Fight Night Round 4

Fight Night Round 4

Throwing punches never felt so good in this latest iteration of Electronic Arts benchmark series on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Speed, accuracy, timing and power; these are the attributes EA hopes to represent most faithfully in the new Fight Night. We’d say they’ve got the sense of power nailed from this point onwards, but the first three need more work in the gym.

Don’t get us wrong, overall EA brings the most authentic boxing experience yet on console with Fight Night Round 4. But in toying with the control scheme they trade abstract and fiddly button mashing for more intuitive but temperamental analogue stick twirling. We much prefer the feel of the new style but it could use refining.

The new control scheme places all your moves onto the dual analogue sticks, and these can be further modified using triggers and shoulder buttons. To jab or straight punch you simply flick the right stick up to the left or right. Shots to the body are handled by flicking to either side. Hooks and uppercuts are where it gets sloppy, as you’re required to aim left or right then hold in position as you twirl the right analogue up to the top left or top right. Initially you’ll find yourself throwing hooks instead of uppercuts and vice-versa, but with practice your success rate does improve.

Assuming that you’ll eventually train your thumb to perform with at least 9/10 success rate the other issue related to the control style is that moves are slow to manifest. You’ll be telegraphing all your uppercuts and hooks to sharp human opponents, which could relegate such tools to counter-strikes only. And still it isn’t possible to use the momentum of a fighter’s body leaning back and to the side to swing up and around into a fearsome hook or to push into a jab. Power is still added by pressing a ‘Haymaker’ modifier button (R1 or RB) and counter punches are only possible after dodging or blocking the initial strike. In the wake of THQ’s UFC 2009 where the physics allow for more freedom, Fight Night is beginning to show its age.

Having said all that, we strongly believe that EA could not have produced a better boxing game to appeal to most fans. The AI of boxing legends Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson (first appearance in a boxing simulation – Punch-Out on NES doesn’t count!); Ricky Hatton, Manny Pacquiao, behaves convincingly lifelike. That said we’ve been able to haymaker uppercut most of our opponents to the canvas so far…

The boxing community will go nuts for Fight Night Round 4 however, and EA has worked damn hard at bringing some dream features to the table. A new Online World Championships will have you practicing for hours. The Boxer Share feature, in which any fighter from anywhere in the world can be created and uploaded / downloaded via Xbox LIVE or PlayStation Network, will boost rosters indefinitely. Newly created fighters can have their AI balanced to suit their character and physical attributes. As with EA’s latest FIFA, fans can record their finest moments and upload them to be watched and voted for on the Fight Night official website.

As pure fighters go we still have to say that UFC 2009 will take some beating. But you won’t find a better, and certainly no better looking, boxing game.

4 out of 5