Fight Night Round 4 First Look

The series that defined this generation is back.

March 12, 2009 - Remember when the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were first announced? The games industry was aflutter wondering what the era of high-definition gaming would look like on our shiny new HDTVs. Then a game called Fight Night Round 3 was shown at E3 in 2005 and our worlds were never the same. On the screen before us stood two of the shiniest, prettiest character models ever in a videogame. Their faces crinkled with every punch, sweat flew around with every jolt of their body and they moved with the type of precision usually reserved for Pay-Per-View. Yes, a new age of gaming had indeed begun.

But now we're nearly four years removed from the first time people saw the spectacle that was Fight Night Round 3. EA Chicago is no more, Kudo Tsunoda (Executive Producer on FNR3 and GM of EA Chicago) is now with Microsoft, and EA Vancouver has been handed the reins on Fight Night Round 4; a game many consider to be the biggest sports release of the year.

Click above to watch the first ever gameplay trailer of Fight Night Round 4.

Let me start by saying that Fight Night Round 4, when you first see it, is not as awe-inspiring as Fight Night Round 3. It's almost unfair to expect it to be. Given that FNR3 was our first look at next-gen graphics and this day and age we have games like Gears of War 2 and Resident Evil 5 setting the bar. Even still, some might say that the graphical fidelity has been scaled back ever so marginally. There's a damn good reason though and that is because Round 4 runs at a liquid smooth 60 frames per second compared to Round 3's 30. What does that amount to? Just about the smoothest boxing experience I've ever seen.

Aiding in that accomplishment is the new body flexing that happens with every move (Check it out right here.). As Iron Mike Tyson throws a left you see his arms and chest flex and move. Even with the typical bob to their step in the ring, you'll notice fighters' flesh and muscles morphing and moving realistically. Likewise, sweat flies off of fighters' bodies with every landed punch.

The graphics, while still impressive with their super-slick movements and shiny exteriors, aren't the star of the show this time around. No, Fight Night Round 4 is a showcase of physics. Gone are the days of punches restricted to four specific quadrants. Now glancing blows, arms getting tangled, pretty much every physical interaction that would happen in the ring can happen in Round 4. I once saw a fighter duck under a punch only to have the other fighter's arm glance the top of his head. The ducking fighter's head reacted authentically, as did the arm. No clipping, no weirdness. It was great to see the genuine physicality coming through. Another instance involved the Philly Shell blocking style. One fighter threw a punch in between the arms of the other fighter and, sure enough, his arm got stuck for a split-second.

Along with the new physics, the team at EA Vancouver has also instilled some new control mechanics. Gone is the insane emphasis on landing ridiculously devastating haymakers. In fact, the way haymakers are thrown is no longer done with the right stick alone. Hooks, jabs, straights and uppercuts are all thrown the same way, but to land a haymaker you'll need to toss a hook while holding the right bumper. Hooks to the body are thrown by flicking the right stick to the left or right and straight and jabs to the body are done by holding the left trigger, same as in Round 3.

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Blocking has also been retooled. Since punches are no longer confined to four strict quadrants, blocking has been simplified to an option of high or low. The AI will then adapt the high or low block to hopefully deflect the incoming punch as needed. Another switch is the elimination of parrying. There's no more parrying a drained opponent which would then leave him wide open for attack. Now you'll only be able to deflect a certain number of blows until the hits start getting through. If the force of your punch is greater than the amount of blocking power left in the fighter's tank, then the punch is going to cause some hurt.

Given the fact that the parry system has been thrown out, fighters are going to need to watch for open spots and land devastating punches whenever they can. There are noticeable instances that happen when you dodge a punch where a section of the body will be open. Say a fighter launches a right hook at your face. Duck out of the way and his lower right side will be exposed. Toss a low hook at just the right moment and the screen will flash, letting you know that you've just brought the pain.


If you're lucky enough to land a truly concussive blow then your opponent will go into a stun state. This can happen at any time in a fight, regardless of their overall health. While this doesn't necessarily mean they're about to be knocked down; they'll move slower, punches will hurt them more and their health will cease to recharge until they recuperate for a time.

Once you've taken enough punishment, enough shots to the head, enough of your blood is on the mat (yes, it really does get on the mat; gloves too), and you've been knocked right on your ass, you'll need to know how to get up. In FNR4 that means playing a mini-game that calls for you to align an avatar in the middle of the screen. This is essentially your fighter picking his head up off the ground. Go too far to the left or right and the camera's viewpoint comes crashing down. Once your fighter is upright, you'll use the right stick to pick his wobbly body up.


Should you actually survive a round, you'll need to make some tough decisions as to how you're going to heal your boxer. It's totally unlike what was Fight Night Round 3. Instead of rubbing your boxer's face, you'll be assigning points, one of three tiers, to three different sections. There's damage reduction, stamina replenishment and health recovery. How well you did in the previous round determines how many points you'll get when you're in your corner. It seems a little less hands-on, with a slight nod to the arcade crowd.

But Fight Night Round 4 is much more about simulating the sport than its predecessors. Strategy and style are two big factors, and while I haven't spent enough time with the game to get a feel for the true impact, what I have seen is impressive. I was shown a fight between a hulking tower of a fighter and a little pipsqueak ball of muscle, and the results were pretty comical.

The tall guy's (who we'll reveal at a later date) special punch was actually the old hold-his-head-and-watch-him-swing routine. See, special punches can now be held as a taunt. One fighter's was him leaning back and waving his hands. Anyways, the little fella, while not literally held back by the tall dude's hand, couldn't come close to landing a punch if he tried to fight from that distance. The tall dude was landing concussive blows as the little guy swung and swung. It'll be important for gamers to use their boxer's physical traits, unlike in Round 3. Likewise if you're a little guy like Tyson, it's going to be extremely important to take advantage of the new inside fighting in FNR4, thus making it difficult for a tall boxer to extend his arm and land a stiff blow. Thankfully there are moves built into Round 4 that allow players to dodge a punch while still keeping their forward momentum going to make getting inside a bit easier.

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Now that's all well and good, but if you're anything like me, the biggest single disappointment of Fight Night Round 3 was the career mode. EA Vancouver is aware of this not-so-subtle fact and is trying to rectify the issue with Legacy Mode. It has the usual trimmings. You start a boxer's career and meld him from the ground up, starting with the obligatory amateur tournament (that can be simmed this time around). Another cool touch is being able to select the boxers that you'll be fighting against. If you've created multiple fighters you can choose to toss them in the mix or not and the same goes for the stable of real world combatants.

From there you'll need to start building popularity. You'll start at the bottom as a prospect and slowly work up the ladder of contender, champ, hall of famer, superstar and eventually become known as the greatest ever. Your popularity doesn't just hinge on whether you're winning fights. Instead it's how your fights play out. Quick and impressive KOs will likely get your more notoriety than battling it out for 12 rounds. After each fight you'll get a nice statistical breakdown of the fight. Pretty much every stat you could imagine is tallied and presented.


Just as in real life, the AI boxers will move weight classes throughout their career, just as you'll be able to. There are also individual weight class rankings and award candidates for each week and the year as a whole. Rivalries, something that FNR3 handled very poorly, will be worked in dynamically this time around. Impressive fights will be offered an instant rematch and should you continue to impress you'll develop a rivalry with a given fighter. It's designed to be much more organic than in Round 3.

When you're out of the ring, you'll be training for your next bout. In Round 4 every training game is taken straight out of the ring. That means that just about every move, from bobbing and weaving to moving around a target and punching makes it into training. There are also more training games this time around. No, weightlifting is not one of them.


And then Fight Night Round 4 was taken from me with nothing but a promise that my look at Legacy Mode only grazed the surface. No online options were talked about beyond the ability to save replays (hooray for instant replays) that you can clip up and post to EA Sports World. No other modes were laid out. No classic fights, no full roster of boxers. All I got was a small list that I'll share with everyone who made it this far.

# Mike Tyson
# Muhammad Ali
# Joe Frazier
# George Foreman
# Roy Jones
# Manny Pacquiao
# Lennox Lewis
# Sugar Ray Leonard
# Winky Wright
# Ricky Hatton


Check back to IGN.com as we reveal the full list of boxers in the coming weeks, and keep an eye out for my first hands-on impressions with Fight Night Round 4 as its summer release steadily approaches.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/961/961736p3.html

This game looks freakin crazy!

It really does look amazing. If THQ doesn't go under before releasing UFC 2009, this will be an awesome year for fight fans.

i cant wait... me and my friends played countless hours of FN3 and this looks even better

I can't wait to play this either, I've been playing Fight Night Round 3 on the PS2 a lot lately.

cant wait either
to bad boxing is not wat it used to be

very nice ,..my friend

Hell yeah, iron mike and lennox lewis, get in!