Fight Night Round 4

With the soaringly high standards EA set with Fight Night Round 3 almost three years ago, it's hard to imagine how they could one-up themselves. In essence, the predecessor of Fight Night Round 4 is its biggest competitor, but the new champ manages to one-up its lineage in almost all areas, which is no small feat considering the near-perfection of the last game.

The high production values, stunning visuals and deep-yet-accessible gameplay have all been taken a step further, making the game almost an overall improvement. To start off, the visuals are absolutely spellbinding - character models of each boxer are much more detailed, animations are far more fluid, and our biggest gripe with the last game - clipping issues where you'd see phantom punches every now and then - have been ironed out to a large extent. Overall the game looks and feels far tighter than the last.

Even the gameplay's ultra-crisp, and the acclaimed 'total punch control' system has become notably more responsive than Round 3. For those of you who've been knocked on the head one too many times, or have not played the last game, let me re-iterate what the system's all about. Total punch control, as the name suggests, gives you control of your character to a very large degree, allowing you to use the two analog sticks in conjunction with the Left and Right Triggers to do everything from punch with each arm, dodge incoming blows, parry and counter, and shuffle around the ring. The system worked brilliantly in the last game, as it does in this one.

The one major flaw in design in Round 4, is that the game's button punch control has been completely scrapped. In the last game, those who weren't fond of total punch control could use the face buttons of the controller to exchange blows - you cannot do that in Fight Night Round 4 and are pretty much restricted to total punch control. Why EA would scrap such a fundamental feature and alienate heaps of fans is beyond me, but all I can say is that it's a terrible decision and I sure hope they manage to fix it via an update. What makes matters worse is the gameplay can get really tough right from the start, since each opponent offers a significant challenge. No pushovers here!