Fight Night 2004

Boxing games have long been a staple of videogame consoles.  From the aptly named “Boxing” for the Intellivision to EA’s earlier attempts at boxing with Knockout Kings, there has rarely been a console that didn’t feature at least a couple of boxing titles.  Throughout the history of videogames, there has been several boxing games that were fun to play, and in the case of “Punch Out,” went on to legendary status. 

The problem, as far as someone like me is concerned, having boxed for seventeen of my first twenty-two years on this planet, a career that spanned 140 amateur fights, two Silver Gloves championships and three Golden Gloves championships, is that none (outside of the little known, but outstanding Victorious Boxers) have really recreated the sweet science with any degree of accuracy.  Every other sport that has been recreated in the videogame world  has received numerous accurate sims, but boxing has been left out in the cold. 

Virtually every boxing game ever created falls squarely in the “arcade fighter dressed as a boxing game” category.  Some made no apologies for this, going arcade all the way like “Punch Out” and “Ready to Rumble," while others like EA’s earlier foray into boxing used real-world fighters, but resulted in the stiff-playing, button-masher heaven known as “Knockout Kings.”  Fight Night changes all of that, creating one of the most innovative and quite possibly the most accurate sports sims ever created.  Building upon the ideals and execution of Victorious Boxers, EA has taken videogame boxing to the next level becoming the undisputed champion of the world.

There are so many innovative aspects to this game that I could probably write an entire book detailing each one, but for the sake of time and your patience, I’ll try to brief.  The first and greatest innovation Fight Night brings to the ring is the “Total Punch Control.”  This is far and away the most intuitive control scheme ever devised for a sports sim, simply because it seems like a natural extension of your body and nature. 

How many games, sports sim or not, can say anything like that?  You throw punches in Fight Night not by wildly mashing face buttons, but by negotiating the right analog stick.  Push up and slightly to the left or right and you throw a straight punch.  Push straight to the left or right and loop up, you throw a hook.  Push down, slightly to the left or right and then loop upwards, and you throw an uppercut.  The system is beautiful in its simplicity.  Where you get variations on these punches, just like in the real world, depends on the position and movement of your body.  Just like the real world of boxing this opens up an almost limitless amount of punches and combos, of differing power and speed.  Never before has a boxing game captured this so perfectly. 

The physics engine this game employs is out of this world, constantly adjusting the power and speed of the punch due to the movement of your body and your opponents position in relation to your own.  For example, standing “flat-footed” your right hook may be powerful, but step across your opponent’s body with your left foot while throwing the same punch and it is lethal.  This game takes such things into consideration.  Another innovation that EA has employed is somehow lending “weight” to each punch.  I feel somewhat embarrassed that I cannot explain how they’ve pulled this off, but there is no doubt they have.  In most other boxing games, the way punches land and feel, are all the same.  There’s no visual cue letting you know whether your uppercut was anymore powerful than the jab you just threw.  Not so in Fight Night.  You feel every single blow whether you delivered or received it. 

Having participated in virtually every major American sport under the sun, I can tell you without any doubt, that there is no rush in all of sports that equals feeling your opponent’s body crumble and fail underneath your fist.  I know, I know, it sounds barbaric and probably overly “macho,” but it’s the truth.  Fight Night captures that feeling with astounding accuracy.  The boxers’ bodies in this game react realistically to every blow, heads snap back and to the side, bodies raise off the ground with powerful body blows, it’s all here and frighteningly realistic.  You’ll get to the point where you actually wince when your boxer endures an especially brutal blow. 

In addition to this, blood and sweat sprays and falls realistically, and the knockdowns have to be seen to be believed.  EA has employed “rag doll” physics with the knockdowns, which in addition to looking “really cool,” the bodies hit the canvas with such weight and force that you can almost feel it.  The look of a limp body falling flat is pretty unique in and of itself, but the way they fall in relation to the force of the punch, the angle, and whether or not the body falls into the ropes or a corner is a real sight to behold.  No two knockdowns will ever look exactly the same.  And don’t even get me started the way a downed fighter quivers and quakes on the canvas.  All brutal stuff and not the most politically correct stuff to be celebrating, but EA has really pulled it off and they deserve kudos for the extreme attention to detail. 

Another innovation that EA has employed is the way in which you attempt to recover from a knockdown.  Rather than mashing buttons or twirling the sticks to recover like every other boxing game under the sun, EA has created a very novel mechanic in determining whether you get off the canvas or not.  Once you are knocked down, the view switches to a first person view, looking up at the ref, except there’s not just one ref, there are three, and they’re all blurry.  As he begins to count you out, you must use each analog stick to make the three blurry refs turn into one.  One stick controls one image of the ref, while the other controls another, and you must perfectly overlay them over the center ref.  Do this before the count of ten and you get up.  Fail and the fight is over.  And if that weren’t enough, the more you get knocked down, the slower and the harder it is to get the images to line up.  How cool is that?  

But to me, the most innovative aspect of the whole package is that your must really “box” to be successful at this game.  Button mashers need not apply.  You’ve actually got to use a fair amount of strategy and brains to be even minimally good at this game.  Any opponent, whether one of the legends, or one of lower-tiered computer-controlled boxers you’ll face in the career mode, will absolutely carve you up six ways to Sunday if you just mindlessly bull rush them, slinging punches every which way, just like real life.  You’ve got to pick your spots and openings, knowing when to lay on the pressure and when to back off and keep your distance.  Short of slipping on the gloves and climbing in the ring yourself, boxing just doesn’t get more realistic than this.  Patience and nerve are key.

The game offers three standard modes of play: Play Now, Career, and Online.  In the play now mode, you can set up fights using any of the plethora of current and former legends included in the game or created fighters to battle other legends or created fighters, this is where you can set up your “Dream Fights.”  What’s really cool about this mode is that the real-world boxers box and behave just as they do/did in real life, fighting with the same style and tendencies.  This goes a long way towards adding to the feeling that you just might be recreating the result you would’ve gotten had any of these legends ever squared off against the others.  The AI of all of the opponents you’ll face, real or otherwise, is incredible.  You’ll see virtually every tactic ever devised in boxing executed with extreme accuracy. 

The heart of the game is the “Career” mode.  In the career mode you’ll create your own boxer with a very robust “create-a-player” engine.  I have no doubt that if you cannot create a reasonable facsimile of yourself, you don’t exist.  From there you choose a weight class, your attire, and eventually items such as various “intro” effects and members of your entourage.  Once you’ve completed all of that, you begin your career as a twenty-year-old rookie, ranked 50^th of 50 fighters.  You are then presented with options such as shopping for new attire, equipment, entrance music, etc., viewing the rankings of your weight class, and scheduling a fight.  There is a fair degree of strategy involved in scheduling fights and plotting your ascent to the top.  You are always presented with a list of 1-3 possible opponents, some of whom are usually ranked just ahead of you and some just behind.  You have to be careful to choose opponents with similar attributes and records, lest you get destroyed by a fighter you weren’t ready to face or you wallow for too long at the bottom of the rankings, all the while keeping in mind the game has a mandatory retirement age of 40. 

So you’ve got to be careful, with only four fights a year, to constantly move forward, without doing so, so fast that you don’t overmatch yourself.  After you’ve chosen your opponent, you are then presented with the option to train.  You are given the opportunity to train only once before every fight.  The training is represented by four boxing specific mini-games, in which the game forces you to cycle through in order, meaning that you’ll have to go through all four before you get a chance at the first one again.  Each one represents strengthening certain attributes, so they are vital.  While they are fun and challenging, they do have a couple of problems.  The biggest is that there isn’t an option to practice these mini-games inside of the career or out.  This poses a problem because some of them will require most gamers to do them four or five times before you become proficient at them, and by then you’re already twelve to sixteen fights into your career.  This is an almost unforgivable oversight.  There is an option to “auto-train”, but of course you aren’t awarded as many points by doing this.  The other problem is that you only have one shot per fight at the training.  Blow it and those attributes have no chance of significantly improving until the next time around.  

Beyond these oversights, the career mode is outstanding.  The legends generally occupy the top ten spots of the rankings, and the fighters get progressively tougher as you move up.  Once again the AI of the computer-controlled fighters is outstanding.  They’ll use every tactic under the sun, including such advanced tactics as attempting to bait you into mistakes and so on.

The final mode of play is the online mode, exclusive to the PS2.  This mode is about what one would expect.  It supports voice chat and all of the features the rest of the EA library supports on the PS2.  The times that I played online, the game performed flawlessly without any lag whatsoever, which is impressive considering the striking graphics the game supports.  I could see the online aspect of this game being something really special if this game garners the fan support it deserves, with online championships and so forth.  That to me, would be really cool, “Virtual Boxing Championships.”

In closing, this is the most accurate and rewarding recreation of boxing ever.  EA has poured a lot of time and expertise into this game and it shows.  If you love the sport of boxing, then you absolutely cannot go wrong here.  If you’ve ever wanted to know what it was like to actually box, but didn’t want to risk bodily injury, then this game will show you everything you’ve ever wanted to know.  Really, the only drawback to any game that takes simulation this seriously and recreates it so accurately is that it does narrow down the audience considerably.  Arcade fighters, impatient gamers, and people who had no previous interest in boxing should probably take a pass.  It is a very involved game that will require a fair amount of interest and/or admiration for you to get your full money’s worth out of it, but if you commit to the game, it pays huge dividends.

Gameplay: 9
The boxing itself is outstanding.  Virtually every style and tactic can be faithfully recreated with ease.  The control layout is one of the most intuitive and natural schemes devised for any game.  The only drawbacks are the issues with the mini-games and the need for a basic understanding of boxing for you to be able to “jump” right in.

Graphics: 9
The graphics of this game are, bar none, the best to ever grace a boxing game.  The legends are modeled in astounding and realistic detail, as are the various fight venues.  The “generic” boxers you face on the way up the career ladder are also lovingly rendered, making each look unique and alive.  The animations are superb, as are the ways that sweat and blood spray.

Sound: 8.5
The sound effects themselves are great.  The sound of well-aimed shots landing, the sliding of the boots across the canvas, the crowd, as well as the grunts and groans of the boxers are all accurate.  The problem lies in EA’s choice of Big Tigger from BET to be the ring announcer and commentator.  While mildly amusing at first he quickly begins to grate.

Difficulty:  Medium
This one is kind of hard to rate.  For newbies to the sport, the learning curve is pretty steep even on easy.  However, once you get the hang of controlling your boxer and you realize that you’re not going to destroy too many boxers in early parts of the first round, the difficulty rounds out rather nicely.

Concept: 10
Accurately modeling and recreating boxing to a degree never before witnessed in videogames deserves massive props.  It probably would have been easier and even recommended by some to go the “arcade” route with the game simply because of boxing’s nature, but EA chose to create a sim that rivals the best of the best sports sims.  The “Total Punch Control” is one of the most innovative control schemes ever.

Multiplayer: 8

Two players off or online.  The fights are very visceral and exciting, especially if you’re up against an experienced opponent. The game does a really good job in head to head bouts of recreating the peeks and valleys, and the drama inherent to a real fight.

Overall: 9
Simply put, this is one of the most accurate and lovingly devised sims ever created.  Boxers and boxing fans alike will absolutely be heaven with this game.  Gamers without an interest or love for the sport and its nuances may want to steer clear, but there is no denying the accomplishments achieved by this incredible game.