If there’s one thing that’s a particular shortcoming of the game it has to be
the incredibly long load times. I haven’t seen loading issues like these outside
of PSP games. It’s not just the wait time between modes; it’s the time it takes
to load graphics while on selection screens. Designing the look of your own
boxer for the career mode is painful as you need to wait a while to load each
graphic for each and every option. For example, when selecting a hairstyle,
you’ll have to wait for the graphics to load each time you scroll to a new
hairstyle. When selecting fighters, arenas, or anything else, it will take a
while for the proper graphic to load and be displayed. It’s annoying and
frustrating and definitely cuts into your enjoyment of the game.
As for the game modes, you can jump right into the ring by selecting a pair
of pugilists from a long list of boxing greats from Mohammed Ali to Oscar De La
Hoya. In career mode you can create your own boxer or choose a famous fighter
and see if you can match his rise to the top. The career mode is probably the
most enjoyable mode and the one in which you’ll be spending most of your time.
Your fighter is rated in a number of categories such as speed, power, and
stamina and you’ll begin with a pool of points to distribute among these
categories to customize your fighter. As you progress through your career you’ll
have the opportunity to train between fights which takes the form of various
mini games with free weights or punching bags. The mini games are OK – fun at
times but eventually feeling repetitive. You can automate the training sessions,
but to get the maximum possible benefits from the training you’ll need to do it
yourself. The career mode basically consists of a training session followed by a
fight, repeated until you decide to retire your fighter. It may not be deep, but
it is fun to watch your fighter improve and move up the rankings and to pour
over your fight statistics.
What really sets the game apart from most other boxing and fighting games is
its emphasis on boxing smart. You need to actively block and dodge your
opponent’s punches while looking for opportunities to counter and take advantage
of openings when they present themselves. You can’t button-mash (or hit stick
rotate) your way to a win, and a smarter fighter will always win out over one
that tries to brute force his way to victory. The CPU is particularly adept at
making you pay for taking the wrong approach, and if you try you’ll find
yourself unable to land any punches and will soon thereafter be flat on your
back and looking at the ceiling. And you can expect this whole process to
proceed much faster when you’re online boxing a human opponent. Speaking of
online play, you can take your career boxer online after he’s retired, or create
an entirely new boxer for online play. The online play supports both ranked and
unranked matches as well as full stat-tracking and online leaderboards.
I can’t count myself as a fan of professional boxing, but I did find Fight
Night 3 to be very enjoyable. I liked the challenge of needing to fight smart to
win, and found that this made the game far more engaging to me than other fight
games. Even if you’re not a fan of fighter games I encourage you to give Fight
Night Round 3 a try. You just may find yourself pleasantly surprised that you
are enjoying a fight game.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
85%. Fight Night Round 3 is a winner by unanimous
decision.
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