Fight Night Round 4

Unbelievable game, as close as it has ever gotten, even if you're not impressed with the graphics... the depth that this game has in unbelievable. Re-playable over and over and over. Every fight is literally different.

Note: Ive only haf 5 Am. fights and 5 pro fights, so this is based on my experience with the beginning of the game.

This is a good and solid boxing game that will get you addicted if you like this type of games ... the graphics are amazing and the gameplay is great and is much better than the previous version of the game :) I recommend :)

ORIGINAL REVIEW

This game is truly, truly excellent!

I looked forward to this game for some time but I must admit that when I first played it with my girlfiend on my birthday I wasnt that impressed. The graphics were superb but the game seemed too random. We both just moved the conrol stick round till one of us got knocked out. This lead me to think that the game lacked the capacity to reward genuine gaming skill. However I was very wrong. The game is very different to round 3 which I was used to playing. It takes time to come to get used to the new conrols and when you do the game is very much about skill in both the two player and the single player modes.

It is the single game (legacy mode) that is the games ace card. The graphics are incredible but the game play is even better. You start off as an amatuer and try to become the greatest of all time over a long career. When you turn pro you start fighting in small, dusty clubs before moving onto tv fights at venue's like the Royal Albert Hall (Royal London Theatre)and eventually fighting at Madison Square Garden and in Las Vegas.
The games physics are what really makes it so playable. Punches connect hard, glance and land on different places on the head causing a variety of different reactions. So no fight or knockout is ever the same.
Its very fun. You can even record and save your guys knockouts or fighting clips and save tem to watch back in highlight mode! This is a brillaint feature that allows you to review your guys career even after he's retired! (harddrive needed for highlght mode!)

My own career has gone very well :) My guy has just won a brilliant 7 round fight for the Middlewight title after 31 fights with 30 ko's.... I now plan to unify the division before moving up to Light-Heavyweight :)
Can't wait to continue playing :)

However the game is not perfect (just very close to being lol). The create a boxer option for career mode is not as good as fight night round 3. The options are not great but you can just about create a decent looking fighter if you put effort in. You also cannot change your boxers appearance during your career as you could in FNR3. This is annoying because I used to have fun changing my boxers haircuts for different fights. Yet these are minor gripes and the game is really worth buying especially if your into boxing but even if your not. Cannot reccomend highly enough :)

REVIEW UPDATE

Had to come back and update my review. For as good as this game is the legacy mode has a couple of major flaws that pretty much spoil it. When I first reviewed this game I had just won the title after 31 fights. However another reviewer mentioned that after 40 odd fights the career mode just stops and the game ceases to be fun. I thought he must be wrong becuase the manual says that you can move up two weight divisions and retire when you choose however old your fighter may be. Unfortinately that reviewer was right. I unified the titles at middlewieght, moved up to Light heavyweight and unified the titles there and then... nothing. Just the same fights against the same contenders with no regens. I fort Roy Jones and ko'd him in 3, then in 1 and then in 2. Calzaghe got pasted twice. Thomaz Adamek 4 times and then having become the G.O.A.T I had to just retire aged 28 because I was just fighting the same guys over and over. I researched it and one of the developers has admtted that you can only move up in weigtht once despite what the manual says. In Fight Night Round 3 you could move up twice and there were regular regens to fight for as long as you wanted. In Fight Night round 4 once youve won titles i your second weight division you may as well retire :( The other anoyance is that the top boxers in the game like Roy Jones, Joe Calzaghe and Mike Tyson are only avaragechamps in legacy mode. Joe Calzaghe retired in real life with a brilliant 46-0 (32ko) record. When I fort him in the game he was champ but had already lost 8 times. Same with Jones who had been ko'd five times aleady. Things like this spoil the realism for true boxing fans. So all in all the game is very good but this spoils the legacy mode for me which is why I brought the game. So from 5 stars I'd like to bring it down to 3. The gameplay and detail are great but the game could so easily be made great had they tweaked it a bit b4 release. So the game is very good but is perhaps not quite the epic I originally though it was :(

Just to add a bit more to this review. Having now played the game alot I have discovered a huge number of bugs that spoil the game further still. In fact if I now have to give the game 1 star. In Legacy mode there is a very common bug (google legacy bug and you will see how common this is!) that crashes your console every time you try to scedule a fight. This normally occurs arround the time of your 40th fight but sometimes earler. Your saved game will be corrupted and the only thing to do is start again :( There are several mre minor bugs I have found that I wont go into. However there is two more big ones. When you edit your boxer in legacy mode all your hard work in the game will be undone because your stats will be reset. Lastly if you scedule a fight then accept a challenge from another fighter your game will be stuck in a loop and you will never be able to progress or fight either fight. EA are aware of both these bugs and have released a patch that supposedly (have heard rumours that it doesnt) fixes them. However those of us who cant afford to go online with X-BOX LIVE (I'd need a £40 wireless adapter and would then need to pay a subscription to X-BOX Live) will just be stuck with a buggy game that is almost useless because it wasnt tested properly. Ive just had my 40-0 fights legacy ruined because of these bugs. Do I start again and risk the same thing happening wasting hours of gameplay or do I just sell the game and buy something I can rely on. You guess :)
Very dissapointing :( Read more ›

This is a better game than I had even hoped. More boxers than ever before; more online options; more depth to the career mode; a vastly improved game-engine and a more realistic all round gaming experience. The total punch system has also been change so that there are more punches available and a vast improvement to fuidity and movement. Not forgetting even better graphics than last time round.

It certainly appears that the developers have thought of almost everything. What really impressed me are the improvements to the online experience. Not only can you play ranked matches just as you did in FNR3; but also you can now create your own fighter and use him in a new online mode which will see this indiviual character rise through the ranks all the way to the online championship (if your good enough). There is one champion in each weight division.

The game engine is significantly different to that of FNR3 aswell and it will take an amount of time to adjust to the new game mechanics. There is no parrying (thankfully) and this time there is no invisible force-feild seperating the two fighters; now you can get it close, get tangled up, or simply use you feet to keep it at long range. This is quite simply the best sports sim' ever and certainly the most realistic.

Also, for the first time Joe Calzaghe, Carlos Monzon, Pernell Whittaker, George Forman, Mike Tyson and Thomas 'the Hitman' Hearns; all make their debut on the Fight Night series. With around 40 fighters to chose from this game should keep any fight-fan occupied for months to come.

I loved all the Fight Night games; but Fight Night Round 4 is in a league of its own, with a vastly improved carreer and online modes.... Also the fact that they have a combined caeer and online mode is very impressive and should appeal to any fight fan like me.

Any boxing fan has to get this game. Read more ›

Having been waiting for this game for years, when it arrived at my door i was on it within seconds.. Fight night round 3 was good but needed improvments. And judging by how long they've been planning and working on it my expectations were high. An hour into it and i'm already having problems with it.
The number of boxers on it is fantastic and the career mode has been improved greatly, although it has a problem. After you reach the 30 fight mark with your boxer (maybe more like 33 or 34 fights) the career mode just stops. Having won the belts in your starting division and moving up in wieght you take on the 3 champions in the next division. Then there's nothing. No more moving up weight. Just constantly defending your belts against the same six contenders. Over and over and over again. I reached the 40 fight mark and became so bored i just retired.
I've heard that EA is going to bring out a patch with the old controls on it in september. And trust me when i say this 95% of the people playing this game will be waiting for it. The new controls just don't work. hitting to the body is all you can do. You don't have time to turn the control stick down and round left or right then up again to throw anything other than a jab or a body shot. Its just to fiddly!
Don't get me wrong this game is fun and i have enjoyed it but it seems to run its course very quickly.
Not really into the online play so haven't actually tried that, although other reviews aren't very positive, nothing but body shots the whole time. But like i say never tried it so that one's up to you.

Would i recommend this game to buy? NO
Would i recommend this game to rent? YES

Fun but predictable