"I feel like a real boxer"

Boxing games have always been repetitive, shallow and poorly represented as games. Fight Night: Round 3 however brings back the genre as a sporting format among the best.

Having only briefly played the other fight nights I saw enough to know that I would not be entertained by such a title. With that I held reluctance to purchase this game. I'm glad I did.

Before I start I must say that this game is strong in all departments.

Customisation and game drive.

You can choose at the head of the game to rebuild a boxer's career of an existing champion or create your own. As with most EA games there is a decent degree of customisability of your characters.

In FNR3 you can choose stances, punching styles, specialisations and most impressively exactly how your character is to look. You can choose the length and width of the characters chin, cheeks, nose, lips, head, ears, well everything. There really is that much depth. I spent most of the day making my character look as much like me as possible and apart from maybe 3 weight divisions he was looking pretty damn good. When I finished I thought, “I should work out more and look as buff as that”.

So, you have this ace looking character that's going to tear the place up, how does that work? Well. You start as an amateur and have to prove your worth by winning fights and gaining popularity. You choose which fights you want to fight on a contract basis and if you win you get whatever the contract said. These bonuses could be money, popularity boosts or special fights that make the game feel like you are competing on a real global level.

You've picked your debut fight and are ready to start. Before you begin a match you can do some training that will increase various attributes, these attributes include things such as power, speed, agility, stamina and more.

One of the most impressive things about FNR3 is the introduction to the fights and the commentary. The game delivers this in a way that's so much like the real thing you feel right there in the ring.

Game Play

Your boxer is given an assortment of moves such as jabbing, crosses, uppercuts and special moves. You could set the pad up to do these with the buttons but using the analogue stick gives you much more variation and power. Its hard to explain just how well the controls work in this game, just know that you can block, counter and launch attacks as instant as you would when you fight your brother, or sister for that matter.

The special moves in the game also add for great matches that keep the game fresh through every fight. When I found out about these special moves I immediately though, “Here we go. These are the moves that are going to ruin the game”. I was sceptical of these moves as from past EA sport games it got to a point where repeatedly doing the same thing won the match or round through some imbalanced shot or move.

The special moves improve on the other FN games in the way there are more of them. Now you get a Flash KO, and Stun punch and the original Haymakers. It was the Flash KO that I was especially sceptical about. This move when executed puts your boxer into a state where the next big hit will knock the guy to the floor. I initially thought that this could make it possible to end the fight every single time you hit with it. This isn't so. When you play the computer it foes an amazing job of blocking these shots if you throw them wildly.

An example of this was when I was trying to achieve a contract bonus of ‘knock the guy out in the 8th round'. I was winning all the way up to the 7th by pacing myself and decided stupidly to start playing around with these moves. I had the shock of my life when my special moves were blocked, and immediately the opponent he one back of his own. BANG! There I was on the floor fighting with the two sticks in the innovative ‘get up' sequence.

I never came back after that. The guy who was really beaten to a pulp before had found renewed vigour and proceeded to beat the living hell out of me and knocked me out with less than 15 seconds on the clock to make it to round 8. Amazing. I love games like this.

I then realised that different characters fought with different paces and some of the quicker fighters became really hard to beat. They seemed to lull you into a false sense of security. I lost most of these kinds of fights as id spent all my energy hitting the air or the opponent blocking all my shots and unleashing devastating counters and combos.

The game keeps most of this play in check with the health meters. You have two, one for main health and one for shot power. The shot power meter deteriorates if you wildly swing and miss hit. Going into some fights swinging wildly will just get you knocked out.

Speaking of getting knocked out, the replays of the last finishing shots sometimes really capture the ‘brutalness' and are amazing to watch.

The end of rounds is always interesting as your trainer offers advice on how to tackle your opponent. You also have to heal your beaten body but an auto heal can be selected. Admittedly the advice given by your coach gets a bit repetitive after a while but it adds to the already great gaming experience.

Another feature in the game is the rivalry between fighters. The game keeps score between you and another similarly skilled AI opponent and keeps tabs on what the personal score is with each of you. Its just a nice touch to get you thinking and keeping mental notes on fighters who beat you.

Overall the gameplay is pure boxing and fighting. The controls execute in a way that the pad feels like an extension of your hand. Its very responsive and it handles really well.

Online

The game is exactly the same but with a few problems, which would infuriate some players.

Problem one you will notice is the way EA do all their online games. You have to go to an EA made lobby to arrange your fights. While I've never had a problem, many of my friends have had problems connecting and getting fights. This must be down to personal xbox360 settings, as I've never had a problem.

Problem two is the screaming. Naturally you will get comments from players that may not agree with the way you would like to be talked to by strangers, all games have this problem when you get them online. This game however harbours more trash talk than Halo2 in some cases. It is constantly abusive and you may just want to turn your sound off.

Problem 3 is player's unwillingness to actually have a boxing match. Most games are over within two rounds as some players just over use the Flash KO and special moves. These people play the best character ‘Ali' for example and are constantly throwing punches. In most cases its not a problem as you just block and counter but if you play with a character that is a bit more vulnerable to head shots, the constant non stop barrage of punches to the head and that extra damage makes for no fun. Blocking isn't as good as it could be, as it's sometimes not fast enough.

Further problems are with the actual character select. You can create a boxer at the front of the game and give him 100% in every attribute and then use this dude online. For the more eccentric players they could remodel all the characters in the game with these modified stats and just totally dominate every match.

My complaint is this. I fought this guy who was one of the said ‘constant throw punches' and play as Ali people. I picked Ali as well and still lost by a totally unnatural margin. I viewed the end of game stats and I had contacted over a hundred more punches, 70% contact that is compared to his 24%. I threw 20 haymakers with 100% contact compared to his 10% and countered 80% compared to his 16%. My stats were much more superior and in the game I witness a non tired opponent with minimal main health damage where my energy was at about 60% and received a KO in the 2nd round. Odd. The guy no matter how much I blocked, countered and dodged never tired on either of the two health meters.

Other than that I've had some good 8 round fights where we have been contempt to box. I applaud them players. My only wish was that the power meter went down much more quickly so it would counter these people who just button mash.

Extras

The venues at which you fight are just great. It just looks amazing when you get your first title fight in ‘Madison Square Garden', the crowd cheers and audience look really grand.

There are a couple more modes in the game such as a hits game where the winner is the person who KO's an opponent or knocks the person down the most times in a said amount of rounds. There are also quick fights where you just pick a weight, a person and fight.

There is also an ESPN CLASSIC option where the game simulates some of the worlds best fights with the characters that are in the game. The Ali VS Fraiser fight is especially good mimicking the historic event and rivalry that happened all those years ago.

More Extras

Briefly touched upon before were the training rounds. There are 3 mini games called weight lifting, combo and punch bag where you do some little skill games to achieve the best score in a short time. In game these things raise your stats. The mini games aren't that much fun but give a good way to break up the boxing action between fights. Also from the mini game list you can choose ‘Sparring' where you just fight a guy for practice. The menu from sparring allows you to practice various moves in the game. I thought it was a nice touch and gave me a clearer picture of how to fight more effectively.

EVEN MORE OPTIONS!

Just when you thought EA had really done a great job they do an even greater one by giving you some really good options. At the start of the game you can change what the round style will be like and change options such as TKO on/off, saved by the bell, ref stopping fights and other great things, the depth here is great.

The difficulty can be changed to from easy medium and hard but if you really want to handicap yourself, fight people in different weight divisions. Come on, Ali vs a featherweight. That's entertaining on so many levels.

One last thing is the money and Shop. As you progress you fight for bigger sums of money that will enable you to buy gear for your character. This just adds even more to the customisability and is a really great feature to have.

I've noticed the age of you boxer increases with each fight. I'm not sure what happens in the future as at the time of writing I'm in the ‘Big Name' status and 25 years old. Hopefully the older you get it could reflect on your appearance and effect you attributes. Could this be too much to ask for EA after what is a great game already, surely not!

Overall

A fantastic game that is a must buy for anyone with a 360. The game plays absolutely fantastic with enough modes and options to keep you playing for quite a while. With the inclusion of online play this game has pretty much all you would ever need of a boxing game. It is certainly the best game of this genre and this quality is attained by the superb graphics, contact and most of all the responsive and intuitive controls.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/15/06