Fight Night Round 4 (PS3) > Reviews (6)

Let's get ready to rumble.

Introduction

This is a boxing simulation game that I bought to play on my PS3 console a few months ago. I have grown to like this game because it provides me with an engaging and realistic way of playing boxing. I think that this game is excellent.

Game Modes

--Legacy Mode/Career Mode--

You can create a boxer or you can choose an existing 'known' boxer. From here, you can begin the career mode. You have to work your way up the ranks from just being known as a 'bum' to becoming a contender for the world title.

When you choose to create your own boxer you can select from a default list of body types and weight divisions. This part of the game is about customizing your player to your own requirements and appearance, in which will determine their movements in the ring and what stance they have i.e a southpaw or an orthodox fighting stance.

People can also define a boxers signature punch. There are different choices in facial appearance, skin colors, body type etc. As you start as an amateur inexperienced boxer, and the way to enter the professional boxing scene is to take part in an amateur tournament. Once you have worked your way to the final and won the tournament, you are officially a professional fighter and from here you can start your professional boxing career. The amateur tournament is a stepping stone to becoming a 'Pro'. I have found that the fights are a bit easy to start off with, which gives people a chance to learn the boxing moves and controls.

Legacy mode is the most important game mode where you play against the computer.There is a simulation mode of game results which means that you can choose not to fight against all of your opponents. There is instant result mode or you can choose to simulate the matches using ESPN fightcast which provides a running commentary of the action, and projected scores per round. In professional fights there is a instant result simulation which if you have a high rating compared to your opponent then you will tend to win, though not always. After when you win a fight the camera goes to your training corner and you see your training staff celebrating. After each fight you get to see your fighting statistics which shows how many shots you have thrown and on a percentage basis how many connected. You also get to see your opponent’s performance. During legacy mode, between rounds, you earn points based upon your performance in the previous round, which goes towards reducing your health damage and allowing you to recover stamina or receive treatment for cuts and bruises. The better you perform during a fight, the more points you can use between rounds to keep your health intact. The boxer earns points for finishing a round, or by stunning or knocking down an opponent. You also get a number of points for landing a high percentage of punches. On winning an amateur tournament, your ratings for punch power, heart and stamina are improved. Also at the end of the fights you get the judges scorecards.

When you win the tournament you then become a boxing prospect and this is when your boxing career begins, and from here you can begin scheduling fights and start training. The more training sessions you undertake the stronger your fighter becomes, and depending on how much in advance you book your fight, you can do more training.

In sparring session you get points based on how many punches you land and how many punches you block your opponents and if you put them on the floor. But you lose points if your opponent scores against you. There are different types of training sessions. During training sessions if you achieve a total score that ranks you as a champion, you can then get a maximum gain to your profile for specific attributes, i.e. speed, power, and toughness. You can also do an automatic simulation of the training sessions, so you can receive the gain to your skills profile, without having to complete the training but you would only increase your skills attributes by up to 50% of the maximum available. The player attributes are rated up to 100. It makes sense if playing the game seriously, to complete the training sessions to improve your skills for later title challenges. The training sessions make the game realistic in terms of training as a professional boxer. In legacy mode, every time you win a fight, your ranking goes up and you become more popular. The training sessions soon, become more difficult and you also have to achieve a higher rating for less gain.

Online Mode

This is where you play against other PS3 players online.

Also there are two other game modes that have to be purchased separately which I found a bit annoying. Some of the boxers are also locked and have to be purchased.

Graphics

The graphics are really good because when in a boxing fight you can see the fliashing lights in the ceiling, the crowd in the arena and training team in your corner. You can also see the referee whilst the fight is taking place. The definition of the characters and animations are very smooth, and there seems like there has been a lot of effort being put in to making the fighters and opponents look realistic. You can instantly know who each fighter is. There is also the feature whereby when you hit your opponent you can see the sweat coming off there face and you get to see the cuts and bruises on their faces. This level of realistic action gets picked up during the fight, and you get a sense of the dynamics of the fight. Also when you are advancing through the game, there are different screen backgrounds which are related to boxing i.e there is a shot of the training gym.

When knocking down your opponent, you can see the slow motion replay which shows the full extent of the impact, (effectively damaging their skulls). In training gyms, you can see the dirty canvas covered in blood and sweat. When you hit players you can often see saliva flowing from your opponent, and you can see the referee checking over the opponent to see if they are needing medical attention.

When fighting you get to see the life-like texture of the body and well designed faces which look like the real boxer himself.

Gameplay

When in a fight, it is critical to learn how to counter punch so that your opponent gets hit harder. Standard and consistent punches work in fending your opponent off to a certain extent but your stamina goes down which reduces punch power and leaves you open to a big shot to the head. This game would not suit those people wanting to mash the buttons as you will find in the latter stages of the game that the difficulty is harder. In title fights the opponent is much more advanced and tends to have much higher ratings in terms of punch power and hand and foot speed and accuracy.

When you hit the opponent with a good shot, you get a vibration on the PS3 controller. In Intermediate and low ranked matches the signature punch is landed quite regularly, but this is not the case when it comes to fighting top 10 opponents.

The amount of different punches available is wide ranging and includes body shots, jabs, hooks, illegal moves, grapple against your opponent, make haymaker punches, so you can mix it up in the ring. The boxer’s movements include the ability to duck and weave, block, jab and move around the ring and move inside and outside of your opponent.

When you knock down your opponent you can hear the crowd cheering, and also when you hit your opponent hard, they often stumble and bounce off the ropes. When fighting your opponent it is imperative to keep your guard up and also try to see where they are going to hit you, and put your guard accordingly to activate your counter punches.

Against some opponents it is possible to beat them up with just by using the jab and hooking them, but when you reach the latter stages of the game and play against heavyweights the game becomes a bit more difficult, and therefore you have to pick your punches more carefully.

Sound/Music

There are quite a few boxing tunes which really add to the atmosphere of the game. The music tends to be motivational music which are upbeat and good training music.

When you are punching you can hear the air breaking and the sound of the impact. You can also hear crowd noise and you can also hear your corner men advising you during the round. The referee also talks when counting out your opponent and you can hear the crowd reaction to the main punching shots.

Conclusion

In my opinion I think that this game is an excellent boxing game. It has good graphics and realistic game play even though the build up and pre-fight scenes are very good. You get to see the opponents square up against the referee. I really like this game because it has an instant mode option as well the career and online gaming options.
There are lots of boxers to choose from, and from different weight divisions. I like the legacy mode because you can choose and create your own boxer.
I paid around £10 for this game which I consider good value for money. I purchased this second hand from amazon.co.uk. I would definitely recommend this to people with a PS3 console.