EA Sports’ much anticipated new entry in the Fight Night franchise is unlike other games in EA’s sporting suite; it isn’t merely a yearly update with minor changes to justify the new number tacked to the end of the title. In fact, Fight Night Round 4 has been three years in the making, with EA Canada taking over from EA Chicago and giving it a pretty comprehensive overhaul. The Fight Night franchise once straddled the fence between being a simulation of the sport and being an arcade brawler in much the same way as EA’s FIFA games are part sim and part arcade game to soccer or the Tiger Woods PGA Tour games are to golf. To cater to both camps, the Fight Night series gave players two control methods, one that relied on arcade button-pressing to represent the punches and one that uses the control stick to more accurately represent the fighters’ punching movements. Well those days are over. Fight Night Round 4 takes the controversial step of removing the ability to use the button-mapped controls altogether. This sets the tone for the rest of the game which tilts the balance further towards the simulation realm, with an even greater emphasis on the skill and strategy of the sport.
EA Canada recognises that the control scheme will take some getting used to for people new to the game or who were previously button-tappers, so the game features a helpful tutorial that greets you as soon as you load up the game. One of the biggest changes we noticed with the new setup was with the 'haymaker' punch. This wild punch is now thrown by holding one of the right shoulder buttons, which makes it a bit fiddly to do. We’ve also noticed that the haymaker doesn’t seem to be quite as damaging as it was in the previous game. Because of the increased pace of the game, it's even harder to land a haymaker, and your opponent can generally get out of its way and have a cup of tea before you've thrown it. This seems to have been done to deliberately lessen the impact and 'luck' associated with this punch.
"Your underarms look incredibly smooth - do you shave or wax?"
Gameplay has also been significantly adjusted, with one of the major upgrades being made to the countering system. If you successfully evade a punch or block one with perfect timing (i.e. just as your opponent is about to land it), you’ll hear a sound queue (which is quite similar to that of a landed punch, but never mind) which means you have a short opportunity to counter. You can counter with any sort of punch – from a jab through to a heavy punch – and successfully landing it will do more damage to your opponent. However, it’s not a free hit; your window of opportunity to counter is fairly short and if your timing is off, your opponent may avoid or block you and land a counter of his own. While countering opportunities are now more frequent and obvious, you’ll have to be skilful to take advantage of them, making the system feel more fluid and realistic.
Another tweak to the gameplay involves ‘stunning’ your opponent, which makes him dizzy and vulnerable. In this state, his health meter turns red and you have a limited chance to do major damage and to possibly knock him down. However, unlike a lot of the fights in Fight Night Round 3, simply landing one or two more hits during this period may not necessarily floor your opponent as it's based on the amount of damage they have left. So if you're dominating an opponent and he lands a lucky punch that stuns you, you won't be punished too much for it. After each round when you’re back in your corner getting a pep talk from your trainer, you will be awarded points based on your success in the previous round. Gone are the mini-games that involve rubbing ice packs on swollen eyes or swabbing a cotton bud on cuts to recover. Now you can spend points to recover stamina, damage and health. These points can also be saved up for latter rounds and spent on higher recovery items. While we quite liked the old system of being directly involved in the recovery of your fighter, the new system rewards your actual performance in the ring and makes more sense. It also adds a level of strategy. For example, do you spend all of your points after each and every round for frequent (but minor) recovery, or do you risk the chance of getting tired and knocked out by saving your points to spend on greater recovery options later in the fight?
"It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight.."
The legacy (career) mode is where most of the single-player action is, and it has been significantly re-worked. You’ll start by creating your boxer, and the level of detail you put into customisation is largely up to you, including picking the way you walk into the ring (are you confident and flamboyant or cool and focused?), your fighting styles, and your signature punch. You can also load your own face into the game via EA’s Photo GameFace option if you like watching yourself getting punched. In this mode, you’ll start as a lowly slugger who can challenge other fighters to move up the ranks, building popularity along the way and moving to bigger and flashier venues. Your fighter will also have an overall level (such as ‘Prospect’, ‘Champion’ and, eventually, ‘The Greatest’) based on statistics such as your popularity and win ratio.
You can pick the dates of your fights on your calendar based on the availability of other fighters, and depending on how far away the fight is, gives you a certain number of training sessions to improve your statistics. There are six training modes you can undertake that will increase some of your fighter’s statistics while slightly reducing others. However, we found that at the start of your career when you can’t punch your way out of a paper bag, these training exercises are very difficult to do. You need good statistics to be good at them, which largely defeats their purpose. While the game offers an auto-train option, this only gives you half of what you could otherwise achieve if you did well yourself. We think the game should have had different training levels offered to you at different times of your career, rather than a training system that punishes you so harshly in the early years.
When Fight Night Round 3 was released in 2006, it was considered a major technical feat and was the first game to show the graphical potential of the new hardware, not to mention the potential of better physics and collision detection engines. While not initially as dazzling, Fight Night Round 4 looks better in every way to its predecessor. The way the boxers’ muscles flex, their changing expression based on where they are in the fight, and the realistic ruffling of their trunks all look wonderful and run smoothly without a hint of slowdown. Knock-downs still feature the slow motion, bone crunching close-ups, and it looks much better and realistic than in Fight Night Round 3. Heads recoil from the impact of punches and their faces distort from the blow with a spray of spittle from their mouths (rather than the litre of liquid that seemed to flow in Fight Night Round 3). We also need to acknowledge the new physics engine which works so well you barely notice it. Punches register realistically and you’ll rarely see the glitches that were present in the previous version of the game.
Not pictured, little birds circling his head.
The online mode has also been reworked. One of the major upgrades to this is the new World Championship mode which makes every player equal in statistics, and ranks people purely on their fighting prowess. While some people have had gripes about this system, and while a lot of people are picking tall fighters with long reach to try and get an advantage, it seems to work pretty well for the most part. The fights themselves run very smoothly and we experienced barely any lag during our time with the game so far.
While we had the odd minor quibble with the game, (particularly the training in Legacy Mode), Fight Night Round 4 is a deep and engaging boxing experience. In fact, it’s the best boxing game ever made and one of the best looking games around. While some may object to the move towards making the series more of a simulation than a button masher, we think it works well. Even if you only have a passing interest in boxing or fighting games, Fight Night Round 4 both floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. It's time to get in the ring, sucka.
Still, it has a serious impact online.
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