Fight Night: Round 3 [PSP]

Although the controls are a wonky mess, the PSP-exclusive modes are still kind of fun and innovative. Rival Challenges are a cool feature that pay tribute to boxing's rich history and the greatest bouts between some of the finest pugilists of the last fifty years. There's Repeat History, in which players live out classic rivalries such as Ali/Frazier and more current battles such as Taylor/Hopkins. If you didn't like the way fate smiled upon the outcome of a classic bout, you can rewrite it with Change History, in which you can turn the tide in a classic fight. The best of all, however, is My History, which is a group of challenge modes. Jake LaMotta's tough to knock down. Winky Wright has amazing defense. Roy Jones, Jr. has KOed 38 opponents throughout his storied career. Your challenge is to put the Raging Bull on his back, or nail as many combos as you can on Winky, or survive as long as possible against Jones. They're nice novelties that lend to the pick up and play nature of the PSP.

The career mode isn't too terrible, either, in regard to its layout. If you can get past the lengthy load times, the breakdown of fight contracts are an element missing from the console games, and mercifully, training feels more like the sort of conditioning exercises found in other sports games like NBA 2K, in which you manage how hard you want to push your fighter against the risk of exhaustion to get results. The training minigames found in the console versions would have likely exhausted a game that's already plagued by long load times.

Ultimately, however, where Fight Night Round 3 falls most flat is in the realm of multiplayer. The Ad Hoc isn't bad during a fight, but during anything else, well, it feels more like an equation. Two players + long loads during menu selections = lag. It feels like eternity to pick a boxer because the disc is furiously streaming to load them up. And that's the better of the two modes.

It's great that EA incorporated Infrastructure into the game, as they've always seemed hesitant to do so when they deliver the first PSP version of a franchise (except Madden, but that's a whole 'nother situation). Too many publishers mention that their games have Wi-Fi multiplayer while dodging the question of whether that's Ad Hoc or Infrastructure. EA has taken it head on, which is admirable. What's not admirable is the implementation, which is a mess. Not a single game played over Infrastructure lasted until the end of the fight, thanks to drops. When they did play, they were about as laggy as the PS2 version, which was disgracefully slow. Suffice it to say, the idea of Infrastructure on this PSP game is a wonderful one. The execution of it is poor.

Fight Night Round 3 is essentially a clone of Fight Night Round 2, but rather dumbed-down for the PSP. EA tried to port a console game that's completely dependent on a second analog stick to the PSP, which is an admirable endeavor, but unfortunately, they mostly failed. However, all isn't completely lost. For those willing to endure the poorly-translated control scheme, the career mode is rather well done, as are the Rival Challenges, which really lend themselves to the short burst gameplay that's crucial to handheld. Also, the game looks exceptionally impressive, even if it's a port of last year's game. However, it's doubtful that anyone who's truly a fan of Fight Night's gameplay will find much to cheer about here.

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