Fight Night Champion Review [PS3]

EA releases the second current generation boxing simulator to the masses in the form of Fight Night Champion.  Followers of the Fight Night series have undoubtedly grabbed themselves a copy looking for a good fight.  Counting myself among one of the fans of the Sweet Science, I’m pleasantly surprised by Champion.

FN:C isn’t like the previous Fight Nights due to a few major changes.  First and most importantly is the replacement of the Total Punch Control to the new Full Spectrum Punch Control.  TPC used the right stick to mimic the movement of your boxer’s arm but with FSPC, the controls are more simplified.  All three types of punches—jab, hook, and uppercut—respond to a simple flick.  If you look at the right stick as the face of a clock, the left side is for your left hand, and right side for the right hand.  A flick to either side of 12 o’clock is a jab, a flick to either 3 or 9 o’clock is a hook, and a flick to either side of 6 o’clock is an uppercut.  The interesting thing is that each type of punch can be modified based on the angle of the flick.  So if you hit 4 o’clock, your uppercut will have a wider angle than a traditional uppercut.  In practice, the FSPC system worked quite well and better than TPC.  The system allowed for great control over the angle of my punches and I was able to actually aim for the openings my opponents offered.

The second addition was, for the first time in the series, a story mode.  Don’t get too excited because the “Champion” mode plays out much like any 80’s action flick—complete with training montages!  But the story helped to progress you through some of the basics of fighting and introduced you to many of the game’s other modes.  Pacing of the Champion mode was well done with some excellent cinematic cut-scenes but the difficulty curve was totally messed up.  You’d have no issues progressing through the stages and if you’ve played Fight Night before, you can easily become undefeated until the final fight.  There were certain fights where the game would impose winning conditions, such as only punching with your right hand (because you broke your left hand in the previous bout.)  But even with those forced handicaps setting the pace, the final fight was disproportionately much too difficult.  It turned out that the only way to beat the main villain was to run.  Needless to say that was a very underwhelming strategy after Rocky-ing through the first 15 rounds.

Champion mode features Hollywood style writing and some great voice-acting.  Even though the lip-syncing didn’t always match, the story of Andre Bishop’s rise and fall and eventual rise again was engaging enough for a short (3-4 hours depending on your skill level) distraction.  I would highly recommend giving Champion mode a try because the animations and cut-scenes were done so well that you’d be caught thinking you were watching a movie instead.

Similar to Fight Night Round 4, we find Legacy mode once again as your meat and potatoes to this title.  Legacy allows you to customize your own character or advance up the ranks using a historic fighter.  Some interesting RPG aspects were added in the form of XP and training management.  This ties in with the heavy emphasis on stamina this time around.  Every time you train your fighter for a bout, he expends stamina and if you aren’t careful, you’re not going to have any left for the actual fight.  This adds some depth and realism to the process and discourages players from simply going balls first into every fight.

Another interesting feature was the addition of a Gym mode.  This is where players can take their customized fighters online and create or join a Gym populated by other real life players.  Same as the Legacy mode, you can have ranked fights, tournaments, and even challenge other gyms.  It’s an interesting way to expand the online multiplayer component beyond simple one on one fights.

Fight Night Champion is by far my favorite entry into the series.  It features extremely polished graphics, animations, and with the new easier control scheme, players new and old can rely more on their time and skill rather than worrying about complicated controls.  All the new game modes adds something to the overall value and Gym and Legacy modes will have you busy until the next installment is released.  If you’re a fight fan, this is a definite buy and if you’re new to the genre, then there’s no other game better suited to get you hooked.