Fight Night Round 3

Is Fight Night Round 3 the great white hope, or does it sting like a butterfly? Kikizo's review weighs-in.

	Version Xbox 360, Xbox, PS2, PSP	Developer EA Chicago	Publisher EA	Genre Boxing

By Stephen Rowley

We had it all worked out; that is, the introduction to this review. We were going to say about how humans are so finely attuned to their own reality, that when a game attempts to visually recreate it, there will always be something that jars with the player and breaks the illusion.

The preview code of Fight Night Round 3, despite the intricately detailed and designed boxers, had many elements which were ruinous to its mimicry of reality. But we can't really say that anymore, as the majority of those elements have been scrubbed up to the point where, whilst obviously not on par with the boxers themselves, they don't shatter the overall visual design.

And it's just as well really, seeing as this update to the Fight Night franchise is pretty much all about that updated graphical prowess, with the 360 version taking the obvious lead. As aside from beautifying the boxers to the point where the preferred (and default) HUD option, is a lack of one, players being instantly able to tell the state of their pugilist's energy and fatigue at a glance, not much else has been added to the experience from Round 2.

Fight Night's Total Punch Control system has additions in the form of 3 new 'Impact' punches, those being the Haymaker, Flash KO and the Stun punches. All of which are heavy hits, but slower to pull off and, if they fail to connect, leave you open to counterattack. Also, a connecting Stun punch will swing the camera into a first-person perspective, but intriguingly through the eyes of your opponent, so you can see your own guy pounding seven shades of something out of the camera.

These new punch types are mostly welcome, particularly in multiplayer bouts, but in the singleplayer game, it isn't until the latter stages of career mode that a mistimed attack is punished severely enough. Also, their availability leads to knockouts much too quickly in the earlier bouts of Career mode, depriving players both of learning the skills vital for those tougher match-ups later on, and of 12-round marathon fights. The always-available sparring mode does go some way to easing the first of those issues, at least for those players patient enough to make use of it.

Outside of multiplayer bouts, the Career mode is still where the meat of Fight Night lies, again only with minor tweaks and additions, in the form of pre-match weigh-ins and some small changes to the training modes used to build up your boxer's stats. The create-a-boxer tool used when starting a career continues to improve in its ability to recreate a fair likeness of your own self, or of any famous people you'd care to place in a boxing ring. Though of course, the pre-defined 'name' boxers already included have more detail, particular in their deformation models.

However, it's the ESPN Classic mode that proves most fun in singleplayer. This mode recreates famous match-ups of yesteryear - Ali vs. Frazier, Ward vs. Gatti, Peacock vs. Maddocks (OK maybe not that last one, that was from Coronation St.) - and the look, and fighting style, of each boxer contained therein is lovingly crafted, overshadowing even your best efforts with the create-a-boxer tool. Though winning these Classic fights ties in with it, as each beaten opponent unlocks that boxer's package. And that's package as in their individual gloves and trunks (not the contents thereof), for use with your own creations.

Despite the overall presentation being significantly improved from the preview code, there are still some areas in which Round 3 is lacking. Whilst the boxers may look great in still shots, and most of the time when in motion, there are still issues with clipping. More amusingly, the ragdoll physics when a fighter is floored can be laughably bad at times - that does break the spell. Also of the bad is EA Trax and a paltry amount of awful music, with the criteria for their selection seemingly being anything with even the remotest link to boxing.

Other problems come not from a lack of something, but an overabundance. One is the slow-mo, close-up animation attached to every single knock out/down punch. If it had been used more sparingly, only when attaining it would have felt like some kind of achievement, it would have stopped it becoming nothing more than a skip-able novelty. Second is the amount of stats - number of punches thrown, hit ratios, punch type ratios - but these are at least easily bypassed by those of us that aren't American.

The final issue is the in-game advertising. Brands such as Everlast and ESPN are obviously transparent, and even add to the game's authenticity, but the advertising assault that is EA pushing its own brand, and those of a certain 'King of Burgers', are just too much, to such an extent that it feels less like 'this fight is brought to you by...', and more like 'this punch was brought to you by...'. Its excessiveness is frankly disgusting.

Fight Night Round 3's core gameplay is solid and fun, its updates from Round 2 only incremental and its overall presentation wildly varied. But EA know their market, and this game is definitely only for fans of (American) boxing, perhaps fans of boxing movies like Raging Bull and Rocky, for those who predominantly play multiplayer/online, and for graphics whores. Anyone who isn't one of those things would probably be happier with the free download-able Live demo.

Graphics Sound Gameplay Depth Presentation OVERALL 9.0 7.0 7.5 6.0 6.5 7.5

THE VERDICT: This is just Fight Night Round 2, with better looking boxers (if such a thing is possible). The nip/tuck goes beyond the graphics, albeit not by a huge margin, but the overall presentation shows that time concessions have had to be made in other areas. The inevitable follow-up - not including the imminent PS3 version which is likely to only be incremental again - could do with being a more cohesive whole, taking away what rough edges remain and further refining/balancing the controls. Also, a more international flavour wouldn't go amiss - we want Lewis, 'Prince' Naseem, McGuigan and Bruno (panto tutu, optional; know what I mean 'Arry?).