"The graphics are nothing short of jaw-dropping, but great graphics can only go so far."

Fight Night Round 3 is the first Fight Night for the Xbox 360, and if anything, it's indisputably the best-looking boxing game to this date. The characters looks incredibly life-like, the punches look painful, and it all adds up to a game that gives off an awesome first-impression but not much more than that.

Gameplay 7/10
Total Punch Control is back, but there is little improvement. The new punches aren't all that effective, and you'll be back to your old habits in no time.

For those who have never played a Fight Night game before, you'll definitely get a lot of mileage out of mastering the Total Punch Control, which is essentially just how you fiddle with the Right Analog Stick. There are also other configurations where you can use the face buttons, but it's far less immersive.

Career mode is probably where you will be spending most of your singleplayer time as you build up a boxer from scratch. In this mode, you'll go around beating up boxer after boxer, as you play minigames to improve your stats in between every fight. You will earn money as you go along, thus allowing you to purchase better equipment to boost your stats. There is also supposedly this "Rival" boxer, but you'd hardly notice the difference in the ring except that the announcer does his best to make these matches more exciting.

Singleplayer for the most part revolves around the AI, which is sometimes deceptively easy, and other times incredibly frustrating. Eventually though, you'll know what to expect from them as they really only behave in a couple of different manners.

Fight Night Round 3 also allows playing multiplayer matches over Xbox Live. Sadly, custom characters are allowed and you'll notice that they can perform significantly better than the real roster. Although fun for a little while, the gameplay just isn't deep enough to hold your attention for very long.

Graphics 10/10
The graphics are amazing, plain and simple. It makes the game more fun to play than it should be, as the characters just look incredibly realistic. Graphics are definitely the highlight of this game.

Sound 8/10
Though the announcer hasn't changed much, he's still fun to listen to even though you'll probably hear all his lines after a couple of hours. The music is standard rhythm and blues (R&B), but what really stands out are the in-ring sounds. Punches often sound devastating, and you'll even hear the boxers trying to catch their breath when they're tired.

Final Verdict 8/10
This is definitely one of the better Xbox 360 games to come out since launch, and has some of the best graphics to date. On the other hand, the shallow gameplay will probably not keep your attention for too long unless you're an obsessive boxing fan. A great rental, but not worth the purchase at full price.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/24/06