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Developer: EA Chicago
Publisher: EA Sports
Genre: Fighting
Region: NTSC
Format:
Release Date: 20 Feb 06
User Rating
9.6 (16 votes) -
- EA pumps up their premier boxing franchise with genuinely jaw-dropping visuals, realistic back-and-forth action and superb Xbox Live support.
Overview
It is an exciting time to be a gamer, with new consoles replacing current ones, while always offering the next-level of technology to take the gamers experience up a notch. Up until now we have only had a few games on the Xbox 360 that fully felt "next generation". One game I among many believed would be the start of a strong first half of 2006 for the 360 was Fight Night Round 3 from EA Sports. Although EA hasn't had much luck thus far on the 360, the footage we have been seeing for the past six months of Fight Night Round 3 has made everyone's jaw drop. Now the big question is can the game live up to the massive amount of hype surrounding it? Read our full review to find out!
Gameplay
When Fight Night Round 3 for the Xbox 360 made its way onto my desk, I have to say I was very excited. As many of you know I review a lot of games, but there are a lot that are just like going through the motions. And as much as I try to keep my mind as open-minded as possible, there are just some games that you're more excited to put through the tests. So going into Fight Night Round 3 interested to see what the final results of the game were, I have to say that the results may or may not surprise people.
One of the most fundamental parts of any boxing game is the career mode, which Fight Night Round 3 does contain. I must say however that as much as I did enjoy my time with the mode I have to say that the developers left room for improvement. You start the mode by of course creating your boxer, and thus choosing the right weight class is also a key to how you want the career to go. Following that you are thrown into the meat and potatoes of the mode, which basically means you train, you box and you train, you box some more. The formula for the career mode is still nearly identical to what we have become accustomed to for a while now.
Once you get your boxer ready to go there is really nothing more to the mode. The game tries to throw in this new "rivalry" system, which means that your rival is going to be your arc enemy that you face throughout. Besides that and some different commentary lines during those fights, there is really nothing special about this idea. I liked my experience with the career mode, but I just wish the developers had put more into it. As sports games grow, storylines are becoming a part of these games and I think a boxing game would be a great place to implement just that. Boxing has brought about some of the greatest stories in sports, and I would imagine a boxing game with some sort of path/story would be a great idea.
So the career mode in my opinion was a good but not great experience. The actual boxing mechanics in my opinion were along the same lines. Some may wonder why I wasn't a huge fan of the gameplay and my main reaction after playing the game for a few hours was that it still felt a lot like Fight Night Round 2. Sure this isn't a bad thing, because Round 2 was a solid game but there were things that I still felt a bit weird about in this game. One thing is the realism, because knockouts very rarely happen after one or two knockdowns even as a power puncher. This to me takes away from the realism of the game and therefore just makes you kind of feel like you can see the numbers that are being worked behind the screen.
The game does feature Xbox Live support, which I actually played extensively to try and get a better idea of the average experience online. For a boxing game, latency can be a huge issue, and for Fight Night Round 3 I would say that more times it did not interfere with the gameplay then it did. That is of course not to say that the game always plays great online, but I wish the game had more options.
In the end, Fight Night Round 3 is a great game, but it just is missing the great pieces to put it over the top. While I enjoyed my time playing Fight Night Round 3, I just felt like there was a lot of room for improvement.
Graphics
Visually there is no question about it; Fight Night Round 3 is the best looking game thus far on the Xbox 360. The way that the developers were able to create the boxer models is just an unbelievable accomplishment, something that is sure to knock anyone's socks off. The animation in the game goes right along, with the amazing character models bringing in some just smooth animation that works great and never really looses its way. I have to say that I could not be impressed more with what EA managed to do with the visuals. You can see that a lot of hard work went into the visuals and the final results shows a definite pay off for the developers.
Fun Factor
I am a huge boxing fan, and although the sport has been on a terrible downward trend and is losing popularity by the day, if there is boxing on I usually am one to tune in. I am also a big fan of boxing video games, and have been a huge fan of this Fight Night Series. Fight Night Round 3 continues to be a great game that has the best visuals I have seen on the 360 thus far. But the gameplay, although it works great, seems to have a lot of interesting ideas just doesn't feel like it put all the pieces it needed to, together. The gameplay is solid, it works great, but I just felt the career mode needed more a straight purpose. The gameplay could also have used some adjustments to put the game at the elite level.
Overall
I have to say that although I am not giving the game a nine out of ten (although at times I thought I might), this is still a game I would highly recommend to any fan of the series out there. The reason for the lower than great score is because the game just never managed to make it to the next level. The visuals were amazing, but the gameplay itself needed some work in terms of the realism of the fights and the interest level of the career mode. Get those two things worked out for Round 4, and you will have an amazing game.
- Gameplay
8.0 - Graphics
10.0 - Fun Factor
8.0 - Overall
8.0
