Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Review of Fight Night 2004

Fight Night 2004
Customer Ratings: 4.5 stars
List Price: $19.99
Sale Price: $15.98
Today's Bonus: 20% Off
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This game is A+. By far, the best boxing game out and I've played them all. Don't be scared by the total punch control. It takes all but an hour or two to get a feel for it and it is so much more rewarding than button mashing your buttons so that you need a new controller every month.

Career mode is indepth. You start out with 4 fights a year, then down to 3 and so on until retirement. You have your choice of opponents and in some cases you will be presented the opportunity to schedule a fight against someone that is much higher ranked or lower ranked than you. Purses are realistic and increase as your ranking improves. The level of realistic difficulty is back and so is strategy. No more automatic first round KO's by going in and just punching non stop. If you try to do that here, you'll find yourself out of steam quick and needing to recharge and block punches to regain it. This game is not easily mastered overnight like Knockout Kings, or HBO boxing.

Use your money earned to buy different clothing, equipment, entrance gimmicks liky pyrotechnics, entourage (women in skimpy clothing that lead you into the ring). There is so much to this game. Before each fight, you will schedule a bout first. Next, you train. There are 4 different rotating training sessions.

1. Heavy Bag

2. Sparring

3. Combo Dummy

4. Hitting the Mitts

You will only be allowed to do one per fight and depending on your success...you will be given attribution points to improve your fighter. Note: Each session allows you to improve on 2 attribution categories. There are 8 total...IE. Power, speed, stamina, body, chin, heart, agility, cuts:

After training, you will go fight your fight. You can spend money on new attire, equipment etc in between fights. You can view your rankings, in depth rankings of other fighters. There are tons of unlockables that you will unlock as you win bigger fights opening up new sig punches, attires, entrance music, et in the fight store.

After each year, awards are given out and you will see a list of fighters that retired, which will be replaced obviously by fresh ones.

In between rounds, various stats will be shown, and they are different from round to round. Three judges score on the 10 point must system.

Last comment: Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but take my word for it, the soundtrack is not that annoying nor is the announcer. It gets old after awhile, but you would have to be nuts to not buy a great boxing game because you don't like hip hop. Trust me, neither do I! If you play any video game long enough the music gets old. Sorry If I jumped around a bit, but I wanted to give you as much detail as I could. If you are a die hard boxing fan, this is a must.

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I just put five dollars down to reserve the game and received a free demo disk. I have played the demo disk a total of 40 minutes and here are my observations.

First I cannot totally judge the game because the demo has inverted controls (move your stick to the right and the boxer moves left)and a close-up angle, plus it only allows a two round fight with double time. I am always perplexed as to why they screw you on a demo since ultimatley it will be the thing which may cause you to buy the game. I wish the options to change view as well as undo the invert were activated. I can see someone playing this demo for 5 minutes and giving up before truly understanding the game..just ridiculous.

That said, the mechanics of the new engine were my real area of interest. As someone who first got into videogames simply due to hoping for a great boxing game (I fell in love with 4D Boxing for the PC back in the early 90s, which is the best boxing game ever created), this game represented a hope for me after the horrid Knockout Kings 2002 in which EA produced a generic button masher with a career mode that resembles something you would find in Tecken.(I should add that Knockout Kings 2001 on PS2 is actually an awesome game that any boxing fan should purchase.)

Well, my first 10 or so rounds were spent trying to figure out the use of the total punch control. This uses one of the analog sticks as the means to throw all the punches (you can also use the buttons if you are traditional). Pushing the stick to the upper left throws a left jab. Pushing to the upper right throws a straight right. Throwing hooks, uppercuts and body blows are more complicated (the demo had no instructions)but as I played I found them to suddenly become more intuitive. The demo allows you to be either Roy Jones or James Toney with the other boxer being your opponent. I am not sure of the difficulty level, but I have not actually gotten the better of my opponent yet. But, as I have played I have begun doing better and that really gives you a sense of learning the game.

So what do I think of the new system? Well, the punching is so precise that you can bring back the ctick to throw a hook, hold the punch until your opponent throws a shot, and then time your counter. My timing still needs work, but it is very evident that this new engine will soon become so intuitive that you will truly feel like you have total control. This is the first boxing game in which counter punchers can win a fight. I am very interested in playing as Winky Wright as I feel this type of control is perfect for him.

I have to admit to being skeptical on the new total control system, thinking that not using any buttons would be awkward and less fluid. I was totally wrong. In fact, in one fight I went back to using the buttons (each is assigned a punch like in previous games)and felt much more awkward. It was simply amazing how fast the new control won me over.

So I am very happy to report (after the disastrous KO Kings 2002) EA is back in the boxing business. Rather that simply giving us a generic boxing game they have created a product which truly make beomce a landmark in boxing video games. I have to stress I have not played the final product, and do not know how good the career mode is, but based on my initial tests I would reccomend this game to anyone interested in a game in which you actually have to think and not button mash. Very impressive!

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You know...there IS something cathartic about beating the stew out of someone. One of the great things about this game is there's no threat of a civil suit!

EA Sports continues to dominate the sports sim genre with this entry. I'll confess I'm an "old" gamer (started with Pong and grew up on Defender & Asteroids--though Dig Dug was my masterpiece), but I really enjoyed the entirely new concept of joystick-only controls. I find it far more intuitive and is better than being out-mashed (as in "button mashing") by my son who's memorized the triangle/circle/triangle...etc. secret code.

My son & I get a great laugh out of beating one another without actually resorting to physical blows. We can talk thru an issue, taunt one another, knock each other out, and get up with nary a scratch or bruise. Some of you out there may not consider the Sweet Science to be father-and-son fodder...so don't buy it.

Highly recommended. While I agree with some other reviewers regarding the paucity of Big Name boxers, EA probably saved us each $5 by not having to pay hefty endorsement fees. If you don't like that Hector is missing, you can always make him yourself with 100's across the board.

Definitely a knockout!

Honest reviews on Fight Night 2004

I'm in afghanistan and belived or not this game is our real pay per view here, is a great game to enjoy with friends.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Fight Night 2004

Fight Night can be alot of fun, but it's certainly not the best boxing sim I have ever seen.

I actually still prefer KO Kings 2001, to this game. KO King 2001 had clinching, 4 types of cheat punches, realistic cuts, realistic fighter entrance music, realistic commentary(From Teddy Atlas and Max Kellerman), and realistic and fun special punches...

Fight Night just isn't a realistic boxing sim. Cuts open way too easy, there is no clinching, the commentary from Big Tiger is horrible. Whoever decided to hire Big Tigger instead of real boxing commentators should be beaten with a crowbar.

This game is overrated, but for good reason. EA's last 2 boxing games were horrible. Fight Night is certainly a step back in the right direction.

I sold my copy of Fight Night. It just gets boring after a while. I am going to wait for FN 2005. If EA doesn't have Big Tigger, I will probably purchase the game....

Graphics=4.5

Commentary and Music=2

Control=5

Fun Factor=4

Replay value=3.5

Total=3.8

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