Reviewed: April 11, 2006
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Electronic Arts
Developer
EA Chicago
Released: February 20, 2006
Genre: Sports
Players: 1-2
ESRB: Teen
8
10
7
9
8.8
Supported Features
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
EA might have taken some serious flak for their uninspired line-up of 360 sports launch titles but after a few rounds of Fight Night Round 3 I’m betting all will be forgiven. Very seldom does a title come along that defines the system you are playing it on, especially within the first six months of the system’s release, and especially when it’s a sports game.
Anyone who knows me will confirm I am a graphics whore. Paint me a pretty picture and I can overlook a lot of flaws in gameplay, so when I tell you that the graphics in Fight Night Round 3 are so good they actually make the game better, I’m not exaggerating. How good are they?
Well, let’s just say that I despise boxing as a sport. Sure, I’ve seen the Rocky movies and even played the game (for review, not for pleasure), but I don’t seek out boxing events on ESPN or HBO and I don’t anticipate EA’s yearly boxing release. In fact, this is the first Fight Night I have ever laid eyes or hands on.
EA Chicago has invested 110% of their efforts into the 360 version of this third installment. Everything else is just a port, but from what I’ve been hearing from my other editors, those other versions are nothing to sneeze at, especially if you don’t have the luxury of a 360. But if you do have Microsoft’s latest console and a HDTV to watch it on, you are in for the most realistic (if not surrealistic) experience of your life.
The presentation for Fight Night Round 3 is pretty straightforward. You have a simple menu that gives you access to Play Now, Career, ESPN Classic, Online, and your setup options. Newcomers might want to check out the play now and even turn on the optional HUD to learn the ropes, but jumping into that career mode is your ultimate destination.
The first thing you need to do is create your boxer. This is easily one of the most intensive character creation processes of any game since Tiger Woods. You have the ultimate freedom to mold just about every facial and body feature and a list of stats that are extensive enough to put this sports title in the RPG genre.
The career process is a lengthy cycle or hiring a training, training, fighting, then spending your winnings on gear in the Fight Store and hiring better trainers. As you win fights your reputation increases until you start competing for titles. This repeats through eight title bouts, which can take 8-12 hours of real time, but several years in game time.
Your character will start to age as you keep playing the game and your stats and ability to train will start to degrade making it much more challenging to defend your title. Of course you can always retire anytime you wish and create a new boxer.
There are three ways you can train and each will improve some stats while taking away from others. You can hire specialty trainers that will protect some stats while increasing others. You have the option to automatically train and take a reduced amount of stat improvement or you can manually train.
Manual training involves an increasingly challenging series of mini-games and your stat rewards are based on whether or not you can meet the increasing demands of your trainer. Strength training features a mini-game where you lift weights by alternating nudges on the two analog sticks to move the weights to their target height (but not above it). You are graded on successful reps and earn bonuses for not going outside the target zone.
You can also take shots at the heavy bag or the combo dummy. The heavy bag tests your reflexes and your ability to hit left and right and high and low, while the combo dummy tests your ability to memorize complex patterns of body blows and punches to the torso. These get really difficult in the later levels and if you don’t like reflexive mini-games you might want to opt for auto-training.
There is also a sparring option that allows you to fight a real boxer and practice your moves without risking money or your title. This is a great way to practice with your current boxer and stats to see what is possible.
For all you button-mashers out there – go home. The Total Punch Control system is all about turning traditional boxing punches into realistic movements with the right analog stick. Just picture the right stick as an extension of your boxer’s arms and you’re halfway to understanding how TPC works.
Quick movements to the left or right throw quick jabs in their respective directions, but you can start combining lateral movements with sweeping circles for hooks and diagonal reverse movements to wind-up a punch before doing an uppercut. You can also extend your circular motion for Stun Punches or do quick reversals on the circular motion for Flash KO’s.
The buttons are reserved for the specialty moves. The left trigger acts as a toggle to lock your boxer’s feet and have his body lean with the left stick and it turns the punches from the right stick into body blows. The right trigger blocks and parries incoming punches. The LB changes your stance while the RB and A buttons will throw your character’s signature punch. The X button will taunt your opponent and the B button throws and illegal punch. Throw too many of those and you will get disqualified.
Between fights you will not only have the opportunity to train, you can also spend your winnings at the Fight Store buying new gear and unlocking bonus content. Much like Tiger Woods, the equipment you buy will give you stat boosts. Gloves can give you more power while shoes can give you more speed. A new mouthpiece will give your chin stat a boost while some new trunks will boost your stamina.
Picking your next fight might take some reading between the lines. Some fights pay out big rewards while other fights give you rep bonuses. Other fights require you to fight x-many rounds and some require a knockout. You’ll also want to check the date for the fight. If your character is advancing in age you might want to pick fights with a shorter lead-time.
EA has worked closely with ESPN to not only recreate most every significant bout in boxing history, you can also play those fights and rewrite history or how about unlocking Sugar Ray, Ali, or Frazier’s personal fight style and make it your own. Yes, this includes taunts and signature punches.
The single player game is hampered significantly with some generic AI that can easily be defeated, even on the hard skill level with a bit of effort and some forethought when it comes to training. Basically, if you build up your strength and stamina you can walk all over this game. I only lost one fight in my entire “career” and that was because I was stupid and tried to take the advantage of a 10-count then couldn’t get up in time – basically another mini-game where you must line-up two dots in two moving circles with the two analog sticks in ten seconds.
Most every opponent succumbed to the same strategy over and over – simply pummel their body until they have no stamina then start throwing the heavy hitters until they go down. Rinse, repeat, and spend your loot. The only real challenge in the game is if you start fighting opponents in a higher weight class.
Fight Night Round 3 has a typical online offering but it in no way exploits the possibilities of Xbox Live. You can play standard and ranked matches and track your boxer on the leaderboards, but the online game really needs some organization. I can easily envision some cool uses for the spectator mode, celebrity bouts, and virtual title fights.
Fight Night Round 3 is easily one of the most gorgeous games on the system, but it’s also a one-trick pony when it comes to those amazing images. Without a doubt, you have the absolute best character modeling, skin textures, and character animation of any game with a human being in it to date, at least for the boxers. The ring girls all look like anorexic crack whores…scary and ugly.
You also have some very nice rings ranging from the local Chicago gym to Madison Square Garden and a few venues in-between. But that is the extent of the content. Sure, the graphics are getting a perfect score, because they do what they do with perfection, but just don’t go in expecting a lot of variety.
You do get some superior special effects including ultra-realistic lighting and shadows, particle effects for spit, sweat, and blood, and some incredibly texture rippling during those tantalizing slow motion replays. I guarantee you put two or three guys in a room and start playing this game and you will hear more groaning and see more empathic gestures of pain than any other game ever made.
The damage model for the characters is so subtle and so detailed that the game no longer requires a HUD. That’s right – no health meter or even a clock. You fight until you hear the tap…tap…tap indicating ten more seconds and your only indication of damage and stamina is exactly what you get in real-life boxing – opponent observation. You watch the bruises and blood build-up on their face, you focus your attacks on their most vulnerable spots, and you watch their speed and stance (body language) to determine their stamina.
The pain becomes even more apparent between rounds when you must heal your boxer using all the traditional tools of the cut-man. You’ll have to get that swelling down and the blood to stop bleeding or the referee will call the fight.
There are a handful of licensed songs that make up the limited soundtrack. You’ll get pretty tired hearing the same opening song each time your boxer enters the ring and the music in the menus is just as annoying about 3-4 hours into the game.
Commentary is really good and matches the action almost punch for punch in action and emotion. There are some interesting comments before the matches and between rounds, but there is only so much recorded dialogue and with the number of fights required to win the career mode you are going to hear it all repeat often.
The rest of the sound package totally saves the audio presentation. Each punch impacts with painful authenticity, and when those slow-motion replays kick in the impacts and groans of the boxers are all slowed down as well. It’s comical and horrific at the same time and you cannot look away.
Even a newcomer like myself was able to beat my way through the career mode in just under ten hours. Once you get the rhythm down you can get a string of Round 1 KO’s in a lot of the early and mid-level fights. Near the end some fights might go the distance but you really have to screw up big to lose a fight.
The online modes will certainly keep you playing a lot longer than the career mode and the two-player local mode will make this one of your favorite party games. Nothing beats a case of beer and two guys beating the crap out of each other.
The 1000 achievement points are divided between only 8 objectives, each one being a title bout, so if you can win the career you will max your gamer score for this game without any substantial effort. I’m all for easy points, but I can’t help but think there should have been at least a few online achievement points.
As ironic as it sounds, I hate boxing but I loved Fight Night Round 3. I can’t explain it myself, but there was just something about this game that grabbed me from my very first experience with the Marketplace demo that I downloaded prior to the game’s release. If I hadn’t played that demo this game would have likely gone to my sports editor or some other reviewer.
So if a non-boxer like myself can enjoy this game then anyone who remotely enjoys the sports will have the time of their life. The lack of a HUD is totally immersive and easily creates the illusion of a real fight rather than a video game. I guarantee you can fool any unsuspecting person who passes by your TV that you are watching a real boxing match.
The controls are slick and intuitive and the Total Punch Control creates a realistic union of your controller and on-screen boxer, again, reinforcing the illusion that you aren’t playing a game by simply mashing buttons. The AI is admittedly lacking making this a game that is best played with friends, either online or off. However you play, Fight Night Round 3 is the best recreation of boxing ever made, and one of the top 360 sports games in its growing library.