Fight Night Round 4 (Xbox 360)

...up boxing game in history, Fight Night Round 4 was on our door steps and finally we could pit Mike Tyson V Muhammed Ali, or Roberto “Manos De Pedria” Duran against Ricky “HitMan” Hatton or Sugar Ray Leonard V Sugar Ray Robinson the all time dream fights. EA sports finally allowed us to re-create them as well as re-fight the fights of all time in the continuation of their brilliant fight night series of games which had started back in 2004 officially ...
...(1998). With the break between Fight Night 3 (in late 2006) and Fight Night 4 (released in June of 2009) it was expected that this was going to be a huge improvement over the previous games, but did it live up to the 2 and a bit year in development? Was it worth the wait? Or was it worth the adverts that featured people like Freddie Roach endorsing the product?

Well under the massive wave of support for the game (which saw it go to ... more

The wait was long, too long for many fans of boxing games but at long last it was here, the most hyped up boxing game in history, Fight Night Round 4 was on our door steps and finally we could pit Mike Tyson V Muhammed Ali, or Roberto “Manos De Pedria” Duran against Ricky “HitMan” Hatton or Sugar Ray Leonard V Sugar Ray Robinson the all time dream fights. EA sports finally allowed us to re-create them as well as re-fight the fights of all time in the continuation of their brilliant fight night series of games which had started back in 2004 officially (Fight Night 2004) though had been started with Knock Out Kings in (1998). With the break between Fight Night 3 (in late 2006) and Fight Night 4 (released in June of 2009) it was expected that this was going to be a huge improvement over the previous games, but did it live up to the 2 and a bit year in development? Was it worth the wait? Or was it worth the adverts that featured people like Freddie Roach endorsing the product?

Well under the massive wave of support for the game (which saw it go to #1 in the UK games charts) it seemed to be highly rated by the critics who's average ratings were in the high 80's (Gamerankings an Metacritics) with a strong feeling it was a huge improvement over the others. I like any good boxing fans was immediately interested in it, having played Fight Night 2004 and Fight Night 2 previously (never played 3 oddly) I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. The previous games were fun and great to play, though very limited in both the customisation, the amount of fighters and the options within it. The single player modes often felt that they were a bit tacked onto what was mainly a multiplayer game and as a result seemed rather short lived as a single player game, it was often overly predictable and you often found yourself having KO win after KO win.

With Fight Night 4 the promise was that the game was going to be more realistic and much fuller of depth with more to do and of course improvements in the places where games naturally improve. With over 2 years in between games, when it came to early 2009 and first shots were released the fans on the numerous boxing forums had started to hound EA with suggestions of what to add and who to put in. It wasn't until the weeks leading up to the release that the actual roster was even shown with a decent range of names in it, ranging from some all time greats to some modern up comers. The game had also allowed people to put their created boxers online for everyone else to download (thus meaning the roster was free and easy to expand, and the possibilities almost endless).

Before the games release and leading into the real life fight of Manny Pacquiao V Ricky Hatton, EA did a simmed version of the fight which was used as a trailer for the game and again appealed to boxing fans. It was a prime and easy chance to show off the games graphics and appeal to the mass market of Hatton (and Pacquiao) in the pre-fight build up to one of the fights of the year. The legions of fans were a prime market and the timing for the game was exquisite, it was effectively free advertising.

So how about the game and it's promises?
Well it turns out the graphics form the video which were excellent turned out to actually be the games graphics and the advertising worked. The games promises we're all there, with 48 licensed fighters the depth of cast was vastly improved ranging from the big well known legends of the 1970's (such as Ali, Hagler, Hearns, Leonard and the legendary Duran), to recent gods of boxing (Roy Jones Jnr, Pacquiao and Joe Calzaghe) as well as the up and coming fighters such as Vicious Victor Ortiz and “Fast” Eddie Chambers. The roster was a vast improvement on Round 3 and tried to take the best parts of it, remodel them and improve them, with smoother graphics, and a much fuller single player main mode, the “legacy” mode.

The games predecessors were all accused of lacking the complexities of real boxing and having really poor collision detection, with punches failing to fully have the physics of real punches and distance being a second thought. With Round 4 this was the first concern with sizes of fighters being one of the key changes to the game, where smaller squatter fighters with a short reach have been termed “in fighters” (like their real life counterparts) with the game viewing them as the ones who want to get inside the opponents reach and land the hooks and uppercuts. Whilst on the reverse of this the taller boxers (the ones like Hearns) we're seen as being more dependable on using their longer arms to win by fighting on the outside, using their jabs and straight punches. The game them incorporated these two two form 2 very different sorts of fighters and solved the problems of the previous games physics and collision problems by using the reach. The game also depended much more on the “counter” aspect than the previous games, with the better players almost solely concentrating on counter punching (as some boxers, such as the real life Executioner Bernard Hopkins). This again adds more depth to the inbuilt fighting mode.

The Legacy mode was however the biggest improvement in the game, finally the game had a real solid single player mode that took the better parts of the previous games and expanded them in every way. Like the other games you took a fighter from their amateur days (as in Fight Night 2 and 3) to the top of the world winning multiple titles in multiple divisions to be crowned a pound 4 pound great. The games mode here let you finally select your route to the top a lot more freely (and somewhat more realistically) than in Fight Night 2 where you'd reach the top and have to fight the same few people to keep a hold of your belts. Here with the ability to capture 3 titles per weight division and take your own choice of champion. Yes in essence you could manage your fighter the Frank Warren way and take on the route of least resistance (isn't that right Mr Khan?). Though the mode suffered in 2 ways, the mini games for training your fighter were so overly difficult that they have come under mainstream criticism for the fans of the game who have found it pointlessly hard. The mode has also been criticised for the use of too many menu screens for what should be a boxing game, a fighting game, not an RPG.

The graphics now showed off the true potential of the console and with several nigh on real looking boxers (oddly one of the best is actually Eddie Chambers, who so few had heard of previously) and wonderfully well light and shiny arenas. The smooth textures were a huge step up from Fight Night 2 (which was it's self never released for the 360) as were the character models which on the whole looked great (though I need to ask what they thought they were doing with Mike Tyson). The multi angle replays were fantastic and looked just shy of TV quality and were fantastic, and added to the ESPN commentary team of Teddy Atlas and Joe Tessitore the game really is often like watching an ESPN broadcast (sadly yes, this does excuse Atlas always sounding like an excitable child).

Finally one of the best added (since Fight Night 2) features was the online mode which added a downloadable fighters mode (meaning people could create and share fighters not in the original game such as Carl Froch, David Haye and the recently deceased Explosive Thin Man Alexis Arguello) as well as online fights. With a leader board for the three divisions contained online (Heavyweight, Middleweight and Lightweight) as well as just having random “fight now” contests.

Sadly with all the added content there is still a few problems with the game, the scoring by the judges can still be questions and the control system has been hugely controversial. The control system was a slightly changed version of the older games where one of the analogue sticks was used to throw punches, this has apparently put off non boxing fans. Funnily I was playing this with the missus who with out a doubt found it to be more playable due to the system, though for those effected by this, there is a lot of talk about a download to allow buttons to be used to through the punches.
The game's roster and weight divisions could also have been improved, with one division in the lower classes having only a single licensed fighter where as it could have been easy to have gotten some older names. The licensed fighters also seem to very Americanised and modern with the Light Heavyweight division being almost all fighters from the 1990's or later (guys like Jones Jnr and Calzaghe) where as someone like Bob Fitzsimmons, Bob Foster, Michael Spinks or Gene Tunney could have been a nice addition. Fighters like Salvador Sanchez, Ricardo Lopez, Wifredo Benitez, Jimmy wilde and the aforementioned Arguello would have been great additions though they are likely to pop up on the boxer share sections.

Overall the game is the champion of boxing games, though it has a few flaws in it's defence it's definitely picked it's self up in recent years and taken not just the boxing games, but sports game to a new level. Like Manny Pacquiao has gone from being a 1 handed power puncher into a great all round aggressive fighter, Fight Night has gone from being a simple but fun fighter to a fully blown boxing sim that lived up to much of the deserved hype.

A note for those older than myself, the Atari game “Fight Night” from the 1980's is in no way other than name connected to this. 

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