Fight Night Round 4 Review - Does this heavyweight stack up to the hype?

Fight Night Round 3 was released in December of 2006 and set the bar for boxing games. Amazing cinematic graphics and intuitive game play made this a classic must own title for boxing and fight fans everywhere. Sure, the game play was a little stiff, and the wall between the fighters seemed a bit corny, but it was still the greatest boxing game to have ever been made. In fact, I have continued to play this game regularly with friends at work for the past 3 years since it's release. So the real question is, does Fight Night Round 4 stack up and improve on the last one? The short answer is yes, depending on what you are looking for in a boxing game.

Fight Night Round 4 has improved its physics engine drastically. For example, In Round 3 you would have awkward looking wide punches causing full damage which often caused odd clipping to occur. In Round 4, you now have glancing blows. So if your punch barley grazes your opponents chin, it's not going to phase him at all. You need to make solid contact with your punches if you ever want to introduce your opponent to the canvas. But this doesn't mean you should start swinging for the fences with rapid haymakers and wild lunging uppercuts.

If you were rapid power punch thrower in Fight Night Round 3 you're going to want to find a new fighting technique, and fast. Heavy punches have been drastically slowed down and can be telegraphed from a mile away by a moderately skilled opponent. All they have to do is dodge your wild punch and fire a hook of their own. Then it's return to sender lights out for you.

This new system encourages technical fighting that is a better representation of real boxing then Fight Night Round 3 was. In real life no boxer could simply "parry" every single hook from a power house boxer like Mike Tyson and cause him to be "stunned" each time. This is why the old parry system has been removed and blocking was simplified to simply high and low guard. This new setup makes it easier to defend yourself but also makes getting the hell out of the way a lot more appealing.

Leaning and dodging are now skills that you must master. In Fight Night Round 3 I rarely ever "dodged" my boxer. There was no point. It was much more beneficial to match my opponents punch with a well timed block, parry him, stun him and then swing for the fences with a haymaker or signature punch. Now with the improvements to real time physics, glancing blows and collision detection, you will need to focus on defending yourself while looking for openings to slip in a solid punch. You can do this by raising your guard at the right time or preferably by making your opponent miss completely.

Dodging a punch is the best way to get your opponents guard wide open. For example, when ducking under a right hook you have a chance to counter with a well timed punch of your own. If done correctly a beautiful "camera flash" effect will trigger and ever so slightly slow down time as your fist meets his face. It's a very rewarding effect that really helps visually sell the damage of a well timed punch. Land a few of these in a row and your opponent will be dazed, confused and probably kissing canvas in a matter of seconds.

The new mechanics take a lot of time to get used to, especially if you were really into Fight Night Round 3. Also, if you enjoy using face buttons to throw your punches you might want to spend some time in training mode and learn the Total Punch Control (TPC) system ASAP or go buy UFC: Undisputed. The reason for this is TCP must be used and can not be turned off or replaced by button commands in Round 4. This may upset many of the casual fans who enjoy button mashing and arcade game play, but I for one am very happy about this change. TPC just makes sense and really draws you into the game. It is very easy to pick up and understand yet incredibly difficult to master. Being able to command your boxer perfectly in the middle of a fight with TCP takes practice. But in the end I stand by it being the best and only way to truly play Fight Night. Fortunately there is a training mode and a slew of mini-games within Legacy Mode that will teach you each specific element of the sweet science.

The training modes are a definite step up from Round 3 and really help to improve your overall understanding of how the actual boxing matches should work. Leaning, foot work, counters, precision punching, and moving your head each have their own training game. The key here is to try them all and make sure you don’t pay too much attention to any one area.  A well balanced boxer is much better than a guy that can hit like Tyson, but moves like a snail. The one catch here is the training games can be very difficult at first. There were many times that I would have earned more points using auto train and not playing the games myself. Over time this has improved and I now enjoy tackling the mini games and have seen a big improvement in how I control my fighter.

Jumping into a quick fight is great when slugging it out with friends, but climbing the ranks in legacy mode is also an enjoyable and deep single player experience. When you start down the path to becoming The Greatest of All Time (G.O.A.T.) you will have the choice to build a custom boxer or use one of the existing real life fighters. When building a custom fighter you may choose to start fresh, build from a preset template or upload photos of yourself and map your face into the game. EA's Game Face tool asks you to take a photo of yourself from the front and side and asks you to plot "points" on key areas of your face. Fight Night Round 4 then uses this data to estimate the correct facial settings to match your looks.

The system isn't perfect. As you can see my fighter resembles me, but it's hardly a spot on reproduction. Fortunately you can tweak the facial settings like normal once it generates your face. If I wanted to spend a bit more time on this I bet I could make it look better. When it comes down to it, the technology is a great step forward and I hope they keep improving this in future titles. It's a neat feature that could be an amazing feature down the road.

The best thing about the Game Face Tool is that it saves you a lot of time in the Create a Boxer screen which you will want avoid as much as possible due to agonizing load times. The unacceptable Create Mode load times are my only problem with this game but are bad enough to stop me from giving this game a 9/10. It's that frustrating.

The problem is that when you change a physical setting such as, body type, muscle definition, skin colour etc. the game can take anywhere from 10-15 seconds to reload your boxers live preview. During this load time you can't do anything. You can't change your selection, move to a different category or even back out of the screen. It's very frustrating and makes the already time consuming process of creating a character twice as long and borderline tedious.

A great way to avoid Create Mode load times is to sign into EA Sports World in-game and download fighters that have been built by the community. You can even upload your own creations while you're there (this is assuming you didn't die of old age or get hypnotized by the ever spinning loading wheel when making your fighter). You can sort the huge library of custom fighters by rating, number of downloads and date submitted.

When surfing the online fighter bank expect to see hundreds of variations of Micheal Jackson and Rocky Balboa. They seem to be the most popular people to make. I counted 3 MJ's on a single page once. But you'll also find some great ones like Borat, Mr Bean, Barack Obama and I even managed to find Gollum.  You will also be able to download really well done player made characters that replicate the famous boxers not found in the games roster like Oscar De La Hoya and Evander Holyfield. The great thing here is that each boxer takes only seconds to download into your game. Then when you start up a fresh Legacy Mode you have the option of using only FNR4 licenced boxers, or to add all of your downloaded and created boxers into the mix. This is a great way to keep things interesting and extend the longevity and depth of the game.

Legacy Mode is well developed and gives you full control over the career of your boxer. You will be checking emails, league ranking and news as well as building a schedule around your fights, recovery time and training. As you climb the ranks you will start to be challenged by rising stars in your bracket. Be careful of these guys. They want to test your reputation and will go to great lengths to do it. They seem to be some of the toughest fighters in the game, and at times can be almost impossible to keep down. The surprise challengers appear to all have high ‘Heart’ ratings which means they can get back up many times after being knocked down. Fortunately you can choose who you take on, and I recommend looking at their stats and not their league rankings when you decide. Of course, if you turn down a surprise challenge you will lose a little cred with boxing fans. Just don't reject them repeatedly and you'll be fine and eventually make it to the top of the pile in Legacy Mode where you will be crowned as The Greatest of All Time. But to really test your skills your going to want to head online where it's a whole different game.

The online area actually has 2 different modes. You can pick from a quick ‘Fight Now’ type of mode that allows you to pick from any rostered fighter to compete in either a ranked or unranked match. Your second option is to go after the belts in the ‘Online Championship’ mode (OC).

The OC has a ranking system of it’s own in 3 separate weight classes. You can fight as a lightweight, middleweight, or heavy weight and you can use your own created boxer from Legacy mode. You will be paired up with boxers all over the world to compete for the number one spot. One fantastic thing about this years online mode is the introduction of a balanced fighter system. There are no statistical advantages or disadvantages when competing online. Boxers will still have height, reach and style differences but stamina, power, heart and other stats have all been equalized to ensure a fair fight.

It should also noted that both the PS3 and Xbox 360 run this game at an amazing 60 frames and deliver the same visual impact. There is no notable difference between the two games in terms of graphics and game play. I've played on both machines myself and with the numerous screen shot comparisons I've seen they look exactly the same, which is fantastic. However, the one perk the 360 does have over the PS3 is the ability to use any song on your hard drive as your ring entrance music. This is a nice touch for when you download Michael Jackson as a boxer and want him to come out to Smooth Criminal. Fortunately for PS3 owners the provided EA Trax music and custom songs are pretty bumpin. There are some great tracks by artists like RZA, Mos Def, Tokyo Police Club, Afrika Bambaataa, Mike Relm, Roots Manuva and even a Fight Night exclusive track by Snoop Dog.

In the end Fight Night Round 4 Manages to set a new bar for boxing games that fans of the sport will simply fall in love with. Those who enjoyed the mechanics of Round 3 might be disappointed about changes like the loss of face buttons mapped for punching and the new mechanics, but there are many other games on the market that will fill those needs. Fight Night Round 4 separates itself from the pack with innovative game play and amazing visuals that look so realistic that I've had multiple friends glance over and exclaim "I didn't know there was boxing on tonight! Who's fighting!?" You owe it to yourself to try this.