I have been there for the first three rounds of this game and, if this series goes the distance, I'm sure I will be there for all twelve rounds as well. However, this series is always looking like it is running out of gas and getting tired. What I mean is, with each installment there just doesn't seem to be enough new content being added, improved, or changed. It is still at the top in the boxing game world, they just need to improve more on what was already a title holder.

When you first load up the game everything will look pretty familiar if you played previous installments in this series. The basic game modes are here as you can just pick up the gloves in a quick match and pit any two fighters against one another no matter of weight class, play in a pretty long Career Mode, play an ESPN Classic mode, or go on line. The only thing new here is the ESPN Classic mode which lets you relive some of the greatest rivalries in boxing history. For example, Ali vs Frazier, Gatti vs Ward, or Robinson Vs Lamotta. This can be done anyway in a quick match by just putting these boxers in a match but, they tried to make this a little special by giving you a very brief history of the two fighters rivalry. They did not spend a lot of time here though as once the history lesson is over you go to the fight and it is exactly the same as any other match. To me if they wanted to make it a classic atmosphere, the venue you fight in should look more like it did when they fought and a little more explaining in the history lesson. This mode just lacks the feel they were trying to accomplish. You can unlock items doing fights in this mode though.

There is one different type of match introduced this year called a "Hard Hit" fight. This game type does not involve timed rounds. Instead, and round continues until one fighter is knocked down. This continues until a boxer can't get up anymore. These are even used a little in career mode add a little different option to the game play.

Career Mode 3.5/5
Career mode is where you will see some notable changes in its structure this time around. You can create your own boxer or use a legend to begin a career with as with the previous titles. You will start as an amateur and have to fight your way to the professional ranks. In last years game once you made it to the pro ranks you became the 50th ranked boxer and slowly worked up the rankings with each win. Not this year, there is no ranking system it is all about the popularity of your boxing. With each win your popularity gauge fills and once full you fight a special contract fight such has a title fight or a sponsored fight. Win this fight and you move to the next tier. There are certain fights to watch for (like hard hit bouts or fighting a legend) that will increase your popularity a little faster.

When you first start off as an amateur the fights are extremely easy not matter how good your boxer is and you can get to a pro ranking in four fights. They will always give you one fight to boost your popularity and suggest using it. You will have choice to sign a contract between three different fighters usually (sometimes you are forced to fight a certain opponent). I usually choose the fighter with the best ranking as it will give you a little more boost to popularity. I also try and pick contracts that offer bouts faster so your boxer gets more fights in before age becomes an issue. After you sign a contract you will be given a choice to train your boxer. These are mini-games that will improve certain aspects of your fighter and you will loose a little in the areas not trained on for that fight. The three mini-games are the heavy bag which builds up your chin, body, cuts, and heart. The weight-lifting will increase your power, stamina, heart, and cuts. Then there is the combo dummy which increases your speed agility, chin, and body. Each mini-game is pretty simple and get a little harder as your boxer improves in that area. You can skip this however and what will do is, give you only half of the full mount of upgrade for that training game. Do this only if you wan to speed up your career play. After you sign a contract and train it is off to the fight. You can change your boxer throughout your career anytime you want before a fight. You can change your styles, buy better equipment, or change the settings.

The only other notable change this year is the introduction to rivalries. As you play through your career you will make one main rival opponent that you will face often. There is nothing that this does really except you see a really dumb cut-scene of a weigh in before the fights and your rival will throw illegal punches during the fight. This has no baring in your actual career unless you like beating on the same guy over and over again. Or at the end of your career your rival and your fighter will be available to fight in the ESPN Classic mode. In all, the career mode is not incredibly in-depth and may not please everyone. I believe it better than years past and think that it is going in the right direction. i do expect a lot more though next round (if there is one).

Controls & Game Play 4/5
The basic controls of the game have not changed and that is a good thing. The Total Punch Control is back and works as good as ever. Anyone that has some experience with this game will be able too jump right and throw your combos with ease. If you are new to this series the Total Punch Control will take a little time to get used to. however, this is not a tedious process and you should dropping boxers in no time. The way this works is, you control you boxer around the ring with the left analog stick while you throw punches with the right. You throw jabs by tapping the left stick to the top right or left depending on which hand you want to use. Hooks are thrown by moving the stick in a quarter-circle in the either direction and uppercuts are a half-circle rotation. You can throw a hay maker by rotating the stick even further before releasing it but, this takes more time and may give your opponent a change to block leaving you wide open. You must time these well to be successful. The left thumb stick, besides controlling your movement, is used to avoid punches as well. Holding the right trigger while moving moving the right analog stick controls your guard and what part of your body you want to block. So if you opponent throws a right hook you can press the hold the right trigger and move the right stick to the up left to parry the punch. This will throw your opponent off guard and give you time to counter. This may sound a little confusing or hard but it really isn't. You just let go of the trigger and move the right stick again for the punch you wish to throw. The left trigger is used if you want to throw a body shot instead. Just hold this down right before you throw the punch. This is the only part that can seem a little unresponsive at times and you throw a hard shot when you wanted a body shot. This does not happen to often but occasionally can cause trouble. You can clinch, throw illegal blows, and taunt as well. Once you play more and get the controls down you won't have much trouble at all.

The major difference in the entire game is the introduction of "Impact Punches". There are two of these and they are the Flash KO and Stun Punch. These punches will take some practice to get down. The Flash KO is performed by rotating the right analog stick 3/4 circle (not a 1/2 like a hook) then rotating it back to same spot you would start from the throw a hook. This will instantly put your opponent in a daze and give you a chance to knock them down regardless of where their health was when you landed the punch. And the Stun Punch is done the same way except when you bring the analog stick you rotate it to point straight up (completely follow through with the punch). This will send your opponent into a defensive posture (a human player will have to play in first person mode real quick) and is much harder to defend. One good solid punch will send them to the mat. This punch is so much fun to do to a human player and you can just feel their anger. Both of these pouches are hard to land and are best thrown as a counter punch to a worn out boxer that has less time to react.

The game play is pretty much in the controls but, there are a couple of other things notable. Besides dishing out punishment you will also receive some of course. The cut-man mini-game is back in round 3 and is improved. In between rounds to try and get rid of some of that pain you just have to rotate the right analog stick in half turns following what you see on screen. This is simplified since you only have to worry about two areas instead of four and saves the thumb some hurt. You can skip this and let the computer heal you but, that will be about half of what you can do. And if your fighter eyes get to swollen it will be much harder to defend against punched on that side and if he a really bad cut the damage on that side from each punch is doubled. The training mini-games are also controlled by the analog sticks. Doing the heavy-bag, it will either ask for head shots or body blows. You just throw as many jab combos as you can while that section is blinking. The weigh-lifting is using both sticks to lift the weights and stop them in the desired zone. The more you get right the smaller the zone gets. And the combo-dummy is a Simon Said style game. It will ask you for a punch and you repeat. The more you get right the more punches it will as to throw in the same combo. In any of these mini-games if you fail it will just restart and you start over. These are not hard the only difficulty is the better your boxes gets in career mode the points you must accumulate in each one in order to benefit fully.

The only complaint I have with the game play is that the AI could be harder at times. I played this game a lot on line against human opponents and got pretty dang good. After that, the computer started to bore me. Even on hard mode I really didn't see much of a difference on the AI's fighting style. Early on in career they don't throw enough punches at you so you can just over-whelm them with punches. This works until you get to the height of your career and fight top-notch opponents. Then some boxes will throw without regard for themselves making you play solid defense. I have found a few ways to kind of fix this, one is to just have patience through your career until you face off against much better opponents. Second is to fight against a weight class two or three classes above yours. This gives them a lot more punching power and you will do a lot less damage to them. You will really notice the difference. Third, drop in weight class in career mode as soon as you can to make it tougher and fight well into your fifties when all of your stats drop incredibly fast after each fight now matter how many training games you play. If you fight just a quick match or an ESPN Classic fight your opponent will throw a lot of punches just make sure the game is on hard they do more damage. This is only when you get the game down good and ready for a good challenge.

One more thing about the controls, you may notice your thumbs getting rather soar after a long stretch of play. If this happens, you can always change the control configurations to where you can use the buttons to throw punches. You can't throw haymakers, or the new Impact Punches, and it is tougher to lay down a four or five hit combo. This will save on the thumb however and you still can use the right analog if you want even with this configuration to throw the devastating punches. I found myself doing this a lot during extended on line play while fighting easier opponents.

Graphics 5/5
The series has not done much to improve in this area but, it is still one of the best looking games on the Xbox. The player models are as realistic as ever and the boxing legends in the game look extremely accurate. There are six game venues in the game and most look great and were well put together. A couple like the Warehouse and the Boxing-Gym look as if they just hurried up and through them together. The Staples Center and Madden Square Garden look great though. The game still feature the cut scenes between rounds showing off some of the round highlights and the instant reply of a knockdown punch. Both of these look amazingly real and give the game a more life realism to it. Especially the knockdown punch reply where you really get a close up of the glove connecting to the face shooting off blood and sweat of it's victim. Even to the detail of making recipient of the punches face get distorted in slow-motion. The close ups of the fighters in their corners in between rounds look great as well being able to see the sweat and heavy breathing from the fighters getting more and heavier as the rounds go on and on. And the bruising and cuts getting worse and worse also are fantastic. There is nothing to say wrong about anything that has to do with the player models and the rings themselves. They just didn't put enough attention to the other little aspects shown throughout the game like the ring girl and the crowd. This is to bad cause this game could very well the best looking game on the Xbox if they had.

The only small complaints I have is there is a little hiccup in the graphics when a boxer changing up his blocks. This is more noticeable when you first start playing the game but, the more rounds you put under your belt the less you will even notice it. The other complaint I have is the way the crowd looks. Usually this is not that big of a deal with me but, for a game that put as much time into making all off the player models look so realistic I think they could have put a little effort into this part. The crowd is the worse you will probably see as they are honestly cardboard cut outs. And the scary part is they look don't as good as a game in the early 1980's and they show close ups sometimes especially in the Gym venue.

Create-A-Boxer 4/5
Creating boxers can be fun and you can spend some time here if you get into changing the shape of your face/head. This is complex-ed and you can have some fun with it letting you create the most hideous or realistic fighter that you can imagine. I made a couple of pretty freaky looking guys that I used on line that I got some laughs at. Especially my skeleton head. However, the nice thing is, that this year you can go back and change the shape anytime you want. In last years version this was not an option and once you created your boxer you could not change the face/head. Other than that, it is pretty straight foreword. You put your stat points in as a percentage from 0% to 100%. You get unlimited amount of stat points to put into your created boxer but, that doesn't mean all of the stats you put in will show up the same once he starts to fight. For example, if you make a heavy weight and put in 100% in his speed and agility this won't be true when you do a match. The most a heavy weight can have in these two categories is 80%. This tries to keep a little balance in the weight classes and a nice change from last year. This works the same down the line in different weight classes. You can choose your fighting style, signature moves, taunts, illegal punches, tattoos, and any unlocked equipment you want on the boxer. This is not all that in depth but, with the addition to a lot more fighting styles and more equipment to choose from this years version is better than the first two installments of the game.

Sound 4.5/5
All of the sound effects in the game are also done extremely well and help give the game that realistic feel you want in a sports title. Hearing the snap of the gloves and your boxing grunting with every punch sounds great. Especially if you are throwing a lot of punches in a row and start to tire your grunts will have a much more stressful tone to them. Hearing the bone crunching sounds when a heavy punch landed or even the whip of a jab to the face are outstanding. And when that knockdown reply plays and you hear the crunch of a teeth rattling punch unseating your opponent to the mat really gives the game life. All the way to hearing the spit and blood flying out of the mouth as your opponent when he goes down. Joe Tessitore is your ring announcer and does a good enough job calling the fight. The punch by punch calling is great but, of course, you hear him repeat himself way to often when it comes to talking about the fighters themselves throughout the fight. It Seems every sport game has this problem and they just don't give the announcer enough things to talk about. The music is my only real complaint. There are only a handful of hip-hop style songs and they will repeat so often you will get sick of them. You can always mute them if you wish.

On line
As far as I know at the time of this review there is no more on line for this game. If this has changed please let me know. That is to bad because it was actually a lot of fun. You could do a quick match and just play the boxer that is available. Or you could do an optiMatch and select your own settings looking for players with that will accept them. This was a great way to find boxers within your rank for a better fight. It also kept track of a lot of stats like your record in weight class, overall ranking, what titles belts you own on line, and more. You could also allow to play with your created boxer if you wished. I spent a lot of hours and soar thumbs getting my ranking high on here and then poof there was no more on line.

Conclusion
I would recommend this game to anyone of any age. The learning curve of this game is not very hard and you will learn how to play in no time. Even thoughEA Sports Fight Night series has no real competition out there in the gaming world they do put out a solid game (especially the visuals). There may not be a lot change the third time around the game has stayed true with solid game play, a good size single player mode, and great visuals. You probably won't spend tons of time playing this game it is a good game just to throw in sometimes and get some frustrations on beating the crap of the computer.

Thank you for reading.

A quick breakdown of the real-life boxers that are in the game.
Muhammad Ali
Marco A. Barrera
Clavin Brock
Jesus Chavez
Diego Corrales
Oscar De La Hoya
Roberto Duran
Vincente Escobedo
Joe Frazier
Arturo Gatti
Marvin Hagler
Ricky Hatton
Evander Holyfield
Bernard Hopkins
Roy Jones Jr.
Jeff Lacy
Jake Lamotta
Juan Lazcano
Ray Leonard
Erik Morales
Manny Pacquiao
Floyd Patterson
Ray Robinson
Jermaine Taylor
James Toney
Micky Ward
Winky Wright

Please check out some of my other sport game reviews
Fire Pro Wrestling Returns
MLB The Show 2007 
Smackdown Vs. Raw 2007:
Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010:
WrestleMania 21

Recommended: Yes