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Who says you have to grow up? Here at SI.com's Game Room, our staffers review the latest sports video game titles to hit the market and welcome your feedback.
  
12/20/2006 11:59:00 AM

Review: Fight Night 3 (PS3)

By Paul Ulane

It's no secret the video game market is oversaturated with sports titles, from the omnipresent Madden to the "Totally extreme dude!" Tony Hawk series. Only in those cases, if the game isn't in your library, you can still use the weekend to set up a game of touch football or pick up a skateboard. Boxing, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. Not only is it too violent for most weekend warriors, but you need equipment, a ring, and of course, ring girls.

Enter Fight Night: Round 3. Strapping on a pair of gloves, hopping into the ring, and punching out pro pugilists is something most button-mashers have never done. Obviously, the game's most attractive trait is that instead of concussions and loose teeth, the only injury to fear in Round 3 is a pair of sore thumbs. But that doesn't mean this boxing simulation isn't looking to make arm chair sparring partners feel the pain of a jab-haymaker combo to the jaw. The new "Get in the Ring" feature in Round 3 (only available on the PS3 version) lets you see, sometimes rather blurrily, what a real fighter sees. The game's most impressive upgrade is reason alone to pick up this title, and shows off precisely the type of innovative programming a next-gen console should aim to provide to gamers.

Fight Night 3
Electronic Arts
Obviously, the first-person perspective dumps you into the ring, but there's more to it than the ability to see the fight through your boxer's eyes. In addition to going toe-to-toe with the best fighters in the business, blurred vision, blind spots, and dulled sound are a painful reminder of what it feels like to get pummeled into collapsing on the canvas. The experience is so real, you'll find yourself scrambling for the Advil bottle after the bout. Adapting from the traditional view takes a few rounds, but it is absolutely worth the trip. Few sports sims offer this type of experience, and if it takes getting knocked senseless for a couple of rounds, so be it.

"Get in the Ring" also delivers a study in the sweet science. Learn to work all areas of the ring, don't get too close, and keep your guard up. Properly timing short jabs and body blows helps set up the bigger hits, like the haymakers, Flash KOs, and Stun Punches. In previous builds of Fight Night, it was possible to wind up and release a monster hit during the most minor of breaks. Round 3 forces you to earn your momentum-shifting shots and choose wisely, because winding up for Flash KOs and Stun Punches leaves you exposed for longer periods of time. The reward is worth the timing, however, as both deliver a blow that leaves your opponent one more connection from the mat.

As with the last Fight Night, all of these punches can come courtesy of maneuvering the analog stick, the motion of which -- pull back, follow through -- helps simulate what it takes to unleash different styles of punches in real-time while fending off opponents. (Don't worry, button bullies, you can still play old-school style... we just won't respect you as much.) Unfortunately, EA didn't take full advantage of the SIXAXIS controller. The only action for the PS3's new motion sensing unit is illegal blows from quick forward controller thrusts, which is also the best way to get disqualified from the fight.

As with all of the PS3's releases so far, its build of Round 3 boasts most of the same features as the Xbox 360's. The realistic graphics that deliver individual beads of sweat, busted lips, and crooked noses look as fantastic as they should on a high-def set up. The career mode gives you two options -- either start fresh with a customizable fighter or rebuild a legend's career however you please. For historians, you can also step into the ring as one of the greatest fighters of all time and put your own stamp on boxing's classic bouts like Ali vs. Frazier or Leonard vs. Duran. There's also little touches, like the ability to heal your boxer in his corner in between rounds manually. Nothing beats wiping blood and mucus out off your fighter's face -- let's just hope we never get to the point of emptying the spit bucket.

For the MTV (or is that MTV2?) generation looking for a quick fix of fisticuffs, there's the single-minded Hard Hits mode, which values brute force over strategy. The knock him down, knock him down again mentality offers the most entertainment value to share with trash-talking friends.

Since this is boxing, there's all sorts of advertising throughout the game, and while synergy in video games is at best irritating, Round 3's deal with ESPN offers up the option of getting the "World Wide Leader" Sports Ticker on all of the menus. Unfortunately, a trademark of this title, load times long enough to let two coats of paint dry, are also back in the ring with Round 3. If there's any fault, it's the amount of time you'll spend listening to second-rate hip-hop tracks from the soundtrack while waiting for your next bout.

Nit-picking aside, Round 3 is the first sport's title to significantly improve on its Xbox 360 counterpart. Obviously, the disturbingly realistic looking graphics and fight features carry over, but the "Get in the Ring" mode is a one-of-a kind gaming experience that has to be seen to be felt. One shot at a knockout blow in slow motion from the first-person perspective and it's clear why the Fight Night: Round 3 experience is worth the training.
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