Fight Night: Round 3

EA Sports is often tagged as releasing sequels as mere roster updates, Fight Night is not that case. This game absolutely perfects the boxing genre in a game. The visuals are the best available on the 360 and no game has been able to remotely come near the player models in this game. Full facial animations and body reactions for each punch are all flawlessly modeled. The incredible sounds of players barely breathing as they get tired, and bones cracking as you knock them to the ground over and over add to the experience. The controls are fluid and I wouldn't know what to add. I honestly see no way to improve the game as far as mechanics go. EA has perfected the Boxing genre with Fight Night and if they can create a lag-free environment online this game is an instant 10. With the 50% chance I play a match full of lag as is now, the game gets a solid 9 though.<br><br>Visual: 10/10<br>Sound: 9/10<br>Gameplay: 10/10<br>Replayability: 9/10

STORY - The career mode is pretty linear with a lot of repetition. Obviously this is a boxing game, but it would have been nice to do bit more than just fight and train the whole time. Perhaps a little more variety in the training mini games other than the three you can pick from would have helped but even then you may still want more unless you're a die hard boxing fan. In my weight class I only fought three legends (Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield, Roy Jones Jr.) about three times each and after forty plus fights against nearly the same ten opponents, I won't say I was bored but, I was really hoping for someone new to fight that wasn't a randomly generated nobody.<br /><br />SOUND - In ring sounds are very realistic. When a powerful hit is landed, other people in the room just may turn their heads to see the hurt you're dishing out... or receiving. Aside from decent grunts, all fighters are silent. Some scripted scenes with trash talking could have added a great amount of tension between fights but that feature didn't find its way into the game. Ringside commentary doesn't sound bad but is often behind the action and occasionally inaccurate. As far as music is concerned, I hope you're ready to listen to the same twelve hip hop songs over and over again.<br /><br />VISUALS - For a launch title, Fight Night Round 3 looks surprisingly good for the most part. Other than a lack of variety in cut scenes and the oddly anorexic ring girl character models, the game delivers a pretty genuine presentation. Replays of knock downs show great detail in facial ripples and blood splatters.<br /><br />CONTROLS - Possibly the best and worst part of this game is the serious learning curve involved in mastering the controls that use primarily the thumb sticks to throw various punches. Even as I approached my final fight I was still struggling with timing and connecting punches. A great system if you can actually wrap your head around it. <br /><br />STORY - 6.0<br />SOUND - 6.5<br />VISUALS - 7.0<br />CONTROLS - 7.0

Only thing lacking in this game is a nice, in depth career mode. The career mode here is nothing more than picking a fight. Deeper character development would have been cool.<br><br>Well, that and the totally repetitive commentary - "He didn't see that one coming, and it's the one's you don't see that hurt the most"<br><br>Graphically, maybe the best visual game EVER - the character models are incredible - beads of sweat and facial expressions are just a few pieces of eye candy. The sound is great too, with ever hit sounding as though it's really in your face.<br><br>Having played the previous Fight Night's, this one felt right in line, though not a huge step in the evolutionary direction.<br><br>A great show piece, though a rental is enough for the casual gamer.

When I think of next-gen the first things that come to mind are amazing visuals, theatrical sound quality, and spot-on gameplay. Fight Night Round 3 delivers in these departments and so many more. The graphics and visual effects are phenomenal. The light glistening off of the sweat, the expression of exhaustion on the combatants faces, the majestic movements of the boxers throwing punches ad bobbing and weaving to avoid them. The sound of panting, grunts, the shuffling and scraping against the surface of the mat, and punches reaching their targets with a booming echo. Give the knock-out punch and watch the mix of crimson and saliva slither through the cracks if his teeth, and the ripples forming in his cheeks from the skull crushing blow to your opponent's cranium. The sound of his jaw crackling, teeth shattering, fluids flowing out, and the climatic thud of his limp body crashing to the mat. I even enjoyed these effects when I took a knock-out blow. The controls are spot on, and the new moves fit in perfectly. Pull off a impact punch that connects and look through the eyes of your opponent as he is trying to block you, but your fists of fury penetrate his defense. If you want the full experience you may want to have a HDTV and a nice surround sound system. Career mode is back and even better, develop rivalries with boxers and have fights at the weigh-ins (the fight is more like a first person mini-game). I think it is highly replayable, and most of all it's fun and deep. If you have a xbox 360 there should be no reason to not have this game. This shows the xbox 360's capabilities, and in my opinion is truly a next-gen experience. Don't have it? Get IT!

Fight night round three has everthing you could want a pretty good single player mode superb graphics and rippling sounds. The online just takes it to another level its the best online game for 360 in no substitute to punding somebody's face on line unless you do that to a friend on the same 360

I've recently rented this game and at first found incredibly amazing online and offline. However after really getting into the game I had to change my opinion on how great this game really is. The game has several types of game modes, the ones you will poor most of your time in will most likely be Career mode and Xbox Live. In career mode you start off as an amateur and work your way up to be the #1 ranked boxer in the world. It's addictive, but the career mode lacks some direction and goals, you basically just fight over and over again until your the best. So even if you are not that good of a gamer, you will eventually win. This will get repetitive after a while. More draw backs are some annoying bugs you will notice here and there and the over exaggerated advertisements; I'm surprised the cover of the game doesn't have a dodge vehicle or a whopper.<br><br>If you manage to master this game your best enjoyment will come from fighting opponents world wide on XBOX live or competing with your friend offline.<br><br>Graphically it looks really good. The sound is also very crisp and clear.<br><br>Overall the game has it's good qualities and addictive gameplay (especially online). It's flaws however keep it from being perfect.

Like boxing games. I've never known any game to both physically and mentally wear you out. The presentation is MIND BLOWING(except for the commentary does get old after the fifth fight; but it is also informative that either you or your opponent is about to hit the canvas). One thing they needed to scrap completely was the music(there is other music out there besides rap). Career mode and character creation was top notch too; believe me this one is gonna go in my collection soon or I'll just wait till next year. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention xbox live with this; LAG FREE and of course alot of smack talk too.

Fight Night Round 3 Is a good game. I mean, it is worth renting. I wouldn't expect to much though. The graphics are amazing and the gameplay seems slow. The further in the game and the harder it gets it seems like the gameplay gets faster.<br>The game does get repetitive, it is fun for a while but it will seem like the same thing is happening throughout the entire game. Also the statistics show nothing and do nothing. Sure your punches might hit a little harder but you can take the worst featherweight against the strongest and biggest Heavyweight and the Feathweight guy can win if you throw the ultimate haymaker. It doesn't make sense it does seem fake sometimes and the slow motion punches of a knockdown also get repetitive.