Fight Night Round 3 is a Knockout, but......
This is a very difficult review for me to do, because my feelings are mixed. Fight Night 3 is a superb game, but I’m not sure it’s different enough to have warranted a sequel. We’ll deal with the good first; the graphics are absolutely astounding. The fighter’s likenesses are so realistic it’s scary. The first time you see Joe Frazier coming at you with a big uppercut, you’ll be so amazed you will forget to put your guard up. Even better than the look of the fighters is the way they change throughout a fight, the more punishment a boxer takes the more swelling, and bruising his face will accumulate. Cuts open up around the eyes, and blood drips with gruesome realism. When the fighters are in their corners between rounds, and have taken a hellacious beating their eyes will glaze over, and the fighter will be looking into the ceiling instead of at his manager. You’ll have an opportunity to mitigate your pugilist’s face as the cut doctor. You can apply cold compresses to his face and keep those eyes from swelling shut, and work on closing those cuts up. This fight doctor business isn’t just for peripherals, if your eye swells shut, or a cut rages out of control the referee will stop the fight, and you will loose. Your defenses are also weaker if your vision is seriously hampered, so keep your guard up. One of the most fun things is fighting someone you get a nice cut open on, and working it over till he can’t continue. This strategy can even bail you out of a fight your loosing, if your behind on the score cards, but open up a gash on you opponent you can dance around the ring, and simply pepper him with jabs and keep the blood pouring. The sounds of the game are also very good, in terms of punches getting thrown, and landing on flesh, but it is lacking in a lot of ways. The crowd is very subdued, even in a championship bout. You never hear a particularly good outburst, even after a tremendous knockdown,
Or momentum changing left hook. You also never actually hear, or see the referee. You only learn of his warnings through the ring announcers, which are also lack luster. The call of the fight isn’t bad, but it’s the same old catch phrases we have heard in fight night 2.
Game play is where Fight Night 3 will not loose any points. This is hands down the coolest and most realistic boxing experience ever created. The fighting really gives you a sense of real life boxing strategy, and there are a numerous amount of fight strategies you may employ. No matter how strong your fighter is, if you just walk up and try to unload on a guy, your probably going to get KO’d. You have to break down your opponent, using the jab and find his weakness. Some fighters are a tad tubby, and don’t have a very good body, if that’s the case a series of jabs, hooks and uppercuts to the midsection will have him reeling in no time, and that’s when he’ll open up that kisser for a good night hook. If you fight a dancer he’ll try to pepper you with quick shots, and run you ragged, you must cut the right down and trap him in the corner to finally unload on him. I can never say enough about the actual boxing, is incredible, it’s addictive, and it gets better and better. You build a good fighter and may think the game is a joke, but as you advance on your career your opponents get considerably smarter, and will fight you better. It’s midway through your career that things really change, and make you think more and more about your fighter’s attributes and strategy.
There are some cool things to buy in the ‘fight store’ you can purchase boxing gloves and mouth guards that give you a boost in a certain area like power or agility. There is also a host of specialty punches, and illegal blows that you may buy and use. The store is pretty cool, and you unlock more items as you play and they actually make a difference, it’s not simply for style. You can also purchase a manager or promoter prior to a big fight, to give you a boost in speed, power, or heart, unfortunately there are only four guys. Not nearly enough choice, it would have been interesting to see more focused specialties for sale in the way of fight managers.
The Bad: Some of the coolest things available for purchase in Fight Night 2 are conspicuously absent in this installment. You used to be able to buy special songs, pyrotechnics, and ring girls to help you make your entrance to the ring. The better the equipment gave you a mild boost of heart, or stamina. This was an interesting little extra, if you won a lot of big money fights you could have supermodel girls escort you to the ring, and if you didn’t make a lot of scratch you would get a hood rat or two. I really don’t know why they omitted this, it was neat to change up your trip down the tunnel. There also haven’t been any improvements in the create a fighter. The face morphing is astonishing and easy to use, but it hasn’t been built upon a bit. No new base faces, no new facial areas to mess with, just the same old. I also think the actually venues you fight in are less numerous, and less interesting places. There is also a shockingly low number of great boxers available to you, considering that this is the definitive boxing game there should have been more effort expended to bring all the great names to this title. Boxers like Foreman, Tyson, and Braddock are absent. I already mentioned the referees strange absence from the ring, I also think it would be interesting to see the judges once in a while. You could get to know them, and even understand how they score a fight, what they look for as individuals….but hey, its not my dam job to come up with these ideas it’s EA’s, SO GET ON IT FOLKS!
The most disappointing thing in Fight Night 3 is by far the training mode. This is where you have an opportunity to improve your boxer’s skills in either speed, power, hurt, cut, stamina, agility, speed, or heart. Unfortunately there are no new exercises and the others are exactly the same as they were in Fight Night 2. The new aspects to boxing include stun punches, and flash KO’s, but both of require analog stick work that is difficult to pull off. You need a long time to get it done, so they really become irrelevant.
Overall: Fight Night 3 is the greatest boxing game of all time; it just isn’t different enough from its predecessor to praise it too much. It’s a good package, but it should have been a much more polished package than it is. In some ways it feels like a replica, that doesn’t even have as much care put into it as its predecessor. I was very disappointed at some of the sounds, the lack of variety in training, and the lack of boxing legends at my disposal. The saving grace here is the excellent AI, and the tremendously cool amounts of varying boxing styles, and defensive styles that exist to use and compete against. You will find yourself amazed at how different you will be fighting against certain opponents, or even how much you change your style throughout the course of a fight. I do recommend Fight Night 3 it is an awesome, awesome game, but it should have been even better.
Side Note: Some of the images of Fight Night 3 on the 360, look absolutely nothing like the game I have on X-Box, which leaves me to wonder if I am getting totally screwed because all the effort went into the version for the new machine.
Or momentum changing left hook. You also never actually hear, or see the referee. You only learn of his warnings through the ring announcers, which are also lack luster. The call of the fight isn’t bad, but it’s the same old catch phrases we have heard in fight night 2.
Game play is where Fight Night 3 will not loose any points. This is hands down the coolest and most realistic boxing experience ever created. The fighting really gives you a sense of real life boxing strategy, and there are a numerous amount of fight strategies you may employ. No matter how strong your fighter is, if you just walk up and try to unload on a guy, your probably going to get KO’d. You have to break down your opponent, using the jab and find his weakness. Some fighters are a tad tubby, and don’t have a very good body, if that’s the case a series of jabs, hooks and uppercuts to the midsection will have him reeling in no time, and that’s when he’ll open up that kisser for a good night hook. If you fight a dancer he’ll try to pepper you with quick shots, and run you ragged, you must cut the right down and trap him in the corner to finally unload on him. I can never say enough about the actual boxing, is incredible, it’s addictive, and it gets better and better. You build a good fighter and may think the game is a joke, but as you advance on your career your opponents get considerably smarter, and will fight you better. It’s midway through your career that things really change, and make you think more and more about your fighter’s attributes and strategy.
There are some cool things to buy in the ‘fight store’ you can purchase boxing gloves and mouth guards that give you a boost in a certain area like power or agility. There is also a host of specialty punches, and illegal blows that you may buy and use. The store is pretty cool, and you unlock more items as you play and they actually make a difference, it’s not simply for style. You can also purchase a manager or promoter prior to a big fight, to give you a boost in speed, power, or heart, unfortunately there are only four guys. Not nearly enough choice, it would have been interesting to see more focused specialties for sale in the way of fight managers.
The Bad: Some of the coolest things available for purchase in Fight Night 2 are conspicuously absent in this installment. You used to be able to buy special songs, pyrotechnics, and ring girls to help you make your entrance to the ring. The better the equipment gave you a mild boost of heart, or stamina. This was an interesting little extra, if you won a lot of big money fights you could have supermodel girls escort you to the ring, and if you didn’t make a lot of scratch you would get a hood rat or two. I really don’t know why they omitted this, it was neat to change up your trip down the tunnel. There also haven’t been any improvements in the create a fighter. The face morphing is astonishing and easy to use, but it hasn’t been built upon a bit. No new base faces, no new facial areas to mess with, just the same old. I also think the actually venues you fight in are less numerous, and less interesting places. There is also a shockingly low number of great boxers available to you, considering that this is the definitive boxing game there should have been more effort expended to bring all the great names to this title. Boxers like Foreman, Tyson, and Braddock are absent. I already mentioned the referees strange absence from the ring, I also think it would be interesting to see the judges once in a while. You could get to know them, and even understand how they score a fight, what they look for as individuals….but hey, its not my dam job to come up with these ideas it’s EA’s, SO GET ON IT FOLKS!
The most disappointing thing in Fight Night 3 is by far the training mode. This is where you have an opportunity to improve your boxer’s skills in either speed, power, hurt, cut, stamina, agility, speed, or heart. Unfortunately there are no new exercises and the others are exactly the same as they were in Fight Night 2. The new aspects to boxing include stun punches, and flash KO’s, but both of require analog stick work that is difficult to pull off. You need a long time to get it done, so they really become irrelevant.
Overall: Fight Night 3 is the greatest boxing game of all time; it just isn’t different enough from its predecessor to praise it too much. It’s a good package, but it should have been a much more polished package than it is. In some ways it feels like a replica, that doesn’t even have as much care put into it as its predecessor. I was very disappointed at some of the sounds, the lack of variety in training, and the lack of boxing legends at my disposal. The saving grace here is the excellent AI, and the tremendously cool amounts of varying boxing styles, and defensive styles that exist to use and compete against. You will find yourself amazed at how different you will be fighting against certain opponents, or even how much you change your style throughout the course of a fight. I do recommend Fight Night 3 it is an awesome, awesome game, but it should have been even better.
Side Note: Some of the images of Fight Night 3 on the 360, look absolutely nothing like the game I have on X-Box, which leaves me to wonder if I am getting totally screwed because all the effort went into the version for the new machine.
posted by sanpiper at 1:32 PM
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