Fight Night Round 2 (GameCube)

Page 2

Online play with Round 2 tends to be hit or miss. While the idea of taking your created fighter online and duking it out with strangers (or friends) is attractive, in execution, however, the mode tended to fall flat in our test sessions. Unfortunately, the controls are not as responsive online as they are in the single-player game. When you're fighting through the career mode, you get used to the snappy pace of your boxer and his instant reactions to any move you make in the game. This isn't the case online, as there seems to be a pause, however brief, in between the movement on the controller and your virtual fighter's response. Though the lag tends to be minimal, in a sport as dependent on timing as boxing, these pauses can be detrimental to the game experience.

Round 2's career mode is the deepest mode found in the game. You'll have two options in this mode: creating a new player from scratch or rebuilding the legend of one of the real boxers found in the game. You can even change the real fighter's fighting style and stance--remake Roberto Duran as a southpaw, or Joe Frazier as a speedster, for example. If you choose to create a boxer from scratch, you'll only have a certain number of points to distribute among attributes, such as power, speed, agility, heart, and cut recovery. Once created to your liking, your greenhorn boxer will start out in the amateur ranks, picking up fights as he can and earning a small purse for each win. The amateur ranks are essentially used to introduce the game's sparring/training mode, but you have the option to skip the amateurs and go straight to the pros if you desire.

The game's training mode is perhaps its weakest feature. You start off with the basics by landing several punch types in a row. As you progress, you'll be asked to practice dodging, parrying, and blocking blows. Unfortunately, the game doesn't describe how to pull these moves off in the training mode. Those new to the Fight Night series might find this confusing, because unless you consult the game's manual or get lucky with a loading screen that describes the controls for a particular move, you won't have any idea how to progress, except through trial and error. Furthermore, the career mode lacks a sparring feature. If you want to practice your parrying techniques in an unranked situation, you'll have to back out of the career mode altogether.

This doesn't mean that training can't be found in the pro ranks. In fact, you will be focusing your skills in a number of different areas, including heavy bag, combo dummy, and weight lifting (essentially minigames that concentrate on timing and pattern recognition). Each training sessions focuses on specific attributes, such as power or agility, and you'll need to spread your training time out to ensure you consistently improve all your boxer's stats. A nice graphical touch is the very obvious strides your boxer's physique will make in the early training sessions. Start your virtual boxer out as a flabby fatty and he'll quickly evolve into a carved-out-of-wood paragon of fighting fitness after only a few sessions.

Early in your pro career, you're able to leap up the ranks if you so choose, easily besting boxers that are three or more ranks ahead of you. Because your attributes improve after each prefight training session, however, it's probably smarter to take things slow in order to maximize your stats. You'll need every attribute maxed out as you approach the upper echelon of your weight class.

For each win you'll earn cash that can be spent in a number of different areas--from improved trainers and cut men to entrance music and effects and, yes, ring girls. You can also gear up in the fight store, choosing from a large selection of gloves, shoes, trunks, mouthpieces, and foul protectors. Noticeably missing from the gear assortment are robes, which don't play a part in your ring entrances. In fact, ring entrances in general don't have the same kind of flair found in the game's create-a-boxer feature. A more flexible ring entrance design tool--preferably one that supports custom soundtracks and selectable camera angles--would have been a welcome addition.

The further up you move on the rankings ladder, the less wiggle room you'll have for scheduling fights, because the difference between a fighter ranked three spots higher than you is noticeably different from the chump just ahead of you. As such, once you break the top 20, you'll find that your progress toward championship gold slows dramatically. Your opponents are generally stronger and quicker than you, and the artificial intelligence is much more doggedly aggressive and has the tendency not to back off, even if you land multiple combos. As such, if you don't have your defensive game well in hand--the blocking and parrying techniques in particular--you may quickly find yourself out of your league. This is our other gripe with Fight Night Round 2's gameplay. Early on, you focus so much on your offensive game, and you can easily overwhelm opponents (especially if you focus on power shots). You can also skate through the bottom half of the pro ladder, barely ducking or blocking a single punch. Defensive skills aren't needed early on, so what's the point in practicing them? By the time you start fighting opponents who refuse to back off even under heavy pressure, your lack of defense will come back to bite you. While we understand the point of "upping your game" as you reach the top of the pro ranks, we think that an addition of a "free spar" feature, used to avoid punches early in the game, for example, would have made for an easier transition.

Graphically, Round 2 features some of the most impressive player models found in sports gaming. Skin textures are amazingly lifelike and the models animate beautifully. The aforementioned punch animations are vicious and well executed, which is something you never tire of seeing and which never fails to elicit a grimace from passersby. Sweat flies with each landed punch and, in the case of power shots, you might see a spray of blood from your opponent's mouth. Because the boxers are the star of the Fight Night show, the player models of your entourage and ring card girls don't look nearly as intricately detailed. Plus, all of this quality modeling on the boxers means that the game's backgrounds will suffer. While there are a good variety of arenas in which to fight--Staples Center, the grungy 65 Lower Flushing, and the glamorous Hisako Ballroom among them--most seem poorly lit and lacking in detail. The same is true for the ringside crowd, which is barely noticeable most of the time.

From a sound standpoint, Round 2 is solid, if unremarkable. Some noticeable improvements have been made, including a new ringside announcer, ESPN and Fox boxing analyst Joe Tessitore, who is a marked improvement over the horrible Big Tigger from the previous game. While Tessitore's commentary is enthusiastic and more professional sounding, his calls can be vague, especially when describing missed punches. While your ringside trainer will give you advice in between rounds--while you're busy healing cuts and reducing swelling using the game's new cutman feature--his commentary is pretty limited and sometimes directly contradicts itself. One second you just had a "great round" and the next you're going to need to "get it together" if you hope to have a chance in the fight. EA Trax rears its ugly head again with a mix of hip-hop tunes that, though limited in scope, certainly fit the boxing vibe. But perhaps more so than any other EA Sports title, the Fight Night series begs for custom soundtracks.

Beyond some important feature distinctions, there is little difference between the three console versions of Round 2. Graphically, the PlayStation 2 version of the game holds its own against both the Xbox and GameCube versions, and all three console controllers work fine with the game. The small C-stick on the GameCube controller, combined with its eight-point articulation, might require some practice to use, especially if you've played Fight Night 2004 on a different console (but it's generally not a big deal). Load times are prevalent on all three versions, but it's only ugly on the PS2 version of the game. As you might expect, online play is only enabled for the Xbox and PS2 versions, but GameCube owners should not feel slighted, as they've got the benefit of the full SNES version of Super Punch-Out!! to play when realistic boxing action just doesn't cut it anymore. Little Mac, star of Super Punch-Out!!, is also an unlockable character in the GameCube version of Round 2.

There's a lot to like about Fight Night Round 2, most obviously a deep and involving boxing mechanic that allows you to be creative in your approach to the fistic arts. As a sequel to the well-received Fight Night 2004, the game improves on many aspects of its predecessor and ends up as one that will continually challenge your skills the longer you play it. Even though online play should be more responsive, you can still attract anyone looking to mix it up on the Internet. There's still room for improvement to the Fight Night series, but it only leaves us eager to see what comes next.

See more CNET content tagged:

opponent,

Electronic Arts Inc.

Where to buy

Fight Night Round 2 (GameCube): $7.75 - $19.99

store	price	in stock?	rating
	$19.99	Yes
	$7.75	Yes

see prices from 2 stores

Compare prices for Fight Night Round 2

	Amazon.com	$19.99
	Glyde	$7.75