Fight Night Round 3
A pugilistic powerhouse and easily EA's strongest PS3 title yet.
Published: December 15, 2006
Kudo Tsunoda, I love you. You probably don't remember me, but you were the best part of having to do PR for 3DO. Now that you've moved on to bigger and better things (like, say, producing Fight Night), I no longer have to hide my admiration for your talents, and now that you're no longer working on Army Men games (even if Air Attack was surprisingly awesome), you can finally be proud of the stuff you're working on too. Like, say, Fight Night Round 3, the game that started as a PS3 tech demo, bounced onto the Xbox 360 earlier this year, and then landed in its final form on the PS3.
Round 3 is the kind of game that both EA and Sony needed; it's a showcase of the system's power, it's addictive as hell -- even for newcomers like me -- and it's far, far deeper than first glance would reveal. EA still allows for button mashers to do their thing, but the wealth of options for customizing not only the look of your fighter, but how he fights makes for an experience that isn't really available anywhere else.
One of the plusses to not having played the Xbox 360 version (which was, admittedly, a voluntary decision), is that I saved both the whole next-gen punch (hurrrr, punny) and the core gameplay for the PS3 version. I tend to harp on the fact that I don't play sports games with just about every sports review, but here it's an especially important point because of the elation I've already exposed in the last two paragraphs; FNR2 delivers some of the most visceral, and deceptively complex gameplay available -- and for once it works it better on the PS3.
So yes, there's the extent of my next-gen comparisons. I played both versions, and though the PS3 one is hitting far, far later than the 360 version, it's obvious the time spent learning the hardware went to good use. The lighting is better, the sweat (quickly becoming one of the next-gen trademarks) is better, and the tweaks make it different enough that the PS3 version feels like the superior one. So there, console warriors, you have your system vs. system fodder.
Round 3 has the advantage of being a simple two-on-two competition. This means you can create your fighter, pick his weight class, go nuts on using analog choices for every part and position of the face, allocate skill points for things like the ability to suck up blows to the face and body, stamina for throwing punches, heart for making comebacks from the mat, strength, speed and agility, plus concentrate on overall build, and -- perhaps most importantly -- sculpting your fighting style. Since I like to pretend I'm actually the impossibly awesome superstar athlete, I opted for a middleweight speed fighter, switching up the default stance and going for speed punches. As expected, there are the obvious speed/power trade-offs, but there's more to it.
See, at any time, you're more than welcome to change nearly everything about yourself up once you've set the main body type. As you play through the game, you'll unlock particular boxing styles, and EA's stupidly deep customization options means that late in the game, you can start dropping serious coin to not only give yourself equipment that either bolsters existing strengths or offsets the weaknesses (the whole game, including the training bits I'll get to in a second, revolve around a give or take of working one set of skills while losing a chunk of others), but you can also mimic history's greatest fighting styles for things like signature punches and taunts. Hell, you can even pick your type of illegal blow if you like.
What this allows you to do is start out with the basics or even goof around with things until you really get the basic gist of things. The controls, which I at first though I would hate due to the fact that I've been a button masher all my life (thanks, Punch-Out!) slowly exposed their deeper bits. Yes, you can use face buttons and a trigger for most of the bigger moves and just flight with the right analog stick for jabs and hooks, but learning how and when to throw haymarkers, or the new Stun Punches or a Flash KO move that shifts things into the new first-person viewpoint -- only you get to beat on the person at the receiving end. Not only does Flash KO show you exactly how bad a swollen eye is for reacting to hard crosses, but it shows the immediate impact of the jab, and it completely changed how I used the move both offensively and defensively.
Round 3 is the kind of game that both EA and Sony needed; it's a showcase of the system's power, it's addictive as hell -- even for newcomers like me -- and it's far, far deeper than first glance would reveal. EA still allows for button mashers to do their thing, but the wealth of options for customizing not only the look of your fighter, but how he fights makes for an experience that isn't really available anywhere else.
One of the plusses to not having played the Xbox 360 version (which was, admittedly, a voluntary decision), is that I saved both the whole next-gen punch (hurrrr, punny) and the core gameplay for the PS3 version. I tend to harp on the fact that I don't play sports games with just about every sports review, but here it's an especially important point because of the elation I've already exposed in the last two paragraphs; FNR2 delivers some of the most visceral, and deceptively complex gameplay available -- and for once it works it better on the PS3.
So yes, there's the extent of my next-gen comparisons. I played both versions, and though the PS3 one is hitting far, far later than the 360 version, it's obvious the time spent learning the hardware went to good use. The lighting is better, the sweat (quickly becoming one of the next-gen trademarks) is better, and the tweaks make it different enough that the PS3 version feels like the superior one. So there, console warriors, you have your system vs. system fodder.
Round 3 has the advantage of being a simple two-on-two competition. This means you can create your fighter, pick his weight class, go nuts on using analog choices for every part and position of the face, allocate skill points for things like the ability to suck up blows to the face and body, stamina for throwing punches, heart for making comebacks from the mat, strength, speed and agility, plus concentrate on overall build, and -- perhaps most importantly -- sculpting your fighting style. Since I like to pretend I'm actually the impossibly awesome superstar athlete, I opted for a middleweight speed fighter, switching up the default stance and going for speed punches. As expected, there are the obvious speed/power trade-offs, but there's more to it.
See, at any time, you're more than welcome to change nearly everything about yourself up once you've set the main body type. As you play through the game, you'll unlock particular boxing styles, and EA's stupidly deep customization options means that late in the game, you can start dropping serious coin to not only give yourself equipment that either bolsters existing strengths or offsets the weaknesses (the whole game, including the training bits I'll get to in a second, revolve around a give or take of working one set of skills while losing a chunk of others), but you can also mimic history's greatest fighting styles for things like signature punches and taunts. Hell, you can even pick your type of illegal blow if you like.
What this allows you to do is start out with the basics or even goof around with things until you really get the basic gist of things. The controls, which I at first though I would hate due to the fact that I've been a button masher all my life (thanks, Punch-Out!) slowly exposed their deeper bits. Yes, you can use face buttons and a trigger for most of the bigger moves and just flight with the right analog stick for jabs and hooks, but learning how and when to throw haymarkers, or the new Stun Punches or a Flash KO move that shifts things into the new first-person viewpoint -- only you get to beat on the person at the receiving end. Not only does Flash KO show you exactly how bad a swollen eye is for reacting to hard crosses, but it shows the immediate impact of the jab, and it completely changed how I used the move both offensively and defensively.
