knocked down instantly. I don’t know what the conditions are exactly, but I know it takes perfect timing.

When you are knocked down, you have a new “getting up” mini-game. Instead of that weird “bring 2 icons to the middle” thing from FNR3, you have to straighten your body with the left analog stick, and when it’s straight you stand up with the right analog stick. This is a fun little system, much more effective than before, and it’s not as random. The more you’re hurt, the harder it becomes to keep your balance and the more you’ll end up falling left and right.

The last element here is the corner game, which is also a big modification from FNR3. When a round ends, you have a minute to judge what your boxer needs to have “repaired”. Either his health, stamina or overall damage meters. For each of them you have various “tools” you can use, each costing a different amount of points and each, and each recover a different amount of each meter. You get points depending on how well you do in a round. Do good, get tons of points, and get another advantage on your opponent.

Overall the fighting is very good. Not as realistic as it could be, the overall engine needs a lot more polish, but as of now it’s definitely the most realistic simulation of the sport in the video game world.
The punching/comboing is also majorly sped-up from FNR3. The game is faster and a lot more exciting. I’ve had people watching me play FNR4 asking me why the game was running in slow motion(punches aren’t exactly as fast as in real life, but much closer than FNR3), but they wouldn’t be asking that if they had tried FNR3…

Modes
There’s 2 main modes: Fight Now and Legacy. Fight Now is just straight up choosing your boxer and going into a fight, either against the CPU or another player… or 2 CPUs if you want (I know I did…. first thing I did was put the difficulty at the highest and watched a great Tyson VS Ali fight). Straight and simple, great for a fast match.

Legacy mode is a much enhanced version of the career mode in FNR3. You make a boxer (or use an older one to repeat their career), and make them go through a boxing career. You start at an amateur tournament in order to become a Pro, and then it all starts. You schedule fights, get training, fight, recover from your fights and continue like that like you want. As you fight, you go up the rankings and fight more and more difficult opponents.

Training is comprised of multiple mini-games(which uses the in-game engine). There’s a maximum stat boost, and a few stats which go down by 1, you can get from each to A WHOLE BUNCH OF STATS, all which influences how your boxer will play in a match. From the strength of each hand, to you toughness, you hand speed and accuracy, to heart and stamina, to how strong your chin is, and a bunch of other stuff. Each stat has a reason to be and will affect your fights. At each training session(you get at least 1 training session before a match, though you can get more if you schedule your match further), you get the option of auto-training, or playing the mini-game. Auto-training will give you, at most, half the stat boosts. Actually doing the training has chances of getting you the full increase, but you also chance getting less than half the increase. Each mini-game gives you points for various things, and each number of points gives you a different percentage of stat increase. It’s your choice whether you want to auto-train or not, and you can actually practice the mini-games out of the legacy mode, so what I suggest is playing the trainings you’re good at (for me it’s sadly just open sparring >_>) and auto-training the rest.

After each fight, you get your stats recorded, and if you’re really into it you have a lot of things to look at. While you’re in legacy, the whole boxing world, including other weight divisions, is also being simulated (this slows down the gameplay just a bit since you’re constantly waiting for the game to automatically simulate everything that’s going on.  But you can always see what’s been going on in other weight divisions (which isn’t a bad idea since you’ll be going at those eventually if your legacy goes well).

Some things that were removed is the whole “money” factor. You don’t win any money from fights, and you don’t have any stat-boosting equipment either. So all the different clothes just changes your character’s appearance, and everything is free. Some has to be unlocked, mostly by performing well, but it’s all free.

Difficulty
The CPU-controlled enemies are tough. Even if you’re not at the hardest difficulty. In legacy mode, they start not too hard, but after a few matches, they get really hard to deal with. Their timing for Counters and dodging is really accurate. They get Flash Knockdowns quite often. They get hard to hit and hit hard since most of their hits become counters. They even seem to get counter opportunities by doing things that shouldn’t usually give opportunities. It’s not impossible to deal with, but  it can get a bit annoying.

Overall
This is a great game. A lot better than its predecessor. It lacks a bit polish, and even clean hits don’t look like they hit very hard, but the gameplay is solid. It’s easy to pick up (with a well done tutorial for the basics), and REALLY hard to master. CPU-controlled opponents feel a bit cheap, what with them constantly getting counter opportunities, while playing the same way I can barely seem to get any. But maybe it’s just that I need to get tons better at the game.

This game is a must-have for boxing/FNR fans.

Pros/Cons
Pros
- Great graphics
- Great gameplay
- Easy to learn and handle controls, but very hard to master (yes, this is a GOOD thing)
- EASILY the most realistic depection of the sweet science yet (not perfect, but a game JUST LIKE boxing might be boring, what with all the clinching they do in the actual sport…)
- Take care of most of the big problems from FNR3
- Interesting career mode

Cons (there’s lots of them, but they’re not game breaking)
- THE CRAPPY MUSIC
- The announcers get repetitive after… just about 2 matches
- The punches lack a bit of realism
- Slow loading times (there’s a small install, so there shouldn’t be a problem at all here)
- The music is horrible
- CPU-controlled opponents are just a bit on the cheap side
- The game gets a MAJOR framerate drop when the PS3 signals you that a friend logged in or out of the network
- The music sucks
- There’s not much in this for people who aren’t fans of the series, or boxing itself

The Save Factor (explanation)
So, what’s the Save Factor this time? With a starting price of $60, the Save Factor for Fight Night Round 4 is:

$38 USD Unless you’re a BIG boxing/FNR fan(which means you either already have the game, or are willing to pay full price). A great game, but if you’re not a big fan this won’t last you very long.

jobocan Console, Games, Review, ps3, xbox 360