Fight Night Round 3

The brightly lit stadiums, the flashing camera lights, the resonating cheer of an anxious crowd — are just few of the things that lure you to play another match in Fight Night Round 3 (FNR3). I’ve not played much of the previous two games, but from the brief time I’ve spent with Round 2, I can tell you that Round 3 is the best looking game of the lot as it makes great use of the Xbox 360’s graphical muscle, flexing it to an impressive level.

The character models are lifelike, and each muscle and sinew moves realistically every time you throw a punch or block a blow. The way the light refracts in the beads of sweat that outline your boxer’s back is just beautiful. Each visual character detail has been taken care of by EA; you can see the veins on your boxer’s neck, and actually count the number of cuts and lumps on his face, that are gifted by his foe. Each punch that hits your opponent connects with their character models physically, unlike other fighting games, where your blows just hang in mid air, with a noticeable gap between your fist and its target. And not only do these blows look real, they sound real too, making a very crispy crunch or a painful thump, depending on which part of your opponent’s body they land on.

To accompany each crunch and thump, the crowd reacts with an enthusiastic ‘yay!’ or a woeful ‘aww’, that sounds pretty realistic and sets the tempo of the game right. Every now and then they’ll cheer your name, or the name of whoever’s winning (damned crowd mentality!). Not only do these blurry people in the crowd sound good, they look pretty good too, and they have their individual movement patterns, which makes them seem more real; this is an area where most fighting games mess up, but Fight Night Round 3 doesn’t. To accompany the look of the crowd, the larger arenas seem pretty sweet, and have the grandeur of the arenas you’ve seen in a lot of the Hollywood boxing classics.

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No doubt, the presentation of the game is top notch, but that’s not enough to make a boxing fan out of me. Boxing, as a sport, has always seemed dull and uninteresting to me, and my only exposure to it has been through movies like Raging Bull and the Rocky series. But the gameplay in FNR3 has changed all of that, by introducing me to the joy of planting a well-timed hook or a lethal uppercut to change the tide of a match. The punching system is easy to pickup, as it doesn’t involve any crazy button combinations; you use your left analog stick to move, and your right analog stick to plant punches. It’s pretty simple to get acquainted to if you train using the ‘Sparring Mode’. This mode will show you how easy it is to throw punches, for instance, if you swing the right stick half circle, you execute an uppercut on the corresponding side, and if you move it a quarter circle you throw a hook. This simplicity in design goes a long way in making the game enjoyable and addictive, by allowing you to focus on timing your blows and blocking those thrown at you, rather than using elaborate button combinations to throw punches.

From what I’ve experienced in FNR2, the punching system in its sequel is much more responsive and fine-tuned to perfection. Now, I might be a fan of this system, but I must say that it has its flaws. Although a majority of the punches are easy to execute, there are a few like the Flash KO punch, which are excruciatingly slow and hence very hard to time. Additionally, you’ll find that many a time you’ll throw a pretty hard impact punch, which will have a very contradictory sluggish animation to accompany it, but the game will still play a loud thump, which seems totally wrong.

Even with these drawbacks, the punching system seems awesome, but the game is not just restricted to flailing your hands around. If you create a new boxer to play with in the Career mode, he starts off as a weakling and will stay that way, until you train him to become a killing machine. You can do this by hiring a trainer to show you the ropes and toughen you up. Each trainer has their own forte that they will endow upon you, to make some aspect of your fighting style better. Although, the good trainers come at a price — that you will have to earn by signing contracts and wining matches. Once you have the cash though, you can hire specific trainers to fit your playing style, for example, you can make your fighter a speed demon that throws punches at speeds that make his foes dizzy, or you can make him a sluggish power-puncher that knocks the air out of his opponents with ease. To further enhance your playing style, you can unlock and buy gear from the in-game store to boost your strength, and negate your fighter’s weaknesses. To sum it up, a game based on boxing wouldn’t have to try too hard to be boring, but EA has done a good job in making it interesting by adding such customizability, and giving you multiple boxing styles to explore.

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An area where EA has managed to mess up a bit is the ESPN Classic mode, which could have been much better. Although it’s a lot of fun to play as some of boxing’s greatest, and participate in epic rivalries such as Muhammed Ali versus Joe Frazer, the bouts are historically inaccurate and the stadiums they’re played in don’t seem of that era.

EA could have paid a little more attention to detail here, which would have gone a long way in making this mode seem more authentic. And while we’re at it, another drawback in this game is the way the Career mode gets a little monotonous, and ends up feeling like a grind; rather than feeling the way it should (like a path you’re setting for an upcoming boxer), it ends up feeling like a series of random matches that prepare you for harder challenges. Even when you start a rivalry with one of your foes, it sums up to nothing more than fighting him time and time again, which can get boring.

Even though the game can get a bit monotonous at times, there’s nothing more fun than fighting your friends in a 2-player match. Agreed, the game has its pitfalls, but the good stuff the game has to offer (such as the marvelous presentation and incredible gameplay experience) compensates for these drawbacks. Thanks to the effort EA has put into this title, it is one of the must-haves for the Xbox 360 and is definitely worth your money.