Fight Night Round 3

Fight Night: Round 3
Developer(s)	EA Chicago
Publisher(s)	EA Sports
Platform(s)	Xbox 360, Xbox, PSP, PS2, PS3
Release	February 22, 2006 (US), March 10, 2006 (UK), December 6, 2006 (PS3)
Genre(s)	Sports game
Mode(s)	Single-player, Ad hoc, Infrastructure

Fight Night: Round 3 is a boxing video game developed by EA Sports. It is the sequel to EA Sports' previous boxing title, Fight Night: Round 2, which was released in 2005. Round 3 was released on February 22, 2006 for the Xbox, Xbox 360, PSP and PlayStation 2. The PlayStation 3 version of the game was released on December 6, 2006.

Overview

Fight Night: Round 3 is the third boxing title from EA Sports to carry the Fight Night name. It features the usual improvements such as better graphics and gameplay. "Impact Punches" is one of the most drastic changes, along with ESPN Classic fights and a new career mode, in which the player fights to gain popularity in order to reach sponsored fights, or to be featured on ESPN. Unlike in older versions, Round 3 defaults without a heads-up display (HUD), allowing a player to judge the status of their stamina and energy based on their stance, movements, and facial features.

Versions

The game has been released for several video game consoles and some differences exist between the versions. The cover art features Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward on all versions, except the Xbox 360, PS3 and PSP versions which feature a photo of Oscar de la Hoya instead.

Introduction

As you may know, Fight Night Round 3 has very impressive graphics; the effects have also improved greatly and have set a new bar for fighting games, even over Dead of Alive 4. Before we get to Fight Night Round 3 for the Xbox 360, let's look into the series' past. In previous installments of the game, like Fight Night 2004, if you knock your opponent down or he knocks you down, you can see the sweat is going horizontally, which is a mistake the programmers made (or they were limited to). They probably programmed the sweat to go down to the boxer’s feet but not the ground. It is funny, isn’t it? Besides that, they added some new punches and features to the game.

The New Punching System

In Fight Night 2004, you can throw jabs, hooks, uppercuts, signature punches and illegal punches. In Fight Night Round 2, they added haymakers. Now for Fight Night Round 3, we have haymakers, stun punches and even Flash KO punches. These new three punches are called impact punches because they are incredibly powerful but can be rather taxing on your boxer if you miss your opponent. The haymakers are stronger than jabs, hooks or uppercuts. The stun punches can suddenly turn the match into your favor, making your opponent stagger, and most notably the camera view changes to first person view (I can tell you it looks great). The Flash KO punches can get your opponent immediately to the danger zone.

The Effects

The effects are also great for Fight Night Round 3. If your nose is bleeding and you are healing yourself in your corner, you can hear your breathe and the blood will come out of your nose every time you breath. Once I punched my opponent with a left haymaker and his mouthpiece flipped out of his mouth! This shows how much effort was put forth into the game. If you or your opponent gets too damaged, however, he will be disqualified. This counts as a technical knockout, but you can shut this option off. However, we recommend to keep the realism in.

The New Features

There is also trash talking in the locker room (I don’t really like that part personally) but this is a new feature. A new game mode is called Hard Hits, there are 15 untimed rounds and a round will end if one of the fighters gets knocked down. It is simple; you just have to try to knock your opponent down on the ground as many times as possible. The one with the most knockdown wins the match. If you have a hard time playing the training games, you can practice it in Training (It should be in the Game Modes). Have you ever thought of creating a new fighter that’s looks like you? Fight Night Round 3 gives you the best opportunity to create a new fighter like never before. Be warned to never go online and face a customized character because usually they are impossible to defeat. Why not go online and make your boxer unstoppable?

The Tips

If you haven’t played any of the Fight Night games before, then I think it’s pretty hard at the beginning. If you are a beginner, I strongly believe you should go to Sparring in the Training section (I suggest you going through all the lessons before you start any of the fight). So just try to cover up your head and your body, and throw punches back. Never - and I mean never - throw punches without contact. It is going to waste your stamina and it will affect the power of your punches, plus exhaust your boxer and make him incredibly vulnerable. If you have a hard time winning, you can change the difficulty to Easy from Medium. If you still can’t win, then set the illegal punches Off and change your illegal punches from Head butt to Elbow Shot. Try to block your opponent’s punches as well as you can, when you see he is not covering his head, throw an elbow shot. Mind you, judges won't like this, and if you do not KO your opponent, the decision can easily go to the opponent. This is a dirty tactic and not recommended online. Soon, his right eye will be swelling and bleeding, and hopefully you will be able to KO or TKO him.

Critical reception

Official Xbox Magazine awarded Fight Night: Round 3 with a 10, the highest score ever given by the magazine .

G4 TechTV's Reviews on the Run's Victor Lucas stated that Round 3 had the best graphics he has ever seen on a video game.

The game has been criticized for its highly intrusive product placement. While brands for athletic apparel, such as Everlast and Under Armour are expected in a sports game, sponsorship by Dodge and Burger King is regarded as excessive. It won GameSpot's award as the game with "The Most Despicable Product Placement".

The career mode has also been criticized for lacking reality to boxing with a simplistic ladder to the top, taking on present and historic characters as well as made up boxers. The intelligence has also been called limited; for example, the game automates a rival during the path as an amateur boxer and throughout the career of the boxer. The player's fighter does not have a world ranking and world titles cannot be won, lost or unified, unless the player follows the automated progress.

Furthermore, the minigames are the same from the previous version, with the only alteration being the perspective from which they are viewed. Additionally, the Xbox 360 version has several flaws on what is essentially a modified version of Round 2 that include a cutman who warns of cuts before they can be remedied by the player; and issues with characters falling after being knocked out, such as the common glitch where a character's limbs are thrown around randomly after he hits the ground.

Another problem with the game is its low level of challenge from the AI. Various gaming websites (and other critics) that have reviewed the game thought that the AI was too easy.

Awards

• Received the IGN award for Best Offline Multiplayer on PlayStation 3 in 2006.[1]

Playable boxers

This is a list of all the playable boxers in Fight Night Round 3 (including unlockable boxers):

• Muhammad Ali
• Marco Antonio Barrera
• Calvin Brock
• Jesús Chávez
• Diego Corrales
• Oscar de la Hoya
• Roberto Duran
• Vicente Escobedo
• Joe Frazier
• Arturo Gatti
• Marvin Hagler
• Ricky Hatton
• Evander Holyfield
• Bernard Hopkins
• Roy Jones Jr.
• Jeff Lacy
• Jake LaMotta
• Juan Lazcano
• Sugar Ray Leonard
• Erik Morales
• Manny Pacquiao
• Floyd Patterson
• Sugar Ray Robinson
• Jermain Taylor
• James Toney
• Micky Ward
• Winky Wright
• Ko Rey Mo
• Goliath
• Eric Ogbogu (as "Big E")

External links

• Official website
• Fight Night: Round 3 at MobyGames (PSP version)
• Fight Night: Round 3 at MobyGames (All other versions)