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Fight Night Round 4
Release Date: June 25, 2009
Available On: Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3
Developer: EA Canada
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Sports (Boxing)
ESRB Rating: Teen - Mild Blood, Mild Lyrics, Mild Suggestive Themes, Violence
The Fight Night franchise has been a fan favorite since 2004, but unlike the once-a-year titles like Madden and NBA Live where the roster changes drastically every year, Fight Night games have been on a three-year hiatus since Round 3’s 2006 release.
The menu and loading screens have a great feeling to them, created by the design, which is a combination of sepia, gold, and glitz. The flashing bulbs and gold lettering announce the return of the most exciting boxing franchise on the market. This entry touts the largest roster of boxers ever in a Fight Night game, including Forman, Ali, and even Tyson. If these greats aren’t up to your standards, EA has included a “Create A Boxer” feature that allows players to fully customize the look, build, and skill of their own boxer.
FNR4 is a spectacular-looking game inside the ring; outside though, it becomes apparent that the developers were focused on the boxers, their models and movements. The crowd is an uninteresting mesh of the same dozen fight enthusiasts flashing camera bulbs and throwing their arms up. Even the ring girls exhibit a noticeable drop in attention.
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Definitely the wrong end of that punch to be on.</center>
Definitely the wrong end of that punch to be on.</center>
A training session introduces players to the game’s movement, attack, and defense controls. The controls seem very precise and will require a large amount of control on the player’s part if he or she wants to leave the ring victorious. Once through the excessively repetitive training session (“now, jab your opponent in the face seven more times, but now with your left hand!”), players get the chance to play a three round match with Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton and Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao, fresh from their welterweight title fight.
Players can choose to fight in a variety of different styles, which will all result in different outcomes from match-to-match. All punches are mapped to the right joystick, and movement around your opponent to the left one. Jabs, hooks, and uppercuts are all easy enough to pull off, but once you have another boxer in your face, blocking your every move, options become limited. It is at this point that gameplay becomes quite a challenge.
Balancing defense and offense eventually reveals itself as the best strategy, but dodging shots and landing counterpunches is much harder than it seems. The reason for this, unfortunately, is that a lot of the time, regardless of the fatigue of the other player and the praise of the announcers, players will have no clue how much they are wearing his or her opponent down. It feels very uncertain and the only way to really feel rewarded is to land a knockdown blow.
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Before George Forman was selling grills, he was punching them.</center>
Before George Forman was selling grills, he was punching them.</center>
When this does happen, it feels great, but most of the time I played I felt unsure whether my strategy was working or if it was dumb luck. In one match I knocked down Ricky Hatton in less than a minute, but during various other matches I would go all three rounds without so much as landing a dizzying blow.
The gameplay is pretty solid otherwise; it offers a challenge and a difficulty curve that will take a great deal of finesse to master. Learned skill, a boxer’s height and reach, and the player’s own reflexes will all become part of landing the perfect knockout punch. These factors will make this a highly replayable game for those who enter into the online world championship mode. This mode will allow players to take boxers they have created online to contend for championship and then defend them.
The three years since “Round 3” have given the franchise a useful break. EA Canada has added improvements that will delight fans of the franchise. The excitement of seeing Ali fight Tyson again is more than enough to peak the interest anyone with general knowledge of boxing. Fans of the series will definitely want to pick this game up on June 25th and experience what makes Fight Night the “undisputed champ of boxin’ video games.”
For more information on Fight Night Round 4, stay tuned to Total Gaming Network!
~Eldri