Fight Night Round 4

I'm an unabashed boxing fan. My family raised me on the sport and it was always a family event when our favorite fighters were scheduled to meet in the ring. The PPV would be ordered, friends and relatives were invited, and we all bonded over the sweet science. Boxing was revered in my home, it still is, and I always looked for a pure experience in my boxing games.

Because of this, I found most games were either unrealistic or made mistakes in trying to translate the sport to the medium of video games. With Fight Night Round 4, EA Canada has possibly made the most realistic boxing game ever, and a fun one at that.

Fight Night Round 4 feels like a evolutionary step forward from Round 3. Round 3 was a great game, but it had some flaws which stopped it from being a game that serious pugilists can adore. The bare-bones career mode left something to be desired and while graphically impressive, the physics were poor.

Round 4 fixes all these issues with its new physics based engine. Fighters no longer clip into each other and their punches don't float through bodies. Punches will slide off bodies and get caught in between arms. Fighters will also bound off the ropes when cornered and their bodies don't react like they are having a seizure when knocked out. This engine is beautifully made and is leaps and bounds better looking than Round 3.
 
 

Returned from Round 3 though, is the Total Punch Control. Sadly, this is the only control option, but EA Canada took the scheme and improved it. It feels much more natural to use and throw punches with, but has a steep learning curve. It's not as precise as button control, I would thrown the wrong punches occasionally, but it is a fun way to play after you learn the ins and outs. 

Along with the control retooling, the counter system has been revamped. Instead of putting up a counter block and batting away your opponents arm like in Round 3, you can either block right before the punch connects or try and dodge the punch. If successful, the camera does a tiny zoom in, and you can counter with a more powerful punch. It's a satisfying system that makes you feel like you really threw a hard punch and makes knockouts much more satisfying then the knockout heavy Round 3.

The career mode also received a face lift and is now called Legacy Mode. Instead of climbing a generic ladder of opponents, you'll now play fighter and manager. You can schedule matches on your calender against any number of opponents ranked higher than you. After this, you can then embark on a training exercise to raise your stats. You don't want to schedule a fighter ranked too high though, as you'll be vastly inexperienced. There would be times where I would have to fight guys lower ranked than me to grind experience, but this didn't happen too often to be a nuisance. Along with scheduling matches, you'll be challenged by popular fighters. You can put your rank on the line and if you win, you gain a huge popularity boost, which opens up new fighters and gets you closer to be named the Greatest of All Time.
 
 

Rounding out the features is the superb Xbox Live mode World Championship. You can enter you created boxer into one of three weight classes where you are put in a ladder with other players. You can then setup a fight with the players in your ladder to rank up. The more you win, the closer you are to winning the belt. It's a nice dash of persistance that makes you want to come back to keep challenging more players. I liked fighting other people knowing that I was getting one step closer to a championship instead of just a static win/loss record.

All of this comes together in a boxing game that nails down the realism of the sport while still being fun to play. I know boxing is getting pushed into stands by the more action packed UFC, but Fight Night Round 4 truly masters the sweet science and for a boxing purists such as myself, the game is a joyful ode to a fantastic sport.