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Fight Night 2004 Will Change The Way You Play
“In order to bring gamers a vastly superior gameplay experience, we needed to leave other boxing and fighting games behind…not use them as inspiration.”
Sweat and blood are thrown from his face
But face is one thing he could not save
The mental scars he can’t erase
They’re signs of the smart remarks he gave
He was a punk kid, didn’t like to stay quiet
He’d run around town and create a storm
His foolish ways could cause a riot
In his hometown it is the norm
As he grew stronger he began to hit back
He’d pick on lowlifes just for fun
If you tick him off it’s your skull he’ll crack
All you can do is die or run.
What once was torture, a little boy’s fear
Has become his joy, a growing career
There isn’t a fight you can bet against him winning
Now that he’s king this is only the beginning
Who doesn’t love a good fight? Kids (and even adults) watch in excitement as their friends pound each other into the ground. Hockey, an exciting but underrated sport, gets more attention when a major fight breaks out. We play dozens of games each year that involve nothing more than kicks, punches, and some fancy special moves.
I am saddened when I think about all of the arcade battles that have been taken to the streets as of late. With arcades as good as dead, gamers have few places to settle their differences. So they turn to each other for hand-to-hand satisfaction.
Wouldn’t it be better if we had a new kind of fighting game that would help us settle our differences the proper way – via game console and a wide-screen HDTV?
The developers of Fight Night 2004 are determined to give us a game that will not only allow us to settle our differences, but will be good enough to keep gamers off the streets.
From the looks of things I’d say they’ve done it. I haven’t had the joy of playing the game yet, but Kudo Tsunoda, executive producer of the Fight Night 2004, has given such detailed descriptions of the gameplay that I can practically feel the experience. Read on but be warned: this interview will make you salivate like a dog at the table on Thanksgiving.
Please start by going into detail about the 'Total Punch Control' system.
Kudo Tsunoda: In doing research for Fight Night 2004, we played every other boxing and fighting game going all the way back to the Atari 2600. One thing we found that was similar in every game was the way punches were thrown. You press a button and an entire punch animation would play. This gave you no control over your fists and no sensation of actually throwing your punch. Controlling your fists and how you use them is the skill that really separates the great boxers from the people who get their butts kicked. Button press punching lead to really boring, repetitive gameplay that required no skill. In other boxing and fighting games, the gameplay basically boils down to both boxers running to the middle of the ring and hitting the punch button as fast as you could.
Our main goal with Fight Night 2004 was to completely revolutionize the way boxing and fighting games are played by giving games total control over their fists. This is how we came up with the Total Punch Control system. Total Punch Control gives gamers control of their fists using the analog sticks. The analog stick is an extension of your fists. So if you want to throw a left hook, you move the analog stick out to the left and arc it forward in a clockwise motion. When throwing punches, your fists on screen make the exact same motions that you make with the analog sticks. You can also start setting up your punches with “feints” or fake punches. Instead of having to throw an entire punch each time, you can start to throw a punch with the analog stick, pull it back, and throw a different punch. Again, you have total control of your fists and can use them in any way you want. But Total Punch Control is not limited to punching. Since you are controlling your fists on screen with the analog sticks, Total Punch Control can also be used for really quick and responsive blocking. While other games had blocking functionality, by the time you tried to use it you got punched in the face (3) times. With Total Punch Control, you can use the analog stick to quickly move your fists into the path of incoming punches. The punch will be blocked by your fists, arms, and elbows. Total Punch Control truly captures the skill and tactics necessary to be successful in boxing.
You can stay down there or get up and fight like a man.
What encouraged the Fight Night 2004 development team to give the game a new-school attitude?
KT: A lot of the new school attitude in Fight Night 2004 is based on the in-ring and on-screen personality of our cover athlete Roy Jones Jr. Besides being the greatest pound for pound boxer of our generation, Roy Jones owns his own record label and has produced his own hip hop album. In working with him, we were really impressed with his brash, in your face style both in and outside the ring. Roy Jones Jr. was our inspiration not just for many of the real life boxing mechanics and skills implemented in the gameplay, but also for the overall tone and presentation of the game as a whole.
Has Punch Out or any other great boxing games served as inspiration for Fight Night 2004?
KT: We played the heck out of every single boxing and fighting game, for any platform, from any time period we could get our hands on. But in all honesty, no game really served as an inspiration for what we wanted to do as much as they taught us lessons for what we did not want to do. Fight Night 2004 completely changes the way boxing games look and play. We have created a game that innovates in all areas as opposed to copies other games. In order to bring gamers a vastly superior gameplay experience, we needed to leave other boxing and fighting games behind…not use them as inspiration. I think this is why other boxing and fighting games seem stale and dated. People have been locked in to one way of creating these types of games. Besides the graphics, not much has changed in the way these games are played for the last 20 years!!! Fight Night 2004 not only updates boxing and fighting gameplay to current times, it sets the bar for how these types of games will be created in the future.
How strict are the rules in Fight Night 2004? Are they based on the rules of real-life boxing, and can they turned on and off?
KT: Fight Night 2004 stays true to the skills, tactics, and rules of real life boxing. We kept in the basic rules and principles of the sport in almost all cases. But we were not afraid to change or eliminate an occasional rule here or there if it made the game more fun. While we were very focused on bringing games the first authentic boxing game in years, we never lost sight of the fact that the most important thing is for the game to be enjoyable to play. But almost all boxing rules are in there. We also give you options for turning them on or off so you can play the game whichever way is most fun for you!!!
Unprecedented boxer detail.
Judging by the screenshots, I'd say that Fight Night 2004's graphics are a huge step forward for gaming. Could you go over the process for how these effects – like realistic faces – were created?
KT: Yes, the graphics in Fight Night 2004 are amazing! I agree with you completely, it is not just a huge step forward for boxing and fighting games, but for all games in general. One of the most important elements of being able to achieve the level of graphics we did was just having what I consider the best art and programming team in the industry today. As a producer, you can set a goal for having the best graphics of any game out there, but without the kick ass development team we put together none of it would have been possible. It is one of the best things about working at Electronic Arts…we unquestionably have access to the best talent in the world. We also spared no expense in providing the art team with the best reference possible. Everything from hi-res photos, full body scans, to an enormous library of videos from each boxer’s fights so we could truly capture the subtleties of the boxer’s styles and tactics. But this was not just limited to the boxers. It applied to every asset in the game from our venues to the gorgeous ring girls!!!
How many fighters are going to be included?
KT: There are (32) real-life boxers in Fight Night 2004. This is (14) more than appeared in the last version of an EA boxing game. We have a great mix of current champions (Roy Jones Jr, Winky Wright, Chris Byrd, Arturo Gatti), legends (Ali, Frazier, Sugar Ray Leonard), and new up and comers (Antonio Tarver, Jermaine Taylor). We also have an incredibly detailed and easy to use create a boxer. So if there are any fighters not in the game that you want to play, you can build them yourself. You can also create models that look just like you and fight with them. Create a character is not a feature never seen before, but I can tell you it takes on a whole new level of importance when you see yourself in a boxing ring, getting punched in the face, and watching you face swell, bruise, and bleed. It is unbelievably cool. Especially in multiplayer where you and a friend can both build characters of yourselves and fight it out. All our licensed and created boxers can be used in any of our gameplay modes including online play.
What are the differences between the fighters? What makes choosing a specific fighter important?
KT: Every boxer in Fight Night 2004 has a wide variety of ratings and characteristics that affect not only how good that boxer is, but how you should fight with him to be successful. Punching power, hand speed, foot speed, stamina, a boxer’s movement and punching styles, their boxing tactics, how they take a punch to the head, how they take a punch to the body, how easily they cut, and how well they get up from knockdowns all have a big effect on each boxer and how they can best be played. Just like in real boxing, any fight is all about the match-ups. You need to not only use your strengths, but take advantage of your opponent’s weaknesses.
Can we get an instant replay?
I need to see that again.
How many aspects can gamers change or alter in the create-a-player mode?
KT: There are virtually thousands of different options and combinations that you can build characters with in Fight Night 2004. Anything from a boxer’s body type and boxer ratings to the exact size and angle of your character’s nose. It is the most in-depth create a boxer ever done in any game. The best way to see exactly how cool this feature is would be to check out the create- a-boxer video on the Electronic Arts Web page: http://www.easports.com/games/fightnight2004. Two of our producers on the dev team build characters that look just like them and take ‘em in the ring. You can see exactly how well you can build characters based on real people and get a quick tutorial on all the features of our create a boxer system.
I have seen a lot of game videos over the year, but this one is absolutely hysterical. It is a must see. Brian “Bulldog” Hayes and Liam “Lightening” Miller…you guys rule!!!
Fight Night 2004 promises that no two knockouts will ever be the same. Tell us more about this, and how this was achieved.
KT: One of the things that has always bugged me about other boxing and fighting games were the knockdowns. In other games, all the knockdowns were pre-canned animations. They got really repetitive, really quick. Plus, they were completely unrealistic and in many cases made no real world sense. You would see a guy get hit with a huge left hook and they would fall straight back. Then you would see a guy get hit with a huge right uppercut, and they would fall straight back again in the exact same manner. They knockdown had nothing to do with the punch that caused it. For Fight Night 2004, all of our knockdowns are completely controlled by real world physics. The way a boxer falls down depends on the type of punch landed, the angle of the punch, the power of the punch, the velocity of the punch, and how the boxer’s bodies were moving at the time of punch impact. You truly can knock a guy down a million times and get a million different knockdowns….just like in real life!!!!
EA is big on licensed music. Which artists are on board for Fight Night 2004?
KT: We certainly have a wide range of talented, popular artist on board for the game. The music is used to effectively set the tone for the game as well as to give gamers a level of customization over their personal entrance to the ring. Like in real boxing, the ring entrances are an expression of each boxer’s personality. Gamers can fully customize their ring entrance scripting not only the game music, but all the pyrotechnics and special effects that go with it. Some of my personal favorite music in the game comes from Puff Daddy, MOP, Cee-lo, and I-20.
Do these guys know how to duck?
Did you get to work with any real fighters while developing the game?
KT: Getting to work with real life fighters was instrumental to the authenticity and quality of this title. We obviously got a lot of our inspiration for both gameplay and game style from our cover athlete Roy Jones Jr. But we also had real fighters work with us in all of our mo-cap sessions, to allow us to gather the highly detailed reference we needed, and to generally give us feedback on any and all elements going in to the game. Besides the world class famous boxers we worked with, I wanted to give a special thanks to all the local club boxers and trainers we worked with to get the development team up to speed on boxing in general. All of the game designers put ourselves through an extensive and intense real life boxing training regimen that included each of us stepping inside the ring for an actual fight. There was no way we could have captured the skills and tactics boxers use in our gameplay if we had not all worked so hard to learn how to box ourselves. I tell you, it is impossible to understand what is going through a boxer’s mind until you step in the ring yourself and get hit in the face. This was instrumental to the development of Fight Night 2004.
Thanks so much for letting me do this interview and talk about Fight Night 2004. I often cruise GameZone for the latest industry information and news. It will be a real thrill to see an interview about our game on your site. Fight Night 2004 for PS2 and Xbox coming out soon. Check it out!!! I hope you have as much fun playing it as we had making it!!!
It’s always nice to talk to a fan :)
Thank you Kudo for all your detailed answers.
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