Meltbrain

Fight Night Round 3 is the latest in a progression of boxing games from EA Chicago. The games have been trying to create a realistic simulation of boxing and making the act of boxing properly both a goal and a joy. In Fight Night Round 3, you have a whole host of real world boxers to choose from, real world locations to fight and a very well conceived boxing gameplay mechanics.

You can play Fight Night Round 3 in a few ways. You can start up a career mode which comprises the main meat of the game, and either take a real world boxer and rewrite his career, or you can make your own character from the ground up. create his appearance, boxing style, signature punch, weight class and so forth, and take him through a length career run where he will face off against many big names as he progresses in ability and grow stronger. To progress your character, you have train in between bouts by choosing one of three training minigames. Heavy bag, Combo Dummy and Weight Lifting all increase your stats in slightly different areas. Heavy bag, for example, increases your punching power first and foremost followed by smaller increases in stamina (how long your boxer can throw his fists before he tires) and other areas. There is a pretty good selection of real world boxers to choose from in the game from a few different eras. The likes of Muhammad Ali, Jake Lamotta, Oscar De La Hoya, Micky Ward, Arturo Gatti, Joe Frazier and Manny Pacquiao are present and all resemble their real life counterparts to the best of the PS2’s capabilities.

The game play in Fight Night Round 3 is where the game really shines. EA Chicago created a control scheme known as “total punch control” in Fight Night 2004 and it is intact here, making for some fantastic boxing. It basically works like this, the left stick controls your boxer’s movement around the ring and also his bobbing and weaving when you hold down the left shoulder button and the right analog stick is for throwing your punches and blocking when holding the right shoulder button. For example, pulling the right stick from the centre out to either the left or right, then following up in a quarter circle motion will throw a hook in the direction you moved the stick out, and pushing the analog stick up diagonally will throw a jab or straight depending on the stance of your boxer. The control scheme works really well and is a definite highlight of the game. It takes a little bit of getting used to in order to throw the punches you want to consistently, but once it clicks you can really start laying waste to your opponents with all kinds of punches.

            Making another welcome return is the Haymaker which is essentially a special super powered punch that can completely decimate an opponent in an instant. This time, there are three kinds of special punches in Round 3 known as “Impact Punches”. There’s the standard haymaker which is just the power punch that you can try to land on your enemy and lay them out, there’s also a “Flash KO” punch that if landed, instantly drains all your competition’s health sending them straight into the knockdown mode in which you just have to land one or two last big punches to floor them. The last special punch is the “Stun Punch” which is another huge blow that sends the action into a first person minigame in which you are looking through the eyes of your dazed opponent and looking at yourself as you try to throw more big punches and deck that guy. The Stun Punch is a little gimmicky, but the other two are genuinely useful power moves that can really turn the tide of a fight, or end an already assured victory. They cause huge damage and seeing your opponent get truly smacked is just awesome.

            As you take damage from all the jabs, hooks and haymakers that you’ll be throwing and taking, you will notice your fighter face swell, bruise and even cut and bleed. It even has a gameplay impact in that your boxer becomes more sluggish and cumbersome due to their battered eyes. Even if you manage to do some admirable blocking of head punches, your boxer will still end up tiring and getting slower, and this comes through quite nicely in the animations and the sound, your boxer will start to sag a bit and look generally strained, and his breathing may get heavy. It’s a nice touch that gives you some idea how your boxer is faring without constantly staring at the health bar.

When you get knocked down in a fight, you will have to play a referee minigame to get on your feet and continue the fight. When you drop, a screen appears with the referee counting you out and you have to align two circles on the screen (representing your left and right analog stick) as quickly as you can, and as you become more beaten up throughout the fight the game will be harder to play as the circles move about quite wildly as you attempt to steer them to the centre. Similarly, in between rounds you play another minigame as the “cut man” and in this you basically just have to repair the damage to your boxer’s eyes and brow by moving the right analog stick from left to right in a consistent semi-circular motion.  You can opt out of playing these games, however, and let the computer do it for you, but by doing this you lose 50% of the full potential healing you could have achieved by playing the game. These minigames aren’t amazing but they do break up the action nicely and provide some fun amongst the core boxing.

As well as the comprehensive career mode, you can also just set up a quick fight in the “Play Now” mode. You just choose your boxers from the full real world roster that is available, as well as any boxers you have created yourself, then choose your arena and the bout begins. You can even pit lightweight fighters such as Marco Barrera against heavyweight fighters such as Ali, Frazier and James Toney, although you would be ill advised to do so. It’s a great way to get into the game fast and just start boxing, especially if you have a friend over to challenge.

There is also an ESPN Classic mode where you can fight in a legendary bout that happened in the real world. They have such classic bouts as Ali VS Frazier, Hopkins VS Taylor and Gatti VS Ward. There’s nothing too special about these matches, other than they have a nice little intro from Joe Tessitore, with a little bit of back story on the boxers. Older fights, such as the one between Jake Lamotta and Sugar Ray Robinson are in black and white in homage to the era, and it’s a nice effect that adds a layer of authenticity to what is otherwise a pretty hollow mode.

Round 3 also has a reasonable character creation system in which you can quickly create a power boxer to take straight into the ring instead of moulding a boxer through the career mode. Whichever way you go though, it has features that let you customise your boxers look quite a bit, including a lot of facial customisation and the standard size/height sliders. You can also purchase all kinds of branded/unbranded apparel including new shorts, gloves and defensive gear with the cash you earn fighting, which can add statistics buffs to your guy, making him even stronger. You can also buy tattoos and signature punches for your created boxer. You can even change the style of fighting you want your boxer to possess, with boxing style and punching style having separate categories, allowing for some reasonable style creation.

The graphics in Round 3 are comparable to the last ones, but some nice new polishes have been done. The animations are now much nicer, and the real world boxers move and fight very much as you would expect them to. The character models themselves are really quite impressive by PS2 standards, but they won’t blow your mind. The particle effects when you land a big punch are decent, seeing the blood and sweat fly into the air can be pretty satisfying. The backgrounds are reasonable, though some spectators may look really polygonal which is a bit of a disappointment, but it doesn’t detract from the experience significantly. What may detract from the experience, however, is the pretty nasty advertising that goes on both in the backgrounds and in the commentary. It’s pretty sickening at times to hear how your fight is sponsored by Burger King or Dodge and it’s something you’ll probably find disgusting and vulgar, or just laugh at due to the blatant, in-your-face nature of it.

The sound is also really top notch, with some good commentary work from Joe Tessitore which mostly does a good job of following the action and being relevant to the fight. He will mention things like when a boxer has been beaten badly and that the fight might be stopped, or when a boxer throws a series of punches that all land. It can get a little repetitive after a while, as he will say a few certain phrases a bit too often, but it’s still a nice feature that adds another element of authenticity to the boxing. The sounds of punches landing are all excellent, and sound just as satisfying as you would want them to. The Impact Punch sound effects are just plain awesome, the actual sound of the punch landing is extremely satisfying, and then there are some bone cracking/crunching sound effects to back it up, which although completely exaggerated are still really satisfying and make the act of landing a super punch all that more fun.

While Fight Night Round 3 isn’t the biggest leap for the series, it’s a solid addition that builds upon the foundations of Round 2 well and adds some nice features, rounding out a fantastic boxing game that feels great to play and has some classic boxers to choose from. It’s a game that any fan of the sport should definitely give a look, and anyone who is interested in one on one fighting games of any kind.