Fight Night Round 4 Review

Fight Night Round 3 received rave reviews and was seen as probably the best boxing game ever made upon release. A fact that remains true today, as games like Face Breaker (A game that you should avoid like the plague) and the equally awful Don King’s Prize Fighter do nothing to improve on the ground work that was done by E.A.’s 2006 boxing title. (That is unless, like me, you are a fan of the superior Super Punch-Out on the Super Nintendo, which is the best boxing game ever in my opinion.)

Being E.A. it was only a matter of time before we got to see Fight Night Round 4 getting released. The big question is will Fight Night Round 4 improve over the third iteration of the game in a substantial way to warrant fans of the previous game and new comers alike to pick up the game? The short answer is yes, as quite a lot of things have been improved that weren’t too great in the previous game.



At the start of the game you get thrust into a tutorial which is a good thing as the controls have changed quite a bit, with punches now being thrown using the right stick. (Strangely the option to map the punches to your controller’s buttons has been removed.) The controls take quite a bit of getting used to, especially if like me the last fighting game you played was UFC Undisputed. (Which is a totally different experience to playing Fight Night) It could just be me but it seems like Street Fighter IV all over again, with some button inputs only working when they want to, causing that upper cut to turn into a body shot or hook. If you manage to overlook this slight flaw though and stick with the game you shouldn’t be too disappointed. The big power punches do seem to take forever to actually hit your opponent though, so can quite easily be dodged by the CPU, especially one that will bob and weave all through the fight.

Fight Night Round 4 is a pretty damn fine good looking game, with sweat and blood flying off the boxers as they get slammed in the face with jabs, stiff uppercuts and haymakers. The fighters look as realistic as you will probably ever see on the current hardware available, and I can’t see it getting much better than this for quite a good number of years. The crowd looks a bit better than you see in most games, (Smackdown Vs Raw, UFC Undisputed) but still not all that amazing. Let’s face it though you will be concentrating on what’s going on in the ring as opposed to the crowd outside it.

The A.I. in the game is really well done as your opponents switch tactics as you play. They are also not afraid to sit there and let you hit them blocking your attacks and then responding with a swift counter, which will deal you a lot more damage than a regular punch such as a left hook. They will also switch it up as well, aiming for your body to throw you of guard before swinging a big haymaker straight at your chin and flooring you. You really need to play the game to see the A.I. at work, some may call it a bit cheap while others will appreciate it for the challenge it presents to gamers. (Although winning 7 or 8 rounds in a row then getting floored, only to get up and floored again by an opponent that has done very little does suck quite a bit)

Throw in the fact that each boxer fights quite differently from each other, with some preferring to fight on the inside for a bit of dirty boxing, while others will gladly just sit back and take you apart on the outside before looking for that big knockout punch. It really changes things for the better as you never know what your opponent may do, which makes for a more interesting fight. E.A. Canada has really created a great game that is a vast improvement over the third iteration.


Exhibition mode is now called Fight Now, which as you would expect let’s you jump straight into the action for some major ass beatings. As you would expect a lot of big name boxers are available to choose from such as the cover stars Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali, there are also quite a few missing that could have been included. (Hell, deserved to be included like Floyd Mayweather Jr) Maybe E.A. will release more boxers as DLC in the future. As you would expect there are a few different arenas to fight in including Boxing Mecca Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

Next up is Legacy Mode, which is the mode you will spend most of your time playing. At the start you get the option of creating a boxer or using one of the real life counter parts. This mode sees you starting at the bottom of the food chain as you work your way up to the heady heights of World Champion. Right from the start you are thrown into a tournament which winning will move you just one step closer to your dream of being a champ and creating a boxing legacy.



After competing and winning the tournament you can hit start to reach the calendar and schedule a fight. Once you have done this you select a green tile and choose the option start training. This will give you a few options of different types of training to help boost your stats, each one play’s out like a mini game. (Similar to in Fight Night Round 3) If like me your too lazy to keep doing these then you can select the option of Auto, your stats won’t rise as fast but you get to the fight your opponent a lot quicker. (That is unless you choose the option to simulate the fights as well, and if that is the case just why the heck did you get the game?)

There is also an online mode, but being a wise ass I did this review using an account that doesn’t have gold activated on it. So as such I have yet still to try this portion of the game for myself, but from what I have been told the online mode is pretty much a lag free affair. (Although expect to see the same fighters popping up all the time as opponents, as well as people throwing the same exact combinations of punches)

The audio soundtrack to the game is basically just rap. (Feel free to spell it with a C at the front because of a lot of the tracks on there are crap) The commentary in the game is as you would expect to see in any sports game these days. In other words it isn’t too bad overall but you will hear quite a few mistakes as you play. (Such as hearing that Muhammad Ali has just floored his opponent, when actually he is the one on the canvas seeing stars as you just nearly took his head off with a punch)

Overall Fight Night Round 4 is a solid game, which is something we are now seeing with many of E.A.’s sport franchises. In my review for UFC Undisputed I said something along the lines of boxing being boring to watch nowadays. Well it may still be boring to watch, but as far as boxing games go this is a lot of fun. Is it as good as UFC Undisputed? That’s something I can’t really answer as the two games are a world apart.

Sick of Meaningless Game Reviews?

Sega Show Me Some Love :)

I recently joined a group on Facebook called "Sick of Meaningless Game Reviews" The description for the group is this...... "Do the phrases "7 out of 10" and "3 out of 5" get under your skin? Does hearing that a game is a "B-" annoy you? Do you put no faith in the current state of game reviews because the paychecks of some game reviewers may be dependent on checks written by game developers?"

Now not all game reviewers get paid for reviewing games, sure we sometimes get free copies of games to review. That doesn't mean that every reviewer will score them highly if they get paid or not. heck I am on Sega's shit list and no longer receive games from them for saying half their recent 360 games suck balls. A fact that they could try denying but when the best recent releases are a Megadrive/Genisis collection and nothing much else of any real interest, then it proves the point. Let's face it Viking was an average game, Golden Axe: Beast Rider was a pile of steaming shite and Sonic Unleashed while good in quite a few places never really lived up to it's potential overall.

Don't Waste Time With This Shite Game!

With the amount of websites out there that review games, you should now be able to find out pretty easily if a game is worth buying or not as one man and his dog review games these days. A lot of blame could be put onto the rating systems people and sites use for games, although it maybe flawed there really isn't a better solution at present. Let's face it if you get rid of the scores people will moan that they have to read a whole review, instead of saying that only got a 7 or such and such a game got rated to high.

Gamers will always find something to complain about in a review, the fact is we are never going to be happy with what someone else says about a game. The reason for this is it all boils down to personal preference of the person reviewing the game, take Haze for example. (Haze mentioned two entries in a row? Am I now a Haze Fanboi? Hell no the game didn't have any monkeys in it! lol) That game has been slagged off by many people as being a really bad game, yet it is an average shooter and seemed to get judged harshly just because it wasn't Time Splitters.

If Only Haze Had These Guys It Would Have Got A 10/10!

If you don't like a game review just remember you can always write your own and tell people what you thought of the game in question. The world is full of complainers that could spend half the time moaning actually doing something about it. So next time you read a review that you dislike then why not have a try at writing your own and sharing it with your fellow gamers instead of judging or making a simple one line comment that says this review sucks.

Are Bad Games Really That Bad?

One thing that has always been constant since I became a gamer back in the day is bad games; you know these games that you tell your friends they should never ever play. Games like Jumper, Shellshock 2, Kengo 9, Earth Defence Force 2017, Warriors Orochi 2, Haze, Untold Legends and Two Worlds to name just a few.

There is just one problem though some of the games named above (E.D.F. 2017 and Orochi 2) are some of my favourite games of all time, while others I have quite enjoyed playing. (Haze and Untold Legends)

With Robot's This Big How Can It Be Bad?

You can find fan's of any bad game as there will always be at least one person that enjoys the game. Heck one of my friends thinks Two Worlds is a belting game, heck I know quite a few people that enjoyed the game despite its many bugs and glitches. So just what makes a game so bad that it is actually good? Well to me a game like Earth Defence Force has all these quirky little things like the 2D power up's and the annoying sound that is made when you pick them up. The character models are pretty poor and the controls while working could have been a lot better. Despite these flaws though there is just something about the game that makes it entertaining to me, and a real blast to sit and play.

Studio Closing Game? Don't Believe The Bullshit

I bought Haze just to see if it was as bad as everyone had made the game out to be, and while it may not be the best shooter in the world, it is far from the worst and pretty entertaining overall. Throw in the fact that it is now dirt cheap to pick up and it becomes a more attractive purchase nowadays. Many people think Haze must be a really bad game without playing it as it was the last game that Free Radical released before going into administration, while the truth is they may have survived if they chose to go the multi-format path with the game instead of releasing it on the PS3. (Which at the time didn't seem to be selling as well as Sony or anyone else expected it to)

Personally I think all games have the potential to be bad games, as it all comes down to personal preference. I really disliked Jumper but I know people that thought the game wasn't really as bad as everyone made out. The same can reversed for some of the big name games that exist, take the Halo franchise for instance. Quite a few people think that they are the some of the best games ever, while to others they are below average games due to there personal taste. (Fan boy opinions should never count in deciding if a game is good or not)

Game of the Year? Ha Ha Fuck No!

I guess what I am saying is that any game can be deemed good or bad depending on the person that is playing the game. Sure there are some exceptions to the rule, (E.T. on the Atari 2600 being the most famous one) but maybe we should keep an open mind when it comes to supposedly bad games instead of taking someone else's word for it, after all some people say Resistance: Fall of Man is a great game and not the pile of shite I think it is.

PR People

This entry originally said something about unicorns and other random stuff. If you don't believe me then the message below is for you, as nothing controversial was ever mentioned about any PR people anywhere. :p

Picking Up The Pad

Well for the last month or so my life has been pretty much in the toilet, which in turn saw me turning my back on quite a few things. Gaming being a pretty major one of them, which kinda sucks ass since I love nothing more than to sit in front of the TV and play for hours. Heck I even let my Xbox Gold subscription run out, that is how bad it has been. While things are still pretty shitty to a certain extent I can't keep sitting around feeling sorry for myself, so it's now once again time to pick up the pad and start playing like I have never played before.

So in the upcoming weeks I should be back to reviewing games on a regular basis for Console Heroes as well as updating my blog. Which I have neglected quite a bit I am sorry to say. Hopefully I can soon get hold of Cody and Code in the next few days, and discuss the future of the Console Heroes Podcast. The main problem we have is that we are not always around at the same time to record the damn thing, which kinda sucks balls to say the least.


I wrote a Gunstar Heroes review yesterday to try and get back into the swing of things, which should see the light of day sometime this week on the site. (Once Bota does his fogoriphic edit to it.) I also finally posted up the UFC review I wrote up last month which can be found here if your interested. It's going to take me a week or two to get back into the swing of things, but hopefully normal service will resume very soon.

Until next time keep gaming. :)

Should I Buy This Game?

Buy This Game It Has Voice overs!!!

I was recently reading a thread on a forum about Little Big Planet, when I stumbled upon one of the dumbest threads I have ever seen. The basic jist of the thread was someone was trying to decide if they should buy the game or not, to which someone had replied with this little gem below.

Stephen Fry does the voice overs so yeah, if your a fan of his you’ll love the game.

How the hell can anyone advise someone to buy a game because a celebrity does the voice overs for it? That is like me advising someone to go and watch the Guyver film starring David Hayter if they are a fan of the Metal Gear Solid games. (It is possibly one of the worst films I have ever seen, it stinks out the place like the Punisher film starring Dolph Lundgren.)

If only they made an equally shit game for Dolph to do the Voice overs!

Did you enjoy watching Vin Diesel in Fast and Furious or Pitch Black? Then you should go and buy The Wheelman as he does the voice overs, so surely you will love this game. Heck I have enjoyed watching Randy Couture fighting in the UFC and commentating, so Red Alert 3 should be awesome as he plays a character in that. To be fair though Red Alert 3 is a fantastic game, not because it has a host of characters but because it's a great game.

I have played Little Big Planet and I have to say that the voice overs don't make the game an enjoyable game. It is down to the sum of all it's parts and work by all the staff that created the game. It just seems retarded to me that someone is trying to advise another person to get a game, if they are a fan of a voice over guy. It is not as if Stephen Fry does a voice over for every little thing you do in the game, for the most part he doesn't even say anything. (Thank fuck as he gets on my tits.)

Little Big Planet: So much more than just voice overs!

Seriously though, this person could have commented on a few of the things that you can do in Little Big Planet. I would say it is an unique but average platform game at heart. That is until you start creating levels, which is where things pick up a bit. Any levels you create can be shared with other gamers around the world. If you don't like creating levels then you can pick other peoples to play on. Take the other day, I stumbled on a level that had been inspired by Fallout, and I have to say it was a pretty cool featuring many things from Fallout, such as radio's to listen to, enemies to shoot and Nuka Cola vending machines. Surely shit like this should get a mention as a reason to buy rather than advising to buy because such a person is a voice over guy for the game.

-------Rant Ends-----

Fun With Ratchet And Clank

So I just bought a Playstation 3 after refusing to buy one for ages. I asked my dad to pick it up for me since he was going in town today and told him which deal he should get me. The deal I asked for was the 80 gig system with Killzone 2 and GTA IV, it worked out you got both these games thrown in with the price of the console. I rang my dad at lunch and he said he had got it me, but instead of getting me the one I wanted he got a better deal. He ended up getting one with Killzone 2, GTA IV, NFS Undercover and Lost, he also decided I needed to get the extended warranty for it. (So I got a game I own already on the 360, a shit game I hate and a warranty I didn't need which is going to cost me more money)


After work I went to town and picked up a few more games for the system, picking up a few titles including Motorstorm and Ratchet and Clank. So I got home unpacked the system and set it up and threw Motorstorm in for a quick race. After that I put Killzone 2 in for a quick go as I checked out how good games on the system looked. Killzone looked pretty cool and is one game I am probably going to play over the weekend when I get chance.

Next up I thought I would try the Ratchet and Clank game.(A game I have wanted to play for quite a while) Upon loading I was greeted with a screen saying I had insufficent space and needed to delete something to make room. I was like WTF? I had 64 gig on my system to play with, regardless I quit and formatted the HDD and tried again only to see the same message. At this point I was getting a bit annoyed, so I rolled back the Killzone 2 update and tried again only to see the same screen.

I thought fuck this and started reading through the manuals for the PS3 and the game, but still had no luck in finding a solution to my problem. I at this point decided to ring the shop the console came from (Game) to ask if they could tell me how to get it working. The guy on the other end of the phone said "It sounds like your PS3 is broken so you should ring Sony or bring it back to the store for an exchange."


I know the system worked otherwise I couldn't play any other games, so I thought fuck that and rang the store again and spoke to someone else, the reply was "It sounds like your game is broken, you need to get it replaced" Again this sounded like bullshit by another person without a clue that shouldn't be working in a game store. At this point I thought fuck it and decided to search on the internet for a solution, and surprise surprise I managed to find one.

It appears that the game won't install on the PS3 if you have less than 470+ MB on the system. It doesn't matter how many Gigs you have. Take mine for example I must have had just over 64.3 gig on it, but because the last part was under the amount needed I couldn't install the game. So I needed to get my system to just under 64 gig to be able to play the game, which is really fucking retarded. I decided to bang some CD's on the system to fill it up, not thinking about how it was going to convert them into the MP3 format to take up less space. (I finally realised 4 CD's and 10 minutes or so later)


Next up I decided to download some random crap off the Playstation Network to fill up the space faster. Just 5 minutes or so later and I had just hit under 64 gig, so I decided to try the game again and it worked straight away. So I had spent about an hour trying to get this game to work and for what? I played the game for about 5 minutes then turned it off as I was so wound up I couldn't enjoy playing it. (I ended up playing the Savage Moon demo I downloaded longer than I played Ratchet & Clank)

So I wasted an hour of my life, rang the game shop and spoke to two retards that know fuck all and then found the solution to the problem thanks to the internet. It got me thinking though, what about all the people that have bought the game only to return it as they couldn't get it to work and had no internet access? Another thing is why do game stores employ some people (Not all) than know absolutely fuck all about games. It's such a shame that a game series I have always enjoyed has pissed me off so much. :(