You can't mention a boxing video game without referring to its roots. The game I'm referring to is Mike Tyson's Punchout (or simply Punchout if you got on the boat a little late) for the old NES. Since then there have been many boxing games, but none were able to capture the imagination of a whole era of gamers while bringing a dying sport to the forefront for one last hurrah.
Now EA Sports has released Fight Night 2004 behind a truckload of hype and advertising. This is the first installment in what EA hopes to be a successful boxing game series. After their lackluster Knockout Kings series, they've tried a new approach. True to the EA Sports form, Fight Night 2004 is a technically deep game with great graphical modeling and polished gameplay. However, this game really is surprisingly shallow and offers very little to people who aren't boxing fans. Looking at the current state of the sport, I would say the majority of the people out there aren't huge boxing fans.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Fight Night 2004 accurately portrays the sport of boxing. When fighting you have 3 basic punches: a jab, a hook, and an uppercut. Each punch does a set amount of damage, and takes away a certain amount of your stamina. For instance a jab does the least amount of damage, and takes away the least amount of stamina. There is also a signature punch. Examples of this include a punch to the top of your opponent's head, or a few bobs and weaves before delivering a swift but powerful hook. These signature punches take longer to develop and drain a little more stamina than your average punch, but they generally do more damage and are harder to block. Punches can either be delivered to the body or head of your opponent. Headshots will deliver more damage, but are more avoidable. Finally, you can punch your opponent below the belt. This is generally used strategically where it can really inhibit your opponent's ability to stay on his feet. However, the more you are caught, the heavier the penalties become.
Besides punching, there are many ways to defend against your opponent's onslaught. You can block anywhere on your body from your head to your gut. You can bob and weave as well as move all across the ring. There are even ways to taunt your opponent as well. Recreating the fighting style of someone like Ali is very easy given this robust setup.
Getting up from knockdowns takes a little getting used to. When you get knocked down, it switches to a first person view of you laying flat on the canvas looking up at the ref who is counting to ten. Having just been knocked down, the ref appears in three different images and you have to use the two analog sticks to line up the two outer images into one. The more you get knocked down, the tougher it becomes.
Performing most in the in-ring tasks rely on your fighter's ability ratings. These range from your fighter's ability to deliver a punch, how fast he moves, how much punishment he can take, and how easily he gets up from knockdowns. Improving these skills are accomplished through training. Before each fight, you can train in one of 4 mini-games to increase your skill attributes in two areas. The more points you rack up, the more skill attributes you can assign. This is very similar to the training camp mode in Madden 2004.
Options
The first option available is "fight now". This is the quickest way to jump in and fight another boxer. You can choose among the dozens of real and historic boxers, or you can choose to fight with a boxer you created. You can customize many different options before the fight like the round length, camera angle, and sound volume. You can also toggle certain rules like whether you can be saved by the bell, whether you can use illegal blows, or whether 3 KOs in a round automatically equals a TKO.
One of the centerpieces of Fight Night 2004 is the ability to create your own boxer. When creating your boxer you can customize almost everything from their chin size to the space between their eyes. Certain features for your boxer are initially locked and can be unlocked by buying them at the fight store with your career mode prize money. These locked items are certain trunks, tattoos, mouthpieces, shoes, and boxing gloves. This is a very well designed player creation mode. However, it isn't as good as the one in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004. There just aren’t as many options as far as hair, accessories, and editing the size of your boxer. I was also surprised that you aren't able to customize his arm length, as it's a huge factor when it comes to boxing.
Career mode is the meat and potatoes of Fight Night 2004. Creating a boxer in this mode puts a small cap on how many ability points you can initially assign. After your boxer is created, you can schedule a fight between one of 4 boxers roughly around your ranking. Once you've selected one to fight, you have the option to train in one of the 4 mini games. This includes punching a heavy bag, sparring, punching a combo dummy, and punching target mitts. As mentioned before each of these mini games increases your boxer’s attributes in two specific areas. After the training time limit is up, you assign your new ability points and start the match. The outcome in your match determines your new ranking. If you win, you gain a certain amount of prize money to spend at the fight store. These are the unlockable accessories that I was referring to earlier. Eventually, you can fight for championship belts and build up your reputation.
Online mode offers you the chance to play against other players. You can choose between any of the game's existing boxing characters or you can import any of your custom boxers to fight against other people, even the ones you created in career mode. However, there is a flaw in this system. You can create boxers outside of career mode that have perfect attributes, which in turn can be used online. There are stop-gaps against this where you can back out of a fight during the boxer selection without fear of being penalized. However, it does cheapen the experience to have a decent percentage of the online population who insist on using boxers with perfect attributes.
Graphics and Sound
The graphics are very good, even by EA's standards. Player modeling is spot on in many cases. However, there are instances where the limitations to physical attributes prevented accurate modeling for some of the boxers. The way these models respond to damage is very realistic too. If you pound on their head the whole match, you can see the bruises and cuts develop over the course of the match. The animation of the models is incredibly realistic from their stances, to the motion of their punches, to the way they hit the canvas after a knockout.
Environments contrast well depending on whether the venue is large or small. EA does a great job by populating the crowd appropriately depending on the venue. The environment is bright and alive with excitement and is something that EA has struggled with in many of their other games.
The sound is also incredible. The sound effects are very accurate and there is very little evidence of corners cut with repeated effects for different actions. Ring sounds really add to the atmosphere and give it a really authentic look.
Big Tigger does the ring commentary. While I am a Big Tigger fan, I have to admit that he doesn't add much to the commentary. While he is certainly better than most other commentators, there isn't much to set him apart from the pack.
The music features many rap and hip hop artists like Puff Daddy, Cee-Lo, Stat Quo, and M.O.P. For those of you who don't like rap or hip-hop, you might want to turn off the music.
Controls
The controls for Fight Night 2004 are very innovative, practical, and versatile. The right analog stick is the primary tool used for punching. An upward motion will execute a jab, a quarter circle up will execute a hook, and a half circle up will execute an uppercut. Using the right or left half of the analog stick determines which arm throws the punch. Holding the left trigger allows your punches to land on the body of your opponent, rather than the head. Holding the right trigger button lets you use the right analog stick to pinpoint where you wish to block.
There are a host of other controls to allow your boxer to stay alive in the ring. The left analog stick controls your boxer's movement. The X button executes your boxer's signature punch. There are also two different taunt buttons to antagonize your opponent. Finally there's an illegal punch button that allows you to hit your opponent below the belt.
The controls will initially seem very unresponsive in Fight Night 2004. However, part of that is masked by the realism behind the sport. You cannot start to block when you're in the middle of a punch. Nor can you change the location of where you want a punch to land when your fist is halfway to its target. However, moving your boxer is somewhat cumbersome. The left analog stick doesn't respond as it should. When you want to back off, the game won't respond well, leaving you open to try to block an incoming combo by your opponent.
Challenge
Fight Night 2004 offers a decent challenge for those willing to seek it. However, the learning curve is very steep and EA doesn't give you many effective tools to scale it. Even at the easiest setting, it's very hard for a newcomer to stumble around and come away with a challenging fight. The computer AI does a very good job of blocking punches and taking as little damage as possible. Also if you don't know what you're doing, you can take a lot more damage from opposing punches by not blocking at the appropriate times.
Despite the initial difficulty, the easiest setting is very beatable, if you know what you're doing. However, EA doesn't provide you with a lot of advice as far as fighting techniques and what to look out for. Without that, you're forced to dig around the web or find other resources to teach you how to box more effectively. Because Fight Night 2004 is a very technically accurate game, most authentic boxing resources can be effectively applied in this game.
Once you've figured out how to fight properly, you can usually overwhelm most physically inferior boxers. The computer AI isn't randomized as much as it should be. After a few dozen matches, many competent players will be able to pick up on its patterns and flaws. This all can be balanced out by increasing the physical superiority of your opponents. Overall the challenge is decent. However EA didn't do as good a job with the computer AI as it historically has in other games.
Replay and Value
There is very little replay value in Fight Night 2004. The career mode has by far the least substance I've seen in a sports game in a long time. You train for a couple minutes, then fight your next opponent, rinse and repeat. The reward system of accessorizing your boxer after you win fights adds little incentive. Championship bouts draw no more adrenaline from me than regular bouts. Most sports gamers are used to more than just moving from game to game. Trading, signing contracts, playoff chases, and drafting add many different variables to just playing through a slew of games.
The fighting itself is also very repetitive. The computer AI has its limitations and can be very frustrating or too easy depending on how much boxing knowledge you possess or have accrued. Going online is better for finding more diverse opponents, but the chances of finding an opponent that will give you a good rousing challenge is roughly one fight out of five.
Being able to import your boxer online is a great innovation. However, EA stops just short of really creating something special. It would be better for EA to allow people to create boxers online (with an ability ratings cap of course), and allow them to train, fight, and win championship belts against online opponents. This would essentially extend the career mode online.
Fight Night 2004 falls short of a great game not so much because of EA's inability to create a high-quality game; rather, I think that boxing sims inherently have a lack of substance to them, especially when compared to other sports games. In my opinion, Fight Night 2004 is the most realistic and polished boxing game that has ever been created. However, at the same time, it doesn't compel me to really appreciate the sport more. While it does force you to learn more about boxing in order to win at high levels, I just think that a video game cannot make up for the fact that the sport of boxing has been virtually dead before this game's audience was even born. In all, the only people I recommend to buy this are people who really enjoy the sport of boxing. For everyone else, this is a rental.
