Fight Night Round 4 (Xbox 360)
Sticks will indeed hurt you -- analog sticks, that is -- in EA Sports' latest.
6/30/2009 4:35 PM | 6 Comments | Page 1 of 3
What's Hot: Looks terrific; Revamped controls; Somewhat slower load times; Greater emphasis on counter-punching
What's Not: Slow pace (far too slow for the average gamer); Like all EA Sports games, there are some counterintuitive menus; Frustratingly difficult (even on the medium skill setting); Obscure training mini-games; Feels too random at times
Scott Jones
Status: Coffee makes me feel 4-percent sexier.
I play boxing videogames with the same kind of over-the-top obsessiveness that role-playing gamers put into the latest RPG. I craft -- I said "craft" -- my fighter from scratch, create him in my own likeness (strange as that sounds), and even hang my own name on him, which is a very significant act, if you think about it. Then I steep myself in the game. I get into it. Every fight is dramatic. Every punch is personal.
I don't throw haymakers at the opening bell; I don't go for quick knockouts. I know enough about boxing to work the jab, to see what I can get away with against my opponent. I typically don't start throwing the bigger punches -- the hooks, the uppercuts -- until two or three rounds into a fight.
Between fights, auto-training isn't an option for me. I train with intensity and focus, trying to squeeze every last stat point out of the exercise that I can.
Yes, I'm weird.
I have a cardboard box in my apartment filled with scratchy VHS tapes of classic boxing matches. I grew up watching boxing with my dad. I could always see the respect he had for boxers. He was very much into the one-man-against-another drama. I guess I am too. Boxing is as naked a sport -- literally and figuratively -- as there is. It's so pure, and so simple, that it inevitably takes on the weight of metaphor.
As regulars to the site know, I'm a
Punch-Out!! fanatic. I played the old (and, in retrospect, terrible) Knockout Kings series to death. The obscure PlayStation 2 game,
Victorious Boxers: Ippo's Road to Glory, is one of my all-time favorites. (Toss the used-games bin to find your copy.) And I've invested many hundreds of hours into each one of the previous Fight Night games.
Not pictured:
WHOMP sound followed by flash of yellow.
If there's anyone more qualified to review
Fight Night Round 4 than I am, I'd very much like to meet that person.
Fight Night Round 4 is not the leap forward that
Round 3 was for the series, or for the medium of videogames. How could it be?
Round 3 was a ridiculously impressive technical achievement back in 2006. It was one of the key landmark moments when we were shown -- not told -- what the term "next-gen" truly meant. Me, I'd never seen fighters move with such grace, and speed, and credibility, before.
What you'll find in
Round 4 are around 45 licensed boxers to fool with (including Jake LaMotta, Ray Robinson, Marvin Hagler, Pernell Whitaker and the incomparable Manny Pacquiao -- but no Joe Louis?), some tweaked right-stick controls, and the same fetishistic attention to detail -- the spray of sweat, the rippling facial muscles.
The emphasis in
Round 4 is on counter-punching. Block or slip an incoming punch, and your opponent is vulnerable for a split-second. Tag him in this moment for extra damage. The game lets you know that you've successfully counter-punched with a dramatic
WHOMP sound and a brief flash of yellow. It's satisfying to get these audiovisual cues when you've dealt a counter-punch to your opponent. But whenever this happens to you -- and it will most assuredly happen to you -- it's impossible not to panic.
