After hugely positive reviews for Fight Night Round 4, EA’s boxing masterclass returns, bloodier than ever, with the promise of an intriugingly gritty career mode.
As we took our seats at the EA Winter Showcase, we weren’t sure what to expect from the return of Fight Night – after all, the developer’s boxing series is one of the few bi-annual EA sports franchises around and all the better for it – 2009’s Fight Night Round 4 achieved an incredible 88% Metacritic rating on PS3 and 87% for its Xbox 360 version from the review aggregator site. Minutes later, we still weren’t sure.
During a quick onstage presentation from producer Brian Hayes, we saw buckets of blood getting sprayed from fighters and the mysterious first glimpses of a ‘Champion’ mode. It wasn’t until we went behind closed doors that we saw Hayes controlling a David Haye vs Roy Jones Jr fight that we started to fully realise the potential of March 2011’s Fight Night Champion, which is the first ever ‘Rated M’ title developed by EA Sports.
So how does one even begin to improve on the universally-lauded Fight Night Round 4? According to Hayes, it’s all about improving the realism and incorporating the sometimes harsh culture of boxing. This year, EA is promising ‘full spectrum punch control’, which is a much more nuanced approach to landing punches and the effects it has on your fighter and indeed, opponent.
Hatton was already reconsidering another bout against Pacquiao
Full spectrum punch control is the culmination of EA’s own research on how players adapted to the series’ customary analogue stick-controlled punching. Hayes found that it was too easy for players to alternate between left and then right punches, due to their thumbs natural position – so now arcing gestures are out, while accurate flicks of the analogue will suffice. Similarly, haymakers are much less cartoonish than before with the introduction of a heavy punch modifier. In all, Champion’s developers are promising over 500 new punch animations.
Under the hood, the game now monitors individual muscle groups for each fight, so although it looks as though there is one individual stamina bar, in reality it’s a compendium of a variety of muscles groups, which EA hopes will combat one-punch spamming. Recovery between rounds is now automated, since as Hayes says ‘you’re just a boxer between rounds’, so it’s all about sitting back, listening to advice and planning your next assault.
As you can see from the above picture of Ricky Hatton getting pummelled by Manny Pacquiao, the most startling addition to Fight Night Champion is the authentic body damage and deformation that occurs when fighters receive thunderous blows. In short, the blood. Although we didn’t get to see any Tyson ear-bite special attacks, we were blown away by the realistic sprays of crimson that followed effective strikes – blood got everywhere and left us curiously baying for more.
Although EA were tight-lipped over the features implemented for its ‘Champion’ mode when we got our first glimpse of the title, in recent days more details have emerged on the fighter’s gritty career mode – it certainly sounds as if the ‘Rated M’ content is not purely confined to splashing of blood. Controlling ‘Andre’, the title’s lead character, players can expect prison-set bare-knuckle brawls throughout a sprawling story mode.
For many boxing fans, Fight Night Round 4 marked the pinnacle of their sport’s videogame representation, so it’s fantastic to see EA attempting to rip up the rule book rather than attempting minor adjustments to a winning formula (*cough* Fifa 11 *cough*). With a clever approach to it’s already unique fighting system, the damage physics fans have been clamouring and the unexpected but exciting ‘Champion’ mode, Fight Night Champion looks ready to throw down against all challengers this coming March.
Fight Night Champion is set for release on the Xbox 360 and PS3 from March 1, 2011.
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