Fight Night Round 4 Review (PS3)

Fight Night Round 4 takes the winning formula of its predecessor and builds a great sequel upon it. Faster, harder hitting, and prettier, Fight Night Round 4 is a real contender. But, like all great fighters, it has a couple of week points. Luckily Fight Night Round 4 hits hard enough in all other areas to more than compensate.

The sweet science of Boxing is lost on the casual observer. The conscious balance of endurance, pain, punches thrown, training and strategy all come together to create an elegant dance. A dance with extremely large men trying to pulverize each other, but a dance none the less.

Fight Night Round 4 captures the feel, strategy, and aesthetics of boxing almost perfectly. Players will put thought behind every punch thrown, and there will be a lot of them. Perhaps the most visible improvement over the previous Fight Night is the ability to throw a lot more punches in a round, and the swings look far less scripted. Natural and fast, Fight Night Round 4 is one fun fight.

Not every fight is a fair one, however. For some reason the AI fighters are slow on the draw. While they fight more realistically than the average player, it' easy to get twice as many punches in, tipping the scales drastically in the favor of the human combatant. And while the career mode is deep and compelling, the aging of your boxer doesn't balance well with his need to train and rest, making the experience feel more like training an "almost" as opposed to a contender.

Fight Night Round 4 shines brightest when you play with another person. Online or head to head on the couch, the thrill of a Japanese fighting game is here, but overlaid with the realism of an American Sports sim.

The title screen fight of Ali vs. Tyson showcases the strength of Fight Night Round 4. Fast, visceral, and full of fantasy, this is the fighting game to have handy when gamers come to visit. AI fighters don't throw enough online is great career/legacy mode almost too realistic, minigame madness and fighters age too quickly