Fight Night: Round 4 [X360]

Not only will you sculpt your boxer's face, but you'll also have control over things like your fighter's boxing style, blocking style, his best punch, and even elements to his ring entrance like whether to include dry ice and pyrotechnics in the show. You'll also assign a last name and a nickname that the announcers will be able to recite as you bring the pain.

Once you've created your virtual likeness (or our president's virtual likeness) you can hop into the new World Championship mode online. Basically it puts everyone's created fighter on a level playing field by making all of their attributes equal, establishes a ranking system for Lightweight, Middleweight and Heavyweight (the three weight classes available online) and lets them duke it out. You can claim belts, you can lose them, and you can level up your boxer as you take part in more and more fights. There weren't enough gamers online with FNR4 yet to fully experience the World Championship mode, but if everyone who buys the game latches on, it should be a winner.

The usual online quick matches and created matches are also available, and are also restricted to the three weight classes. You'll need to be mindful of who you're picking online as the surrounding weight classes are lumped into Middle, Light and Heavy (an example is 175-pound Roy Jones Jr. being in with the Heavyweights) which could produce some lopsided matches if you aren't careful.

Whether online or off, on either PS3 or Xbox 360, Fight Night Round 4 looks spectacular. The way players look when bobbing and pivoting in the ring is breathtaking thanks to muscles that flex and move realistically. You'll also notice facial expressions change during the fight. Like when a fighter totally misses a punch, the look on his face is one of shock mixed with horror of what's coming his way. Since the game moves at a blistering 60 frames per second, there is never slowdown, nor is there any sign of clipping or other inaccuracies. Everything from the menus to the in-ring action in Fight Night Round 4 looks great.

The sound of the game is a bit more of a mixed bag. While Joe Tessitore and Teddy Atlas do a good job of bringing energy and insight to the ring, their quips repeat all too often and can be too generic to be useful. Sometimes they'll reference a fighter with the ambiguous "he" rather than the fighter's last name or nickname. "He's got a nasty cut above his eye" doesn't really help you determine whether you should be more defensive or keep gunning for your opponent's head. Sound effects in the ring perform better with big wallops rumbling your sound system and little shots following suit. Surprisingly enough I was most impressed with the illegal headbutt which brings a perfect representation of a skull slamming into another skull. It's sickening but great.

Closing Comments
At the end of the day Fight Night Round 4 is, to put it plainly, a wonderful boxing game. There are certainly issues to be found in the new Legacy Mode, but it’s much closer to what players want from a career mode. The online offering, while not hugely different from the previous Fight Night, still delivers where it counts. I didn’t experience any lag in my fights and the World Championship mode will hopefully be something that fans cling to.

Aside from the modes, you’ll find the best boxing experience in gaming in the ring. Punches sound and look great, fighters move fantastically well with muscles flexing and blood flowing and spattering from cuts, and if you want a boxer that isn’t included in the original roster of more than 50 (including Mike Tyson for the first time since Punch-Out!!), you can use Photo GameFace to put them (as well as yourself) in the game. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s a cool replay editor that lets you create clips of you rendering people’s faces unrecognizable. I have my issues with Fight Night Round 4 – and so will you – but when you get down to it FNR4 is just a great all-around videogame experience.

As IGN's resident boxing expert, I've been looking forward to the release of Fight Night Round 4 for quite some time. I'm happy to report that, for the most part, the game has delivered. The boxing mechanics are superb, and just like real fighting, everything is set up behind the jab. Unlike Fight Night Round 3, however, Fight Night 4's jab/ straight combo in the hands of an expert doesn't dominate opponents who don't live and breathe the game (if you played the master players of FN3 online, you know what I'm talking about). I also love the fact that inside and outside boxing tactics are a big part of a player's strategy. While I did find the gameplay tilted a little heavier towards the inside fighters versus the outside fighters, the game still gets it right 95% of the time. <p> The one area I'm disappointed in, though, is the career mode. Sure, it's an improvement on Round 3's linear approach, but at the same time, it's missing a lot of minutia that hardcore boxing fans are looking for. How can a "prospect of the year" award go to a fighter with a record of 9-5-3, who has already been fighting for two years prior, when up against my 8-0 first year fighter? Why are the top 10 rankings populated with guys that have 500 records, or in some cases, sub-500 records? And why are the training games outside of sparring so tedious and random? Punching the heavy bag only works one of my hands? What is this, Rocky II? <p> Still, in a game about boxing, it's the mechanics that matter most, and Fight Night Round 4 has it in spades. I can easily see myself playing the online game over the next year with friends, strangers, and fellow boxing aficionados, and will keep my fingers crossed for some killer DLC.

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