Fight Night Round 3 Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

My prediction for the fight? Pain......

For those of you not in the know, the quote above is from Rocky III and made by the inimitable Mr T. And apart from demonstrating that I have an almost geek like knowledge of films and quotes (geeks will inherit the Earth), I used the quote for a reason. In Rocky III, Sly has to undergo a training regime unlike any other he has tried. This will give him an all round game with speed, power and movement, so that he doesn't fall down in the fight and not get up again. And that's basically what Fight Night Round 3 delivers, not a brand new training regime, but an all round game.

Technically this is a brilliant boxing game which surprised me with it's simple controls. Granted, it doesn't have the sheer fun of Super KO Boxing, but then that's an arcade style game and this is most definitely a boxing sim.

Before you even start to play the game, the graphics will blow you away, and what better start than seeing De La Hoya on the title screen. Not only is there lush 3D rendered polygons on the fighters, but the movement and animation is also pretty quick, giving the game a really great feel. The backgrounds are little more than a blur of colours made out to look like a crowd, but to be honest, you won't be paying them much attention as the ring graphics are so good. The moves may seem a little sluggish at times, but this depends on what move you are doing as it's obviously quicker to throw a jab than an uppercut. And when you get someone on the ropes, the screen closes in like a camera lens giving a very nice effect. Also spectacular are the replays you get when you get a knockdown. These are from two different angles and really add to the pleasure of playing the game. The only drawback is that you can't change the details very much when you create a boxer, but the real life boxing counterparts do look the part! Sound is not bad, but not brilliant either. You get to hear the famous "EA sports...it's in the game" sounds on loading and then you get a voice announcing the start of the match as well as counting on the knockdowns. Apart from that you can hear a bell ringing and you get some slightly muted sounds when the punches land. You don't get any crowd noise but you do have a vibration option which allows you to feel when you are being hit. A definite area for improvement.

Unlike SuperKO, there's whole range of punches in here. EA have opted to use the whole keypad instead of the stick only and you'll end up using the stick / D pad for movement and the keypad for the shots. Surprisingly this actually works quite well as there are effectively two levels, high and low. Pressing up or down will switch between level and then you can unleash your jabs and combos with 5 or the centre key. There are 4 hit combos at a higher and lower level and you can switch to any combination of them but pressing up or down during the combo. So if you hold up and press 5 four times you'll get four high hits. If you hold up and press 5 twice then hold down and press 5 twice you'll get two high hits and two low hits. This makes the depth of shots pretty unique compared to other boxing games, and then you have the special punches. 1, 3, 7 and 9 will do the big power punches, such as an uppercut, hook, gut punch and a body blow. These are much slower but take the big damage and look really cool. On top of this you have the ability to not just defend, but to parry as well (seems like a bit of Tekken rather than boxing is creeping in here). Pressing up or down will keep your hands at that level and if you don't punch, then holding up or down will block. However, if you time your button press so that you press up at the moment a high punch lands (and vice versa) then you will knock away your opponents arms, leaving them open for a counterstrike (Chuck Liddell should have done this to Rampage Jackson instead of going all at him). Some fighters may recover quick enough so that you can't land a heavy shot, but you should be able to land something. Finally, there are the three other buttons you can use, *, 0 and #. * will do a taunt which allows you to recover some energy, but be careful as you are wide open. The same applies to the AI so when they taunt, run up and hit them with something big. Then 0 will do a clinch which is really useful to gain a brief respite and allow your energy bar to build back quicker. Finally, # does an illegal move which is either a headbutt or low blow. These are great and although it may look as if you can do them as much as you want, do too many and the ref will pick it up and disqualify you.

With the wealth of moves listed above, the game is a joy to play. EA always license their games, so you get to create a fighter to take on the likes of Hatton, Barrera, Roy Jones Jr (dunno why it sounds so weird if I leave his first name out) and De La Hoya. And take them on you do, in the career mode where you work your way up through the ranks. You pick a fighter to fight against (with a fight fee based on their rank - unfortunately the accumulation of wealth doesn't seem to add anything to the game) and away you go. It will be a little tough at first, trying to block the punches properly and seeing when you should retaliate, but you soon get used to it and begin to deliver high low high low combos with ease. Your stats will always make you weaker than your opponent so it becomes a test to take down their energy and put them out for the count. If you win then you will get 10 attribute points to spend on 5 attributes (power, stamina, health, heart and speed). You can spend them any way you like and so cultivate someone with extreme power (like Ivan Drago), extreme speed (like Apollo Creed) or extreme heart (like Rocky himself) in order to progress up the ranks. It's the fact that this isn't a pure button mashing game which really appeals. You have to pick your moments, judge your distances correctly and not get hit by the big power moves. Different combos work on different fighters so you have to experiment to see which ones they are susceptible to. Parrying is difficult but running away and punching while backing up isn't. Pretty soon you get quite addicted to try and increase your stats and get the title shot. As you get to the latter stages of the game, it gets quite a bit harder due to the fact that you are heavily underpowered. But the AI doesn't take full advantage of this and the fights are pitched quite well. You can win, and it will be difficult, but not impossible. You just have to be careful and think about your boxing is all.

The game has a great deal of lastability as well. You start off in the amateur league and quickly work your way into the professional league. The amateur league has the fights lasting four rounds I think, but once you hit pro, the fights can go the whole distance if you let them. The rounds are 3 minutes in total, although the clock seems to count down a bit quicker than usual time. Basically it takes me about 10 minutes to finish a fight. Once you have achieved the dizzy heights of world champ, you'll notice that your skills still aren't anywhere near their maximum. The fights now are called "pound for pound" fights and are much tougher than before. Still, the rewards are worth it if you can get your stats up to a decent level. If I remember right, there are 4 fights in the amateur league and 13 in the main one. Or something like that, I've now lost count of how many fights I've done. The game analyses each fight brilliantly as well, showing how many punches you threw and how many actually landed. One slight drawback is that once you have chosen your opponent, you can't review their stats, but they are going to be better than yours anyway so you should just tough it out. On the career central page you can also see your fighter, win loss record, money won etc. The shoulder buttons will pause the game and give you a menu that also allows you to participate in a quick fight if you want.

My only real criticism of the game is that on the mid end handsets (like the one I played it on), you can't really customise your fighter too much, and after playing through so many matches, I have developed a style that seems to work most times. But then again, that could be a good thing as everyone will play the game differently.

EA described this as "quite simply the most realistic and graphically impressive boxing game available on mobile" and I would pretty much have to agree. Even if you don't like boxing games, this is a must to show off how good phone games can be.