Fight Night Round 4 Hands-On: Blood, Sweat, and More Sweat
On the surface, Fight Night Round 4 doesn't seem strikingly different than its predecessor. Both games feature sweaty fighter models glistening under the bright lights of the boxing ring while trading punches in impressive displays of athleticism and brut
I played as George Foreman fighting against a capable but considerably less iconic James Tony in the Xbox 360 version of the game. The series trademark Total Punch Control remains intact in Round 4, and still works exceptionally well. The right analog stick is used to throw all your punches, while the left analog stick controls your fighter's footwork.
Flicking the right stick in either direction throws a corresponding jab, a quarter-circle motion throws a hook, and a half-circle motion throws an uppercut. This makes it easy to quickly string together combos while moving around the ring and avoiding your opponent's punches. You can block by holding the right trigger, and lean by holding the left trigger.
In previous Fight Night games one of the best tactics to use was the parry. By holding the parry button and predicting where your opponent would try to hit you, you could parry his punch to throw him off balance, leaving him open to a flurry of counter punches. As a result, matches would often settle into a predictable pattern of parrying and counter punching over and over again.
There is no parry button in Fight Night Round 4. Instead of relying on the automatic response of your fighter, you have to use the right combination of movement and timing to get out of the way of an incoming punch and then quickly make your opponent pay with a well placed counter. This requires a lot of moving your feet to attack the right angles, and it also requires a lot of head movement and smart blocking. The result is a fight that feels significantly more fluid and realistic than in previous Fight Night games.
You can still go into a fight just throwing leather and hope to land a lucky punch for a flash KO. That won't get you very far against halfway decent competition though. You'll end up draining your stamina and getting picked apart by your opponent within the first couple rounds of the fight.
You can do the opposite and just turtle up behind a block, but your block gauge will quickly wear down doing so, and you'll eventually be left defenseless. Between rounds you can spend points to heal your fighter, recover his stamina, or repair damage. Points are earned based on your performance in the previous round.
In one round I received 12 points just for finishing the round on my feet, and an additional six points for landing more than 40 percent of my punches. I then spent the points on a medium ice bag to recover a portion of my fighter's stamina. If you don't feel like playing the management minigame you can select the auto option and your health, stamina, and block gauges will be partially replenished without any further input required from you.
In my time with the game I fought two bouts. First I fought the aforementioned heavyweight match between Foreman and Toney, where I won by KO in the third round against a fellow journalist. Later I fought a welterweight fight between Ricky Hatton and Manny Pacquiao. In this match I played as Pacquiao while Fight Night Round 4 Senior Producer Dean Richards took the controls as Hatton.
As we fought, Richards told me that the development team at EA Canada simulated the recent Hatton vs. Pacquiao fight 37 times and that Pacquiao came away with the win every single time. As if to make a point about the fight being in control of the player, Richards then quickly destroyed me with a second round knockout.
After smashing my face in, Richards showed me the new replay feature added in Fight Night Round 4. At any time you can pause the game and go into movie mode where you can watch a replay of the current round, cut out a clip of your choosing, and upload it to the EA SPORTS World website to show off to your friends.
While sharing movies online is a great feature, Fight Night Round 4 will live or die by its online multiplayer. In addition to the usual exhibition modes and options, Round 4 features an Online World Championship mode, where you take your fighter online to compete on a level playing field where stats are no longer a factor in the fight, and where button mashing isn't an option. In an effort to squelch the dubious advantage given to people who used the button control scheme instead of the stick in Fight Night Round 3, the Total Punch Control scheme is the only available control option online in Round 4.
In addition to the new physics based fighting system, new boxers, and added features, Fight Night Round 4 also received a visual update. Because it's a boxing game, the boxers are the highlight of the show. Sure the backgrounds look good and the venues like the MGM Grand look every bit as huge and daunting as they should, but you won't even notice these things unless you're looking for them.
The fighter models in Round 4 look incredibly accurate and detailed in their proportions, musculature, hair, facial expressions, and clothing. The animations and collision detection have been vastly improved over the previous game, so the clipping is kept to a minimum and the fighters seem to move much more naturally than ever before. Even with all the physics calculations and the highly detailed fighters, Fight Night Round 4 seems to run perfectly smooth.
In addition to the significantly reworked gameplay, Fight Night Round 4 features more than 50 licensed boxers, robust create-a-fighter tools, a full legacy mode, and online play. It's going to take some time to fully appreciate all the improvements, but there's no question that this is a bigger, better game of boxing.
Fight Night Round 4 is scheduled to arrive June 30 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. A demo for the game is due out before release, and will be available to GameStop pre-orderers two weeks ahead of its public release.
