Fight Night Champion

“Let’s get ready to rumble!” (I hate myself for that, but it had to be done). EA have brought out the newest instalment of the fight night series, ditching the numbers and slapping a big ol’ “champion” label on it.  After spending countless hours playing the Demo, hopes are high as this games boasts an immersive story and fast-paced multiplayer, will it be a KO or best left to rest your beer on? Let’s find out!

This time around EA has tried to actually create an interesting storyline, lifted straight from pretty much every boxing film around, but a storyline non the less. The game starts with you having to peel yourself off the canvas and knock seven bells of crap out of an opponent; this is a fantastic way to introduce the player to the basic game mechanics, principles and some rudimentary techniques to dominate your fights. This being said, if like me, you simply wanted to jump straight into multiplayer, you'll have to finish this first fight before you can progress to the main menu, leaving your friends with itchy thumbs.

As far as storylines for boxing games go, it’s pretty standard; fall from grace, end up a nobody, climb the ladder and become a somebody (Original concept huh? They should make a film about it… Oh wait…). But, I will give EA my respect for actually creating a palatable story compared to previous titles; which just lacked any sense of effort or creativity. The characters are believable, although very little history is given. They are presented well and introduced progressively, which allows the story to flow fluently and maintains the immersion factor for the player. However! I will say this… Please, please, please stop making these boxing coaches like Mickey from Rocky… we’ve seen it enough and not every coach looks and talks this way, I personally have never met a coach like this and would eat a glove if I actually did!

Fight night round 4 was renowned for it’s amazingly beautiful graphics at its time of release, leaving the competition at the starting line. True to form EA have managed to improve on near perfection with some pretty impressive upgrades. The improved injury/bleeding animations are astonishing, showing immense detail and realism, needless to say I was pretty surprised to see the blood staining incorporated into the clothing of both fighters, not just the injured fighter. Facial animation is top notch, every bump and blemish is present, never before has a broken nose looked so ‘realistic’. The ‘real’ fighters look true to their real-life counterpart with every aspect identical, be it Cotto’s impressive tribal tats to Ricky Hatton’s ability to get knocked down in the first round (even EA think you can’t take a punch, hitman…).

 One of the most enjoyable features for me was the create a fighter option, yes it’s been done a million times across hundreds of games, but the level of customisation in this game is pretty extreme. You imagine it; you can customise it! My flatmates also enjoyed this, simply because we could make each other and beat the living hell out of each other, needless to say there was plenty “This would never happen in real life, you couldn’t knock me out!” promptly resulting in two of them getting banged the fudge out. Back to the point, customisation is fun, but does take a while because of the vast options you have; also some of the ‘best’ attire is not available until you unlock certain characters or complete requirements. Worst yet, the game has specific unlocks which are only attainable if you pre-ordered the game, I didn’t pre-order, so every time I cycle through the characters I get to stare at fighters that I will never be able to play with… What a cock tease.

Multiplayer on this game is best far the best aspect, I’ve never played on LIVE so I can’t really comment on that; but on local play, it was pretty amazing. Once you have unlocked all of the characters from the story, there is a wide selection of fighters to choose from and each are tailored to their own personal fighting styles.  Which is great depending on how you like to fight, whether it be inside, outside, fast, powerful, particular stances... The list goes on. And now for what grinds my gear, you can loose in 5 seconds, no joke, regardless of who you are, if you get ‘flash’ punched you can loose immediately, no chance to get up, nothing. Fair enough this might be realistic for some fighters, like Tyson in his prime, but pretty much every fighter can do it, matches end quickly and you feel utterly and completed robbed, especially if you’re taking turns! But the most annoying aspect by far is the stupid count mechanism. After your second knock down, the referee will not count you back in until it reaches 6 seconds on the count, so even if you’re up by 3, you have to stay there and balance your character until it reaches 6… it’s BS, the amount of times I’ve gotten up quickly only to accidently lose focus and drop at 5 all because of a stupid mechanic… This almost ruined the multiplayer.

Score Breakdown:

Visuals – 9/10 True to fight night standards, graphics are clean, crisp and incredibly detailed. Animations run fluently as do cut-scenes.

Presentation – 6/10 The story is alright, not groundbreaking by any means, some aspects seemed a bit far-fetched, like not being able to knock someone down all because he gave you a small cut, thus making you run around the ring for 6 real time minutes… It insults us and is a pitiful attempt at making fights appear 'interesting'.

Sound – 7/10 Typical soundtrack of any EA game really, popular R’n’B music with some rap and stuff, that kind of music; it’s appropriate of the game but I 'm not exactly blown away by a genius who was can construct a play list.

Gameplay – 4 or 9/10 Now this is very open ended, depending if you use the button system or the analogue sticks. If you happen to suck with the sticks, the buttons seem your only chance, however, to do any damage and build combos you need to learn the sticks. So depending how well you take to it, you’ll either pummel your enemies with your superior stick control or hang back and keep hoping to connect with a jaw-breaking power punch.

Overall 7/10 It’s not the kind of game I would put in a trophy cabinet or even brag about it to colleagues. It wastes a few hours between playing ‘real’ games  and performs quite well in the multiplayer aspect. Ultimately this didn’t present the same enjoyment I felt from playing the demo, I guess after receiving my 6th ‘flash’ knockout in 8 fights, I just stopped caring. Beer mat it is...

-Craig

Posted in: CDS,champion,Craig,Fight,games,night,reviews.