The return of the king of boxing simulations is a must-have for any fans of the sport
Fight Night has been rebranded 'Champion' for a reason, with the addition of an actual story mode (Champion mode). You play as Andre Bishop as he attempts to rise to the top of the boxing world all the way from his amateur boxing roots whilst dealing with corrupt businessmen and all manner of general boxing movie clichés (see any Rocky movie, except 5, that was terrible – actually, I don't know about the new one either since I couldn't bring myself to check it out, but anyway!). It is actually a well scripted and acted story that has been implemented and the characters are pretty good, the downside being that the mode only takes around 4-5 hours to complete (I clocked in a time of 4hours 35mins on my first play through on the professional mode without too much prior practice of the game). The mode does throw up some cool scenario's and situations for you while boxing (fighting with one hand when one gets broken etc.) but once you're done with it you probably won't bother going through it again unless you're after some achievements/trophies you missed on your first play-through.
Elsewhere outside the short Champion mode, there's your regular exhibition fights as well as the other main single player game option, Legacy mode. Here you can play as an existing boxer or create your own fighter complete with generic template face or scan in your own mug via Kinect, Move etc., then customize your character's body, pick a weight class, choose some nice clothing, choose your entrance music from the available tracks (or use your own music from your custom playlist) and then you're off into boxing world starting at the bottom of the ladder. Legacy mode then consists of picking a person to fight and training up your fighter for a few weeks before fighting in your match. You can earn money from participating in fights and certain events, which can then be spent towards training your character in different gyms which feature different training games and have different focuses on building up your characters strength, endurance, etc, and experience points which go towards building your characters stats up (although some stats are affected over time and you cannot change these, such as cuts etc. which is actually pretty cool). It's a decent game mode but chances are that unless you're really into the sport or love the game, you'll probably get bored after a few hours of play. There is also the online mode that is pretty good, with the ability to create your own gyms online and pretty much have your own clans of boxers battling one another and tournaments to take part in (and the servers seem pretty good so far, shame this isn't the case for every EA game… yeah I'm looking at you FIFA!).
The biggest change to the game from previous iterations in the series is the control system, which has been revamped from what was a somewhat complex combination of twisting and turning of the analogue stick, hoping you managed to rotate it just enough in the right direction to pull off the punch you wanted. The new system just involves a flicking of the stick, which makes the game much simpler to play and actually allows you to pull off the punches you want and put combos together. It's definitely a step up from the old control system, although there will be some people who will try it and probably find it a little too over-simplified for their tastes. This is the same for the haymaker system which is removed and replaced by a button that instead allows you to add extra power behind any of your regular punches. This new control scheme provides a much more fluid fighting experience and is much more true to actual boxing.
The game itself looks fantastic as expected and features great collision detection which combined with the pretty well detailed backgrounds and audiences (as opposed to cardboard cut-outs used in plenty of other sports games), and good commentary make for a great boxing experience. Fighters bodies ripple as they take a body shot and blood pours from cuts, splatting across the screen as a boxer is knocked down, blood staining their shorts and the other fighter. The level of detail in each of the fighters is impressive, and this is combined with a roster made up with the likes of Manny Pacquiao, David Haye, both Klitschko's and returning boxers such as Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson. It's a big roster of 50+ boxers and there's going to be DLC in the future with more to come.
Scoring this game is pretty easy really, as it is a great boxing simulation and a heck of a lot of fun to play regardless of whether you like the sport or not. Champion mode is pretty short (although ramp up the difficulty and it will provide a longer lasting challenge) and legacy mode could be made a bit less repetitive. If you're a fan of the sport, add a 1.0 to the score, as you'll find plenty to do and it does a great job of recreating the boxing experience. If you're not a fan of boxing, at least check out the demo or rent it.