Fight Night Champion: Boxing Video Game Review
By Geno McGahee
The FIGHT NIGHT series has been the most successful series of boxing video games and each and every game has been an improvement on the last and the new FIGHT NIGHT CHAMPION is no exception. In fact, it is so far superior to the others in the series that it stands alone as a new and refreshing game.
Those that have been a fan of the series will have to spend some time adjusting to the new controls, but the game is so addicting that it won’t take long. Never before has a game captured the realism of a boxing match, the way that FIGHT NIGHT CHAMPION does. Each and every boxer that is taken from reality and put into the game is featured well, capturing the style near perfectly.
The roster of 50+ notable fighters including Marvin Hagler, Manny Pacquiao, Oscar De La Hoya, Zab Judah, the Klitschko Brothers, David Haye, Pernell Whitaker, Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, and Roy Jones, JR., to just name a few, will allow the player to create the bouts that they want to see.
One of the new additions is the “One Punch KO,” meaning that you can end the bout at any time, and when you get somebody into trouble, it is much easier to finish them off, something that took away from the realism of the prior versions. Once they’re in trouble, you can end it.
I played as Zab Judah facing Manny Pacquiao in my first bout and was winning the fight until I got caught with a Pacquiao straight left hand and it was over. Judah has failed me again!!!
Legacy Mode returns. You can either create a fighter or take one of the fighters that FIGHT NIGHT CHAMPION has to start a career and fight on, in an attempt to conquer the boxing world. The best new addition is a mode called “Champion Mode,” featuring a great story to follow.
Champion Mode follows the career of a fighter that wouldn’t sign with a crooked promoter and was railroaded into prison. In prison, you fight the skinheads until your release and move your way into boxing. It is a great deal of fun. In Don King’s Prizefighter, a relatively terrible game, it did something similar, but FIGHT NIGHT CHAMPION built on that and made something fantastic.
The visuals are great, the boxing is realistic, and there is great replay value, whether it be on line, with friends, or alone. Any boxing fan that owns a video game system (Xbox 360, PS3) should own this game.
It comes out today. So, pick up your copy wherever video games are sold or pick it up at Amazon.com.
RSR wishes to thank EA Games for bringing FIGHT NIGHT CHAMPION to Ringside Report…
Ringside Report Rating: 10/10. The best boxing video game I’ve ever played.