Fight Night Round 4 (PS3 & Xbox 360) Review

Time for EA to lay the pugilistic smackdown on the boxing genre! Or is it?

Featuring a re-written gameplay engine, EA Sports Fight Night Round 4 adds a variety of fighting styles and boxer differentiation to authentically emulate the greatest fighters of all time. Pressure your opponent with the brawling inside style of young Mike Tyson, bobbing and weaving to set up powerful hooks and uppercuts. Capitalize on Muhammad Ali’s reach, hand speed and fleetness of foot to bewilder your opponent with lightning fast jabs and straights from the outside. For the first time, EA Sports Fight Night Round 4 gives you the opportunity to pit these legendary heavyweights against one another and name a true champ. No fight will be the same with an all-new physics-based animation system that recreates the full spectrum of true-to-life punch impacts, giving boxers a devastating arsenal of punches, blocks and ring movement. The new physics system allows for missed punches, glancing punches, knockout blows and for the first time ever, rough and tumble inside fighting. Fatigue, adrenaline, footwork and timing all come into play as you hammer away at your opponents.

Wow, so thats a whole heap of potential, but has EA squandered the good name that Fight Night : R3 established a few years ago?  Do we have another FaceBreaker on our hands?  Thankfully no, HELL NO!  You can tell that I am sure, the score is right there at the top so you know the game is good, but if you want to know how good and what is broken read on my friends.

Graphically Fight Night : R4 had a huge head start.  The graphical prowess of the proceeding title established just how good games would be looking on the the “Next Gen” hardware.  Well Next Gen is gone and we are living in the now so EA have, with a new studio as the original guys that worked on R3 are no more, taken the aspects that we liked and amplified them greatly – in true EA style is must be said.

The fighter animations are much more fluid, the damage can be visibly seen on your fighters face and the “Ooof Dang!” factor when you get walloped hard is 2nd to none – bested only really by UFC 2009 and EA’s own Burnout Paradise. The boxers do suffer from a trip down Uncanny Valley but for the main part, if you ignore the dead eyes, they look fantastic.  I still can’t get on board with the animation of materials in the game, it just seems to have too much weight to it – but that is probably just me!

All the menus and the fight diary are all well laid out and look great.  The slow motion animation as you thump someone for a knockdown blow is spectacular.  It is always immensely gratifying to se the sweat, spit and blood expunged from your fellow fighters face as you slam him to the ground!  Oh btw, I’m a passificst in real life – honest!  Frame rate remains rock solid as all times on both platforms (thanks you EA my PS3 loves you!). Playing the two games side by side there are very few differences and any there are will be down to the way the system of choice processes the image.  I always find the image from my PS3 is clearer but my XBox will have a slightly higher res at times… to be honest there is nothing in it with Fight Night Round 4 so grab for whichever system you have teh most mates on!

So, the game look seven better than Fight Night : R3, but how does it actually play?  You can pick up R3 for about 1/2 the price of R4 so what makes this an essential purchase for current owners of R3?  Simple answer – lots!  There are multiple ways to play R4.  You can jump straight in with the quick play mode, take the game online or head in to the real meat of the game – Legacy Mode.  Quick play mode allows you to grab a spec’d up predefined fighter (see list at end of review for ful roster).  If you are like me you will mainly use classics like Ali, Tyson or Lennox Lewis.  This is a great intro to the game and allows you to get used to the fighting using fighters that are already pretty well rounded.

The Legacy Mode option allows you to take a fighter of your creation and put him on teh road to greatness.  You make your fighter using eithe the predefined parts or you can import a picture of your face from a USB camera or via EASportsWorld.com using a normal digital camera.  I chose to upload my ugly mug via the website.  All I can say is that I WISH I looked like my fighter – he is buff  (see end of review for my fighter)!  Sadly I am just a sad, fat, lazy gamer who exercises his thumbs more than his Pecs but whatever.  So EA have provided their normal array of sliders to help you modify your fighter the way you want him (and yes it has to be a him !) and you can customise reach, height, weight etc.

So once your fighter is ready for the road you must start training him, booking fights (through the diary system) and making your play to be a contender.  You slowly move up the ranks of your chosen weight class (Heavy Weight, Fly Weight etc).  As you do so you gain prestigious awards, take on new comers and generally make your play to be G.O.A.T (or the Greatest Of All Time!).  It is a long and brutal road.  You must train our fighter using mini-games like Heavy Bag push and Wheat Bag.  To be honest after the first 3 or 4 goes at each mini game I lost interest and opted for the more simple “Automatic-Training” option; sure it only gives you 50% of what you would of levelled up but it save time and boredom.

You control Fight Night : R4 in almost exactly the same fashion as R3.  You move your fighter using the left analogue stick and then the right analogue stick is used to unleash your fury on your opponent.  For example, pushing the right stick left or right will do a left or right Jab, whilst press the stick down to the bottom corner and then sliding it up will perform an uppercut with the left or right hand depending on direction pressed.  This is a little cumbersome at the start but soon it becomes very intuitive.  I did have a few times when my fighter simply stopped responding to commands to hit for around 2 – 3 seconds; which in a fight can sometimes be devastatingly costly.  All in all the the game controlled very well – although I might need to invest in a new controller soon as my right stick is looking a little battered!

Sound wise the game hits all the right notes.  The commentary, surprisingly, took a good few hours before it started to grate slightly and even then it was the after match comments that kept repeating that annoyed.  During the fight the commentators do a great job of drawing you in to the experience and it really makes you feel like a real fight is taking place.  The music all has a similar sort of hip-hop swagger to it, many of the tunes just sort of blended in to the background but it all fits with the games overall look and feel so well.  The ability to choose your own fight entrance music was great fun too.  The in game effects are all superb and really capture the ring sounds, the grunts, the calls from your trainer/manager, the crowd chants, the bones cracking – all of it is catered for here.  The only major difference between the 360 and PS3 version happens here (excluding the 3 mins PS3 install) – you can use custom soundtracks for your entrance song and fight music.  Not a major issue to be honest, but a difference it is.

Multiplayer is another string to Fight Night : Round 4′s bow.  You can take your fighter online to pitch him against all comers on the global circuit.  The matchmaking process was simple and intuitive. The real meaty offering in multiplayer is the World Championship mode.  It is basically like the Legacy Mode on single player but on a world wide scale against real world fighters – a great addition to R4 that will keep you going long after the single player has faded away.

Longevity is good for these titles, especially with the World Championship online mode.  It is not all about being the champ, it is also about the thrill of the fight, the man-on-man aspect of taking on an opponent online is priceless and can be both devastating (when you lose) and immensely gratifying (when you win).  Sure if you are just in the game to be the champ then it won’t take you much more than 6 – 8 hours to become No.1.  It really depends on what you want from this game, because I know plenty of people still enjoy R3 even now.

Final Thoughts: This game more than it’s predecessor takes into consideration things like reach, hand speed, height, weight etc.  It makes the game a lot more indepth and realistic than the likes of R3.  Creating a tall fighter with a long reach is great if you like to stay away from your opponent and snipe at them with long range shots.  Up against a short reach fighter this can be a devastating strategy.  If you let that fighter inside your guard though you could be in a world of hurt as the bust your body up.  The need to consider these things and the raw testotrezone buzz are the things that make Fight Night R4 a winner in my book.  Sure the load times are a real niggle, even after a 3 minute install at the start.  And the time you have to wait for each element to swap in and out when you are defining your fighter is painful too.  The diary method of fighting works but is really showing it’s age now, so this needs addressing in R5.

I really enjoyed the game, it is great for a quick 10 minute fight if you have had a bad day at work and it is also a great time waster to sink hours in to taking on the rest of the world.  If you liked Fight Night R3 you will love R4.  If you have never tried the series but always had an interest I say Fight Night R4 is a superb place to start your training.

Moosehound the buff boxer

The roster contains a total of 50 fighters from the past and present of boxing:

Amin Asikainen
Anthony Mundine
Arementa
Arthur Abraham
Arturo Gatti
Billy Dib
Carlos Monzon
Corey Spinks
Diego Corrales
Eddie Chambers
Edwim Valero
Emanuel Agustus
Erik Morales
Fernando Montiel
George Foreman
Jake Lamotta
James Toney
Jermaine Taylor
Joe Calzaghe
Joe Frazier
Jorge Armando Arce
Julio Caesar Chavez
Kelly Pavlik
Kermit Cinteron
Lennox Lewis
Manny Pacquiao
Marco Antonio Barrera
Marvin Hagler
Miguel Cotto
Mike Tyson
Muhammad Ali
Nate Campbell
Nonito Donair
Paulie Malignaggi
Pernell Whittaker
Ray Leonard
Ray Robinson
Ricky Hatton
Roberto Duran
Roberto Guerrero
Ronald “Winky” Wright
Roy Jones Jr.
Sergio Mora
Shane Mosely
Thomas Hearns
Tommy Morrison
Victor Ortiz
Vinny Paz
Vivian Harris
Yuriorkis Gamboa

Find more Fight Night: Round 4 reviews over at Test Freaks!

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