Fight Night Champion

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FIGHT NIGHT CHAMPION 

BY HILARY GOLDSTEIN -> It was my first fight as the great Roberto Duran. A few rounds in, I noticed Duran's white trunks had this odd red pattern on them. After a moment, I realized it wasn't dye in the fabric, but blood. My opponent's blood.

Fight Night Champion shows the brutal price boxers pay for stepping into the ring.

You can practically see the imprint of the glove on someone's face when you tag them enough. You can tell the severity of a cut – from mere scrapes to deep gashes – on the cheek just by looking. And once the blood starts flowing, you'll know it. It's all over the ring -- and Roberto Duran's trunks.

Fight Night Champion Video Review

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Fight Night Champion, the fifth entry in the series, does an excellent job of enhancing the experience in the ring. Not only can you see the impact of punches, but some gameplay tweaks give you better control over their delivery.

Gone is the old punching system that required complex analogue stick moves, such as half-circle moves for uppercuts. Now, every punch is thrown by flicking the stick quickly in a specific direction. The altered punching system not only speeds up the flow of a bout, but also puts the emphasis of your fighting skills on your strategy. It's nice to know you are definitely throwing an uppercut rather than hoping you made the right movements with the thumbstick to pull one off. You can still attempt a ridiculous rapid-punch session, but the penalty of exhausting your fighter quickly is severe. No one can really play like a fool and have long-term success with Fight Night.

Other changes include replacing the over-the-top haymaker with a modifier to simply add a little oomph to any punch, simplified blocking, and a new stamina/endurance system that's a touch more sophisticated than before. Streamlining the gameplay makes the technical aspects of a fight easier to grasp, allowing you to focus on more important areas -- like trying to actually box.

And when I say "box," I mean as opposed to brawling. The option to just wail away is still present in Fight Night Champion, but only at the default settings. Even then, the addition of flash knockouts requires even mindless punch jockeys to consider using defense. If you don't move around the ring and protect yourself, you risk more than just abuse. The threat of a one-punch KO is constant. Previous Fight Nights had "flash knockdowns" before, which means getting dropped to the mat suddenly with one hit, but a flash knockout means that you are immediately unconscious with no chance to get up. It's an instant KO.

Full Spectrum Punch Control Explained

 

That's new and the danger of such a sudden ending to a fight has an impact on how you play Fight Night Champion. I've had matches where I was winning easily, but because I got careless, I left myself open for the perfect strike at the perfect angle and took a shot that stunned the world.

The AI is smart. In fact, it's smart enough that boxers feel like individuals when you face them. Ali and Tyson don't fight the same way. Ali plays with you; Tyson tries to destroy you. Fighters react well to situations. If you're in the seventh round and they know they're losing on points, they might become more aggressive. If cut, they are often overly protective of that side of their face. Sometimes fighters make dumb moves. Like if Jake LaMotta, the Raging Bull, is pounding them inside, they don't move around and play at a distance. Sometimes they just keep coming.

Maybe that's because some fighters are just plain stupid or maybe the AI simply isn't reacting correctly. It's hard to say. I've had fights that feel authentic and others that just don't seem to match up. A cautious Iron Mike Tyson? It happened to me once (at least for three rounds before he landed a punch that flattened Holyfield in a flash).

Even with all these improvements, the battles in the ring are missing the key element that makes professional boxing special -- the drama. As good as the gameplay mechanics are, it still feels like an exhibition. EA must have sensed this, because it took a bit of a gamble and created an all-new story mode that, at least for a few hours, injects some humanity into a generally soulless experience.

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[IngeruDrogat]

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