As someone whose day job involves covering boxing, I’m a little more critical than most when it comes to boxing games, and it also means that I will buy any attempt by developers to portray the sweet science in digital form.
From the brilliant Victorious Boxers series to the abysmal Mike Tyson Heavyweight Boxing (which did have some great playable fighters that you will never find in any other game), I’ve seen them all, so when EA Sports’ Chicago studio stepped into the ring with the Fight Night series and placed a virtually unreachable gap between themselves and the rest of the industry, I was pleased to see that someone finally got boxing right. From the necessity of using defense to removing a reliance on button mashing Kudo Tsunoda and crew finally made a game where skill and strategy – and not reflexes – were necessary for victory.
In its next generation debut on the Xbox 360, Fight Night Round 3 continued to lift the bar with a product which was at the time the best looking game on the console, bar none, and the gameplay followed in suit. So many were curious to see if the Playstation 3 version would be a simple port with few improvements – it wasn’t.
Adding a new ‘Get in The Ring’ mode which allows you to fight some of boxing’s best from a first person perspective was a great new addition, and it doesn’t feel tacked on for novelty value. The fights become even more visceral in this mode, with flashing lights accompanying the punches you get hit with (like real life), a red and black hue filling the edges of your screen and reducing your field of vision when you get cut or your eyes start swelling shut, and heavy breathing audibly evident as a grueling battle rages into the middle and late rounds. Does it take some getting used to, control wise? Definitely, but once you adapt, it’s a fun new way to experience the game.
Most will stick with the traditional side view of the action though, and as previous versions of the game have shown, this is a series where 12 round wars are not only possible, but likely if you’re matched with a skilled foe in a one on one battle (AI opponents can usually be dispatched before the final bell with regularity). And if you’re not using the analog sticks and triggers to fight, turn in your gamer card because you can’t truly experience the game by mashing buttons. Does it have a bit of a learning curve? Yes, but once you get a few fights under your belt, you’ll be bobbing, weaving, blocking, and landing combinations without a second thought. And while I played the 360 version to death, there’s something familiar and more intuitive about the PS3 controller, which is also light enough to allow you to go through the usual gaming gyrations while trying to keep from getting knocked out.
Graphically, the PS3 version definitely has an edge over its next gen cousin, with the character models showing more detail than ever before. Even in ESPN Classic mode, where great rivalries are replayed to unlock certain fighters’ moves and trunks, a smoky hue can be detected when having Muhammad Ali face Joe Frazier in one of the bouts from their 1970’s trilogy, truly adding to the atmosphere of the game.
Career mode remains unchanged, and is one of the weaker points of the game, as you just move up the rankings with little emotional investment in your character, other than building up his stats and going to the store to buy new equipment. Hopefully Round 4 will address this issue.
