Fight Night Round 4

It was hard not to fall in love with the incredible visual fidelity and overbearing brashness of EA Chicago’s Fight Night Round 3, so EA Canada’s follow-up lands on our doorstep with some powerful gloves to fill. Fortunately for boxing fans, the series appears to be in competent hands, with new features and gameplay tweaks elevating Fight Night Round 4 confidently into a select group of greatest-ever sporting simulations. This isn’t an average update, this is a complete overhaul – despite first impressions and a demo that states otherwise.

Dispensing with the hyper-realism of old, if you thought Forza 3′s recent unveiling of simulated tyre roll across varying rubber compounds was a step too far for videogames, look away now: the most impactful change in FNR4 comes in the guise of yet another ground-breaking physics system.

Thanks to some hugely impressive inverse kinematics, every interaction between fist, arm, leg, chest, knee, elbow, head, canvas and rope is convincing in the extreme – clipping, it seems, is a thing of the past. Punches are no longer measured with a binary metric across four hit zones, replaced by mechanics that consider weight, velocity, angle and precise location to determine damage output. Attention to detail is second to none, with factors such as sweat and inertia helping to dictate whether a glove finds any surface purchase or glances away – allowing for one of the many counter-punch opportunities signalled with a subtle visual cue.

Such a sea-change in realism alters the gameplay ethics by a considerable margin, ostracising the analogue-twirling bravado of Round 3 almost entirely. That isn’t to say the bouts aren’t just as exciting at times; incredible comebacks and Flash KO’s are still possible, but only when your opponent opens up their defences to a haymaker or ducks into a punch at just the wrong moment. The ultra slow-motion knockout replays and flying trails of blood return to showcase the very best bone-breaking finishes, but somehow seem muted in comparison to the original, even though the visual and aural effect is ostensibly the same.

Elsewhere, EAs identikit approach to presentation and structuring their sports stable turns the career mode into something of a non-event, featuring the same menu and calendar system used in Madden, NBA, NHL and FIFA since 2006. This loosely-dressed procession of stat-building fights is also compounded by an element of grinding on the same opponents to boost progress to the next tier – an unwelcome addition given the natural lifespan of around 50 bouts before retirement age. Both Rocky and PrizeFighter showed that a dash of narrative and a pinch of flair can spice up even average sports titles, so it’s a shame to see such a sterile system in place yet again.

Multiplayer is a different story however, with a series of lone belts up for grabs in differing weight classes, mirroring reality nicely. Ranked matches are heavily populated with players seeking to test themselves and move one step closer to the top, and thanks to the complex player creation system and camera support, fights rarely lack interest or style. For such a twitch-based experience, lag also rarely reared its head, with the silky-smooth 60fps animation transferring flawlessly to the online experience.

It’s good then, and almost brilliant at times; but since so much of the drama of real-world boxing comes in the months before and the minutes after the final bell, Fight Night Round 4 can seem a tad too clinical at times. It’s a boxing purists dream, but those with only a passing interest might find they get overwhelmed with the brutally unforgiving stamina guage nailed to a physics system with little room for error on timing. That’s a shame of course, because once you’ve invested the time into FNR4, it offers up one of the most rewarding fighting experiences of this generation.