Fight Night Round 2

Written by Vadim Leonov  on March 23, 2005

Review: Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee

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After getting hooked on NBC's new show, УThe ContenderФ, I had the urge to fight somebody. Instead of literally going toe-to-toe with someone, I picked up EA Sports' new release, Fight Night Round 2. Fight Night Round 2 is the follow-up to last year's smash hit, Fight Night 2004. That was the first boxing game to implement near perfect controls, a good career mode and amazing graphics. The game had a few flaws, such as a lack of depth for the career mode and lackluster audio, but the developers addressed most of these issues, making Fight Night Round 2 a legitimate contender.

The most innovative aspect of Fight Night 2004 was its control scheme. For the first time in video game boxing history, the analog sticks were used to control the majority of the punches and moves, contrary to the traditional button assignment to each punch. You could pull off all types of punches, including hooks, jab and uppercuts with flings of an analog stick in various directions. The movement of the analog stick was realistic, as for example, hooks were performed by moving the stick to the right or left and then immediately moving it up in a quarter circle. This control scheme makes a return in Fight Night Round 2. I must admit that I played the original Fight Night on the Xbox, and switching from the right thumbstick on the Xbox to the c-stick on the GameCube was a big difference. I felt like I had less control and it didn't seem right at first, although I eventually grew accustomed to the change.

An addition to the series is the inclusion of haymakers, which are super strong punches that can deal a lot of damage. Learning to pull off these haymakers was no easy task at first, but once you get the gist of it, the haymakers might deteriorate from the overall gameplay experience. Some players might rely on them too much early on in their careers, and when they get to the harder matches they will be completely crushed because as you progress, using defensive moves becomes more and more important. Another disadvantage is that as you become better and better, some of the opponents will continuously throw haymaker after haymaker throughout matches. Not only is this unrealistic, but it's unfair, as throwing multiple haymakers doesn't really use up that much of their stamina. So some of these matches can turn into all out slugfests instead of being realistic boxing matches.

Besides throwing punches, you can do a lot of other things in the ring. You can taunt, deal body shots, go for an illegal shot in hopes that the referee won't disqualify you for it, you can clinch your opponent to regain some of your stamina and you can switch to the defensive aspect of the sport quickly. If your opponent goes on the attack, you can parry, block, dodge and perform counter-punches. Boxer movement is also realistic, as you can throw punches and change your position at the same time, although you aren't allowed to throw haymakers if you are off-balance.

The GameCube version features only two modes, which are Quick Fight (for single matches) and Career Mode. Unless you have a friend over at your house, most of your time will be spent on Career Mode. The main objective in Career Mode is to either create or select an existing boxer and make them climb the ranks in hopes of becoming the champion of their weight class. Creating your own boxer is a nice feature where you have hundreds of options for the boxer's physical appearance and body type. You are then given some points to dish out for various attributes such as power, agility and cut recovery. After you've chosen your boxer, you are officially ranked as #50 in your weight class and your career begins. You start out in the amateur ranks where the fights serve as a way to familiarize yourself with the controls, but when you get to the pros after a few bouts, the game gets serious.

You get to schedule your own fights and, prior to each fight, you enter a training mode to improve your attributes. By participating in a bevy of mini-games that involve punching a combo dummy, lifting weights and hitting a dummy bag, you will improve your boxers stats. Maximizing stats is a must if you want to win championship fights and by improving stats your boxer's physique will also change Ц he will become leaner and more chiseled. One of the interesting things about Fight Night Round 2 is that you are allowed to change your weight class if you want to be the champion of more than one weight class. For example, if you feel like you can do more after you have won the middle weight championship, you can gain weight and work on your strength to attempt to win the heavy weight belt as well. It becomes tricky as you will have to juggle middle and heavy weight fights to keep your belts, but I feel that this makes the career mode much deeper.

Two more differences between Fight Night 2004 and Fight Night Round 2 are that knockouts are more common and the game now has a cut-man mini-game. With the inclusion of haymakers, dealing more damage early on is possible, which leads to plenty of knock-outs in Fight Night Round 2. This isn't necessary a bad thing, as using a final punch to finish off your opponent and the slow-motion replays that ensue are really cool. The cut-man mini-game is also a nice addition. In between rounds, your boxer will have a chance to get his facial wounds repaired by you. You'll see that the boxer has his face split into four parts (each part has a damage rating), and you can treat swelling or bleeding. The amount of healing that you conduct depends on your skill at the mini-game and how good your cut-man is. If you don't do a good job, not only does the fighting get harder, but you have a chance of being handed a technical knockout, which is no fun.

As you win fights, you earn cash to spend. You can spend this cash on better cut-men, entrance effects, ring girls, or various gear in the Fight Store. In the Fight Store you can buy all sorts of trunks, gloves, protective gear, shoes and tattoos. The trunks, gloves, gear and shoes only differ in color, design and price, as some trunks cost $5,000 while others are a whopping $150,000. Taunts such as beat chest and victory dance are always fun to acquire, while entrance effects and ring girls serve as a motivational boost that temporarily increase your stats. The most fun that I had with the Fight Store was acquiring various entrance effects, as you can buy different effects, music and your own entourage. Having confetti, fireworks, doves flying, rap music blasting and a few girls come out with you was very amusing.

One of my problems with the first Fight Night was the lack of licensed boxers. I hated fighting mostly made-up boxers throughout my career, and the exclusion of certain popular boxers was disappointing. Unfortunately, this aspect hasn't been worked on. Some popular present-day boxers like Evander Holyfield and Roy Jones make a return, and legendary boxers such as Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and Rocky Marciano are back. However, Lennox Lewis opted out and popular boxers like Mike Tyson, Oscar de la Hoya and the Klitscho brothers are still nowhere to be found.

The replay value of Fight Night Round 2 is quite high. The Career Mode should keep you busy for a long time and if you have friends over at your house, then Quick Fight is also a good option. The PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions have online capabilities, but the GameCube version was compensated with the classic Super Punch-Out! for the SNES being included. You can even unlock Little Mac as a playable boxer in Fight Night Round 2. These bonuses are a very nice reward for GameCube owners.

Last year when I was playing Fight Night 2004, I thought that it was the best looking boxing game I had ever seen. This year, Fight Night Round 2 blows Fight Night 2004 out of the water graphically. The boxers and their animations are so realistic, you feel like you're actually watching a boxing match on TV. The faces look exactly like they do in real life, you see muscle twitching, sweat flying, eyes swelling and jaws popping. The facial damage is conducted real-time, as the more you get hit in one spot, the more apparent it will become. The only problem with the game is the crowd in the background, as the people don't really look like real people. Otherwise, the graphics are really impressive.

The audio department has undergone a major change, too, as rapper Big Tigger and his street-like commentary have been replaced by real-life announcer Joe Tessitore. His commentary during the matches is more professional, although it does get repetitive and contradicts itself at times. I think that getting two announcers would have made the commentary even better than it is right now. The sound effects are very realistic as the thuds made when there is contact sound so dead-on that you feel that you're the one taking the damage. The soundtrack is heard only when you're juggling through menus, which is why it consists of a mere nine tracks. All of these tracks are hip-hop tracks, which fit in fairly well with the game. The tracks include artists such as David Banner, Fabolous and a few lesser-known artists.