Fight Night Round 3

Real life has no health bars. You have no way of knowing if the guy you’re mixing it up with in the alley behind Tacky’s Tavern is a half or a quarter of the way to kissing the pavement. His hit points are not floating above his head. All you know is he’s breathing real heavy, spitting blood, and his right eye looks like a butterflied slice of pork loin. What’s a nerd raised on videogames like you (or me) supposed to do in this situation? You forget everything videogames taught you and use your instincts. Pound that eye like it said something bad about your mama.

With its lack of any heads-up display info, Fight Night Round 3 takes a similarly instinctual approach to its pugilistic gameplay, requiring you to interpret your opponent’s (and your own) condition, visually – from the level of damage on his face to the way he’s moving around the ring as his body sags with exhaustion – instead of flashing any sort of handy health or fatigue meter onscreen. This gives the game a feel that’s entirely more satisfying than any other we’ve experienced, and it marks an entirely new way of playing. Welcome to the next generation of gaming – it has officially arrived.

The only reason this visual feedback works as well as it does is Round 3’s adjective-defying Xbox 360 graphics. The borderline photorealism doesn’t just make for boxers that look like their real-life counterparts. The super-high polygon counts and super-slick lighting and textures let you see every cut, every swollen eye or lip – even the distinct look of concern on a tired fighter’s furrowed brow in a way no other platform could – and that creates nuanced feedback for the player that’s just doesn’t currently exist in videogames.

Don’t think we’ve gone all artsy-fartsy or pretentious. Even though Round 3’s graphics and gameplay do signal a profound paradigm shift in gaming and might truly be the standard bearer for the next generation of games, you don’t need a Ph.D to enjoy the game. Heck, you don’t even have to like boxing to appreciate Fight Night’s rip-roaring brand of head-to-head gaming. All you have to do is enjoy tenderizing another guy’s face into hamburger with a hailstorm of punches. And really, who doesn’t enjoy that?

As groundbreaking and new as Round 3 feels, it’s still a not-entirely-unexpected iteration of an already-great sports series. Executive Producer Kudo Tsunoda and his team at EA Chicago have created a winning and innovative formula that only gets better as it’s refined. The buttonless punching scheme (you control your character with just the two analog sticks) has been improved with a new impact punch system that also leads to a new first-person mode. It’s an interesting addition to the series, but not as crucial to making Fight Night so sublime.

What is extremely crucial to making Round 3 so sublime is the way it incorporates a whole new slew of fighting styles. In Fight Night Round 2 you could only choose your stance and base style: right vs. left handed and power vs. speed. Now in addition to choosing between orthodox and southpaw stances (i.e., right or left), you can also choose from more base styles – anything from textbook to wild to the George Foreman-esque mummy style. There are multiple punching styles (lethal uppercuts, hard straights, hookmaster, etc.) and blocking options (standard, cross, Philly Shell, etc.) so that every boxer has a fairly unique combination of styles. Each one has advantages and disadvantages, but with so much variation in boxer attributes and overall strategy and tactics, it doesn’t break down into a simple rock-paper-scissors style of fighting. No two fights – whether with human opponents or AI – will be exactly the same.

The best place to see how these different stylistic combinations can work against each other is in the ESPN Classics mode. Here, classic matchups like Ali vs. Frazier and Leonard vs. Hagler are re-created to a surprisingly realistic degree. And again, Round 3 succeeds in re-creating each boxer’s unique styles in the ring.

A lot of other improvements have been made to the game, the type anyone would expect from a sequel in a top-notch sports franchise. Most importantly, the career mode has been improved significantly, making progress through your boxer’s career a lot more interesting than just climbing up the rankings chart. Meeting other big name stars on their way up, as well as developing rivalries with other boxers, makes for a compelling, if bruised, story arc.

Round 3 gets just about everything right. The presentation, especially the fist-pumping hip-hop soundtrack, is slick as all get-out. The online mode is well done, allowing you to choose competitors who are looking for the same kind of fight as you. The character-creation tools are as powerful as we’ve come to expect from any EA Sports game. But more real-world boxers – especially more of the classic fighters – would be a welcome addition, as would more arenas. And next year’s edition really needs a replay option, maybe even a photo mode like PGR3’s so you can relive some of your most glorious moments.

Ultimately this is why Fight Night Round 3 is so incredible; despite some very minor quibbles it’s chock-full of glorious moments. It’s an amazingly progressive game designwise, but it’s such pure visceral fun that the genius that went into it seems to absorb into your subconscious while you break polygonal bones in virtual faces. Which just makes it all the more brilliant. To put it simply, Fight Night Round 3 kicks our ass.