Customer Reviews

Fight Night Round 3

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I give up. Every time EA Sports comes out with a good boxing game for PS2, they have always followed it up with a disappointment. After finally getting on the right track with ROUND 2, the train derailed again. Way to go, EA! At least you're consistent!

THE NEGATIVES:

- CONTROL
Here's the big one. I don't know if they sacrificed the quality here for another feature, but believe me, it's not worth it! The "punching under water" reference one reviewer gave is right on the money and not just on the haymakers! I'm trying to fire off a jab-right-hook combination, and after the right, I'm just standing there like a drunken apple woman!

- SLO-MO REPLAYS
Probably more annoying than the controls is the slow motion instant replay of the knockdowns. The screen freezes on the connection for about 4 seconds, and the sound...THE SOUND!!! "Yiiiiiahhh!!!!Booooom!!!!<crackle-crackle-crackle>ssssplat!!!!" If I had my eyes closed, it would sound like my dad crashing his '75 Merc into a display window full of grapefruits! Oy vey!!

- BOXER SELECTION
There are too many repetitions of boxers through the weight classes. EA, ever heard of variety? Can't acquire a license for a particular fighter? Try another, you numbskulls!
It was nice to see Ricky Hatton in there, but where's Floyd Mayweather? So much for THAT dream match! Maybe a code to unlock? Don't think I'll be playing this long enough to acquire that one!

- NO TIME-OUTS ON THE PENALTIES (...AGAIN!!!)
Come on guys! If nothing else!!!! When a boxer commits a foul, he's doing it to get a break. Surely the damage it can cause is a nice perk, but that's not the main reason to break the rules. Don't believe me that this makes a difference? Remember Trinidad vs. Vargas? (low blows) Coralles vs. Castillo I (spitting out the mouthpiece)? Kind of critical if I recall...

- NO DUAL NAMES IN CAREER MODE
I heard a rumor about a year ago they were going to try this. Obviously this got shelved too. For a boxer you create, you could choose from a series of first names and a series of last names, and the CPU would combine them... Nope! It's back to the ridiculous nicknames (or pseudonyms) I wouldn't even name my dog! COMEBACK KID! THE ASSASSIN! ...yippee skippee.

- THE MUSIC
Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against rap and R&B. However, when you choose Arturo Gatti, Mickey Ward, and the 1950's Gillette motif as the center of your ad campaign, you might want to conform the soundtrack to that as well. I mean watching Sugar Ray Robinson walking to the ring to the sounds of Black-Eyed Peoples or even imagining Mickey Ward jamming with his family in his Lowell Massachusetts home to the eclectic beat of Obie Trice is just a little hard to digest. Best of both worlds, huh? Yyyyyeeeeah! Boyeeeeeeee!!!

- NO TAKING A KNEE
Way in the dark ages when this series was called Knockout Kings, there was this really cool feature where if your boxer was in danger, you could actually go down to one knee and take an 8-count. Sadly, that feature has never returned, and it ain't starting back now! Ahhh, memories...

THE POSITIVES:

Believe it or not, there are a few neat features on Round 3. On one of the POV's you can actually utilize full 360 degree ring movement while still keeping the same camera angle. It's a little tricky, but definitely refreshing and a nice challenge.
Also, sometimes your opponent may not be hyped up for a fight with you. He trudges his way to the ring and even tries to leave the ring once he steps through the ropes. His trainer has to keep him from making a break for the exit. Nice little Martin and Lewis there!
The volume of the ring announcer's introduction of the fighters in accordance with the crowd noise...That's an improvement.
The boxers' motions (leaning on the ropes, knockdowns, defensive postures) have been improved as well. However, with the slow control problem, it's kind of hard to prioritize that in your recall.

Overall, ROUND 2 is still the best professional boxing game out there for the PS2. Hopefully the makers of ROUND 4 will learn from the mistakes on this one. It can't hurt to hope, but I'm not holding my breath!

They really dropped the ball on this one.
First off, he strange retro look to it, makes it tough to look at. Imagine looking at
a Burger King or Mc Donald's all day. The character creation area, has some
cool new stuff, like new postures for defense and offense, but other then that,
it's weak. The view is much further away then in the Previous versions, and the
choices seems to have been cut down, rather then increased (as you would think
would happen in a follow-up game). Still only have 4 places to put tattoos (Left
arm, right arm, back, and chest. If you want a tat on the forearm, no luck there.
The controls are much more sluggish then the others, and there are lots of POPs
in the actions or transfers between actions.
I used to like to watch the slow-motion hits after the knock down, but not any more.
The Characters have lost something in their detail. They don't look as good. And the
sound is Awful in Slow Mo. It sounds like paper tearing, and drums, and the impact,
doesn't line up with the sound. The announcers also get cut off in mid sentence, when
talking about a hit.
The Training is different. They kept the same things as Round 2, but changed
them enough to make me hate them. In Round 2 you could easily see what you
were supposed to do. The angel in Round 3 sucks. The punch dummy, for instance:
He is turned at such an angel away from you, that you can't tell when they want
you to hit the Left side of the face.
The sparing is much better, in that you can choose what you want to work on,
and it trains you in just that.
Problem with the controls, is that when doing moves like uppercut or Heymaker,
you are faulted by the analog controller now. You go to the right then up, for a hook.
For a Heymaker hook, you go right, then roll down, then Up. Trouble is, that once you
go down, the fighter tries to do an Uppercut, or throw a Left. It's almost impossible
to throw an Uppercut Heymaker. Once you cross the middle point on the controller,
he will switch to the other hand and throw a jab.
You also can not block for ever anymore. With the R1 pressed, you get about 3
seconds of blocking, and then he will throw a random punch.
The ring girls change clothes during an event, but a LOT less time was taken
on making them look good. Their hands don't' even close on the cards, and their
heads pop as they look around. the joggle cam (allah 24, or NYPD Blue) when
you go to your corner, is annoying.
OH! And in the middle of a fight, you will suddenly be thrown into a new Camera View!
You start pounding on a guy, and it will switch to HIS point of View.

Stick with Round 2. It's a MUCH better product.



MORE CONS::
* Character builder is greatly restricted in looks. All fighters look like fighters now.
You can no longer build yourself, or your skinny friends, fat friends, or super Buff friends, or
even your really Ripped friends. It's all kind of "middle ground" now.
This makes FNR3 less cartoony, but I liked the fact you could make a Steve Bushemi in FNR2.
* lack of entourage or entrance effects. I am pretty far into the game, and have seen No
choices so far for these, not even under "Locked" . No choice on entrance music.
* Cutman has been simplified to just right and left.
*Everything is too expensive. $20,000 for starter shoes?!
* The entrance "dances" have been greatly reduced. Why not just keep the ones they had,
and ADD to them? Now there are like... 3... maybe 4. I'd still like to be able to choose my
entrance personallity. (ie. show off, humble, crowd pleaser, etc)
*No Rankings. WHY? You never know where you stand in the Rankings.
*Home Towns. I could not find Seattle, or Dallas. They may not be big boxing towns,
but they ARE major Cities.
*Still no chest hair.
* I Figured the sound in Slow Mo: Forcefully Dump a bucket of Ice into a Plactic Cooler that is
half melted Ice.

Some PROS:
* The Coaches now tell you what you need. They are more precise. This is a good step.
* You can change your character as you go. After a few fights, if you want to give him a
new hair style, you can. You can even remold his face, change his stance, or style of
defense or offense. I like this.
* When your character is winded, the controls get sluggish, and he moves slower. This is
not the same as the wanky controls I mentioned above.
* The AI is much smarter. They find a weakness on you, and they will exploit it.
*New Venues
*Better Commentary
*Sparring mode is much better.


Also, if you have an HDTV get a PS2 AV & S Video Cable The regular one that comes with
the PS2 is NOTHING compared to the S-video signal.




What really irritates me is the totall false advertisement going on here. They show all these beautyful vids
of boxers and effects, and NONE of that stuff is in the game!!
The slow motion shot of a face rippleing from a punch: Not in the game.
The ability to make Fighters that look real: Not in the game (Unless you count the Pre-made fighters).
They also have picture of Hot ring girls in the Adverts: Not in the game. They looked better in FNR2

I tell you what.... They should make all of their fighters with the Fighter Maker part of the game. If they
can make all those boxers using that method, THEN they can sell this crap. I had 4 friends try to
create themselves in the game, and we could get close (as in: They looked Asian, or Black with dreds, etc).
But there was no way to get our charactors to look like any of us exactly. The boxers that are pre-made,
all have tatoos all over the place. They all have chest hair, back hair, forarm hair, etc. They have chins,
and face shapes that you just can not get with the Fighter Creation tools.
This is unforgivable!

I bought round three because i enjoyed round 2 very much. I have to say it was more than a bit disappointing. The grafts in 3 are much worse. Your boxer tires out much eiser and their are many styles that you dont get acces to unless you beat certain fighters, but i havent even managed to find most of the fighters yet. Round two was also much easier to use the between round cutman/swelling fixes. Its a good game, but for the money i would suggest round 2

If your a fan of Fight Night 1 & 2 then get ready to be disappointed. The game is much easyer then before and you hit "legendary" status alot sooner.

Also companys like Burger King, a car company and a few others have their logo's all over the game. Infact you can evan have "The King" play as your trainer. ESPN has known to use companys ads before but this is ridiculous.

Fight Night Round 3 is more of a game you would want to rent.

I actually traded FNR2 in when I bought this as the advertising would have you believe this game would completely supercede the last one! How dumb was I? I'm now going to buy the game I traded back - ouch!

I'll try and offer a balanced review here though - because some things about this game are a massive improvemement - it's just that the basics have suffered (with no apparent reasons why)...

PROS...
- The different unlockable styles (it's cool to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee)
- The higher difficulty in landing haymakers (this game feels a lot more strategic as a result and more exciting - especially when you almost get knocked out and then reverse the fight with a haymaker of your own)
- The cuts and facial damage (lots more blood makes you really feel bad for your poor fighter)
- More strategic choices (cutting off the ring, bullying, hitting and running, using the jab to control the fight - all feel better than previous versions)
- Fighter development - you can now see your ratings clearly!
- You no longer do that stupid "digging a grave" mime when you knock an opponent down!

CONS (these are the minor gripes)...
- There is no option to turn off the cut scenes (this makes you wait about 30 seconds between rounds even when you click to skip each section - c'mon guys - not allowing me to turn that off is just lazy!)
- Career mode feels more like "pretend" American Wrestling than boxing - people like rankings and like to see who they're aiming to beat - this version just gives you a "popularity meter" which leads to a sponsored fight - and what have Burgers got to do with Boxing anyway? Is the message here, "Hey kids, eat more lard and you can be a pro boxer too!"
- The Shop - you have to scroll through (painfully slowly) all the rubbish options to get to the cool stuff whenever you want to change an outfit - I have no idea why it's so slow and awkward (as you have to select to preview). Again - it's just sloppy (there was no reason to change the interface here from last year - no excuse)!
- The music! It's not as good as last year's plus it really wouldn't hurt to have a bit of variety - not everyone who plays this game is into hip-hop (or whatever it is)! What about some hard rock, or national anthems?
- The ring entrances - you can't even change your entrance music and all the boxers do the same "showboating" entrance. What's wrong with just walking to the ring and looking mean? Some choice here (like with the fighting styles - eg Flashy, Mean, Professional etc.) would have been nice (again - the developers were either in a rush or just lazy)
- The venues are pants (and there are less of them I think) - they don't look as good as the previous version and they're not as interesting - gone are the fairground and fishtank - replaced by a boring warehouse and a flea-riddled gym (where even when you're "The Greatest" a good number of fights are still held there)
- The crowd - it always looks (and sounds) like there are only about 20 people watching the fight (even the big ones!) And if I hear that whiny guy shouting "You can do it, c'mon get up!" 3 times in a row again I'll throw the TV out the window!
- The Create a Boxer - this was better last year. I'm sure there are less hairstyle and facial hair choices in this version. Plus, something's gone wrong with the physique bit too - no matter what you do your boxer looks like a lard-ass!

Even with all these gripes the game could be forgiven if the basics were solid, but now to the real things that makes me wonder what the guys at EA were thinking!

CONS (the real show-stoppers)...
- The controls are more sluggish (and no I'm not talking about the haymaker - which is better for being slow). Trying to fire a jab or a left/right hook combo just doesn't work - it feels jerky and looks awkward. The only style that gives you any feeling that the jab is effective is "judge jab"
- The punches never look like they connect and it's really unsatisfying to watch. In FNR2 punches really looked and sounded like they'd connected (while watching FNR2 my mom even started crying as my boxer - who looked like me - got a pasting - because it looked so real!) - in FNR3 it looks like a badly filmed version of Rocky (the punches rarely even get within 6 inches of your opponent) - why didn't they leave it alone!
- In FNR2 you could really lay into your opponenet with a combo on the way down - now the models seems to jump apart during a knockdown and you flail at thin air (even though you should be able to reach)
- The knockdown physics - too many times the felled opponent will get knocked backwards and then do a "limbo" for 5 seconds before finally falling on his back. The knockdowns looked far better in FNR2 (I have no idea why they changed this and made it worse!)
- The knockdown replay (I know I'm only using a PS2 but...) just freezes on your opponents face (while you get the ice-crunching sound effect) as your hand is plainly still 6 inches (at least!) away from connecting. It's just boring and all the knockdowns look the same! In FNR2 I used to enjoy watching the satisfing knockdowns - now I'm treated to a close up of a face (doing pretty much nothing) followed by a limbo exhibition!
- The boxer models - they look less shiny with sweat, less detailed (I'm sure there are less polygons), and all look flabby no matter what you do. You can't create a guy with ripped abs anymore and even skinny boxers look chunky and flabby.

All in all - despite my moans and groans - I'm still enjoying this game and trust EA to get it right next time!

They do seem to listen to the feedback they get so hopefully they'll read all our reviews and sort out the flaws with the next version.

So EA - if you're reading - here's my wishlist of essential stuff to get right in the next game...

- Punches must, absolutely, look like they connect
- The basic punches need to feel more fluid and fast - combos need looking at
- Boxers should never float in mid-air "limbo style" after being knocked out
- Replays should be longer and have more variety
- We like to create "muscle man" boxers and comedy "skinny guys"
- More music variety and toned-down entrance styles - we're not all Ganstas and Show-offs!
- More interesting venues (I liked the fairground) with a doorman that stops the guy shouting "C'mon get up!" from getting in! ;o)

This game is terrible! I LOVED the first Fight Night,I never played Round 2 but I bought this game the day it came out. The gameplay is so sloooow! I feel like my boxer is throwing punches underwater!! This game sucks so much I tried to get my money back already.

I was a big fan of EA's Knockout Kings games in the late 90's early 2000's and I was so looking forward to this game that I bought it without trying it first , bad idea!

Pro's
Graphics

Cons
akward controls
Slow reaction time of fighters you control

I have heard FN 1 and 2 are better versions. Maybe stick with those?

This game is totally worth the money!! There are alot of well known boxer's in this game(except Flloyd Mayweather but maybe he'll be in the next game). Anyways I love the career mode. You start as an ameruer fighting in the gym, then you grow into a superstar, and soon champion. It's really authentic too! Like when your fighter ages, he'll actually gain weight, and what sucks is you can't whip em back into shape either. Bummer. Another good thing is the tactics for dodging and power punching. It's based on how well you work the dualshock stick or whatever you call it. Anyways really simple and easy to get the hang of. Overall I gave this game a 4/5, because its pretty cool! Can't wait for round 4 though heh heh!!

Let me just say this game is nothing short of fantastic. The gameplay is smooth, controls are nice, graphics are great, and even the commentary is decent in this game.

Between fights you manually heal your cuts, which is cool. Your trainer will give you pep talks specific to your situation. Example: "You really need to block that right eye, or the ref is going to stop the fight, that cut is awful."

The controls are beautiful. There are 5 different configurations you can choose from.

Career mode is alright. Rivalries are random, and there doesn't seem to be much importance put into championships and such. The rivalry thing is rather lame. Before you fight a rival it'll show you at the weigh in and your opponent always punches you and you have a little mini fight in first person view. Not my favorite, but again it's not bad enough to deduct from the rating of the game.

Character customization is pretty cool. You can buy different pieces of gear including trunks, boots, mouthpiece, gloves, etc, all having attribute additions to your figther. Ex: Speed +20%.

The only major drawback to this game is that it is extremely easy. Even on the hard difficulty, with a weight class or two lower than your opponent, you almost have to TRY to lose.

I love this game, and I can't wait for round 4.

PS. This is an open challenge to anyone that plays this game that has an internet connection :) Email me!

This game tops Fight Night 2004, and in turn it beats out the great Evander Holyfield's Real Deal Boxing from a long time ago. (Of note, I didn't much care for Fight Night Round 2; in my opinion it had too much of a reliance on haymakers and not enough of a reliance on boxing.)

Pros:

- This game is fun!
- The play control is good.
- This game has a lot of replay value.
- The play by play commentator is actually pretty decent.
- You can move and block at the same time in this version.

Cons:

- The CPU opponent is way too easy even on hard.
- There are too many variations of the super punch.
- There aren't rag doll knockdown physics in this version.
- There's only rap music in the soundtrack (you can turn it off).


In closing: if you're a boxing fan, I'd say it's just about a surefire bet that you're going to like this game a lot.