I'll start right off by saying I hate EA's Knockout Kings games. Call me a snob, but boxing games should be technical, strategic affairs where you have to watch your opponent's gloves and be able to defend yourself. The majority of boxing games to date are button-mashers that at their best rely on a controlled sort of slamming buttons in order to win.
There have been a few exceptions, of course; the classic PC title 4D Boxing has to be mentioned first, and even Nintendo's Punchout games from the 80's required more patience, skill, and determination than most of today's boxing games. The most recent title to innovate in the niche genre of technical boxing games was Victorious Boxers, the unfortunately-named but still excellent Japanese PS2 title from a couple of years back.
EA seems to have learned, though, that many boxing fans want more. Every one of their other sports franchises has gotten more strategy-oriented and required smarter play as time went on, and finally they are doing the same for the boxing genre. They decided to get rid of Knockout Kings and go with a new name: Fight Night 2004. Fight Night gives us excellent graphics, real boxers, the ability to actually punch using the right analog stick (called "Total Control Punching"), and also the ability to lean your body with the left stick in order to avoid incoming punches.
The PS2 press demo I received was seriously limited as far as access to the game's many features, but it was certainly enough to whet my appetite for more. It included only two boxers (Roy Jones Jr. and James Toney), one arena, and a skimpy two rounds to try out, but the experience was highly impressive.
The controls are easy enough to learn, although the subtleties of punching with the analog sticks will take a while to really get into. Other than the analog punching, the biggest control innovation lies in your ability to avoid your opponent's attacks by leaning, dodging, or shifting out of the way - it also allows for much easier counter-punching when a skilled player can predict his opponent. The action is still fast and furious, and some brutal combinations can be executed with lightning speed. It's when the action gets this fast that I feel the Knockout Kings roots showing, and I do hope that they slow the game down at least a tad for the final version.
Despite this, the boxing mechanics are excellent. Connecting with a punch is satisfying, and defending yourself has become a viable tactic. Unlike most boxing titles in the past few years, mashing buttons and wildly throwing punches will put your boxer right to the mat if your opponent can defend himself and counter-punch.
Of course, EA has decided to keep their usual sports game flair, which sometimes is just a bit too flashy for my tastes. This preview copy came with one title screen song - Puff Daddy and Notorious B.I.G.'s "Victory". As you might expect, the full game's soundtrack will consist solely of hip hop tunes, which certainly isn't out of line for EA - or for modern boxing. Still, I think that the inclusion of yesterday's boxing legends should mean some legendary older songs as well. Hopefully, we'll be able to add our own songs to the mix in the Xbox version.
EA saw fit to only include one announcer so far, and he's painful to listen to. He's far more boisterous than any I've heard in professional boxing matches, and his vocabulary is pretty limited; his constantly repeated catchphrases got annoying after only a few minutes. Let's hope that EA wasn't finished working on the announcer when this demo was released. I'm also hoping they include a second announcer for some back-and-forth commentary. Maybe even throw in a little George Foreman so someone can root for the heavier guy in every match.
Many little touches are included, like a highlight reel in between rounds - as well as the girl in the bikini letting us know what round is next. Whenever a boxer is close to being knocked down, the sound changes to where you can hear the boxers' heartbeats much louder over the crowd. It does a good job building some suspense to the knockdown, and lets the players know that it's time to get serious about defending oneself - or going in for the KO.
Some boxing games rely completely on the look and feel of the boxer to tell you how close he is to a knockout; his face will puff up and bleed, and the controller will rumble and jar as he is hit. While EA uses both of these mechanics very well, they also supply a health bar for each boxer at the top of the screen. Many disagree on whether one should be able to see a bar, but I actually like it. Previous Knockout Kings games gave us an option to turn off the health bar, so as long as EA keeps that feature going, everyone should be happy.
The blood and sweat on the boxers are modelled correctly; pound your opponent's right eye, and it will puff and bleed separately from the rest of his face. It's not perfect, but it's pretty much better than any game I've seen. The blood will even roll off of boxers, much like last year's Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, although the volume of it isn't so silly. Still, there's probably more blood here than in real boxing, which is a bit peculiar for the sometimes prudish EA.
There are still a few major aspects of boxing that are completely missing in Fight Night; there is no referee to interact with, no clinching, no doctors assessing the health of the boxers, and no cut men. Maybe that's why we see so much more blood than in the real sport! Seriously, though, these things are difficult to do right and have only been addressed casually in a rare boxing game here and there, and they generally have had little effect on the actual fights. Stuff like this will just have to wait for future boxing games.
The graphics are absolutlely wonderful in Fight Night 2004. The boxers look more realistic than any boxing game I've seen, and the animations are just about spot-on. The rings are recreated from real-life counterparts, and even the people in the first few rows of the crowd are drawn in polygons rather than flat sprites. They're not terribly detailed, but they sure beat the sprites seen in pretty much every other 3D boxing game ever made.
EA has also included a satisfying knockdown system, complete with ragdoll physics effects for when someone kisses the mat. It still seems to need a bit of tuning, as (much like most games that have ragdoll effects) it feels like the models turn into ragdolls very suddenly and flop around a bit much. It may seem like a nitpicky complaint, but it really does add something to the game and I'd like to see this aspect perfected. It's always satisfying to send someone to the canvas with a well-placed uppercut or hook, and seeing your opponent react to it flawlessly as he falls is potentially one of the best parts of the whole game.
While the career mode wasn't available in this preview copy, we've heard quite a bit about it. You can customize a new boxer and model his face much like what we've seen in the recent Tiger Woods titles, as well as go through training and mini-games to hone your skills. The amount of fights you can go through in a career has reportedly been extended beyond what most boxing games allow, allowing a full 20 years worth of bouts. Most boxing titles would limit the length of any single career to about forty fights or so, but we'll get roughly twice that many fights here before the brain damage starts to set in. Hopefully this will make the career mode that much more interesting.
It can't be an EA title without real athletes thrown in, and they have really delivered with Fight Night. The game will include 32 real-life boxers, including: Roy Jones Jr., Lennox Lewis, Shane Moseley, Felix Trinidad, Bernard Hopkins, James Toney, Roberto Duran, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Leonard, Evander Holyfield, Arturo Gatti, Micky Ward, Rocky Marciano, Jake LaMotta, and yes, Muhammad Ali. Online play is planned for the PS2, and while it wasn't included in this preview version, EA has really been putting plenty of effort in making online play really fun in their recent sports games; let's hope they do the same for Fight Night.
EA is taking some very good steps in the right direction with Fight Night 2004. While I do hope they snuck in some work on the game's frantic speed and annoying announcer, these complaints are still minor compared to the massive improvements they've put into this title over Knockout Kings. Other than that, all I can say is that I want more! We'll get our wish when the game is released on the PS2 and Xbox on April 5th.
