Fighting games haven’t really changed since they first appeared in arcades oh so many years ago. Generally there’s a number of buttons, and by hitting these buttons in different combinations, you cause damage to the other player. Fight Night 2004 from EA Games seeks to address this by introducing a concept called “total punch control”. This new concept is certainly inventive as well as being a lot of fun; the rest of the game is a bit of a let down.

First things first, let us look as Total Punch Control. This innovation takes the form of taking the buttons out of the equation and using the second joystick to control your punches. You might not think that’s too clever, especially when a game like Grabbed by the Goulies uses a similar fighting tactic, but total punch control takes it to another level. Using the right joystick readies your boxer for a punch. Pushing forward and left does a left jab, and pushing forward and right does a right jab. Moving the joystick left or right, then pushing forward swings the boxers arm out for a hook. Moving the joystick toward back left or right, then pushing forward performs uppercuts.

Along with this, squeezing the right trigger and moving the right joystick allows for blocks. Using the left trigger, you can also wave and bob out of the way of incoming punches. Holding the left trigger and punching with the right joystick performs a body punch. Finally, the black button performs the signature move, and white performs the illegal headbutt or groin jab. It sounds very complicated, and whilst at first it feels a little awkward, it’s meant to simulate the actions of real boxers.

After a while you find the action becomes quite natural, and you can work up quite a rhythm punching and blocking. When all of these manoeuvres are used in conjunction, it amounts to quite an impressive, flowing battle. Timing has always been everything in boxing games, and this is no exception. Duck an incoming blow, throw a left hook to the body, followed by a right hook to the head, and throw in a left uppercut for good measure. Block a punch right, and you can throw a mean follow-up counterpunch. It does work very well, but for those totally uncoordinated there’s the option to use the face buttons for punching, but Total Punch Control is always available even in this mode.

Furthermore, the game is enhanced by its realistic health system. Throw too many punches, and your stamina decreases, and the power of your punches decreases. Getting hit in the head does more damage than being hit in the body, although a kidney punch does more damage than a blow to the arm. This brings a much more authentic feel to the game, making it less of a button masher and more of a realistic representation of boxing, without the weight training and black eyes. More realism comes in the form of cuts and bruises, flying blood, and a wealth of real life fighters from today and yesterday, such as Erik Morales, Roy Jones Jr., Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, Joe Frazier, Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali. All of these are available during Career Mode, so you might get Ali facing Jones for example. Not exactly true to life, more of a “fantasy draft” if you will.

If your favourite boxer isn’t featured, the create-a-boxer feature is more than good enough to get you the fighter you’re after. Choosing weight, height, fighting stance, facial features and even tattoos will allow you to craft nearly any boxer you can think of (apart from foxy boxers… sorry, this is a boys only club!) There’s also rag doll physics, which kick in with the knockout punch. The one who is knocked out literally goes weak at the knees and wobbly falls to the floor. More often than not you can keep hitting your opponent as they slide to the floor, and it’s especially brutal if you’ve got them in the corner or on the ropes, as you can almost feel every bang of the ropes on their broken heads.

However, the game is let down by a poor career mode, average graphics and a terrible, terrible soundtrack. The single player Career mode is almost a joke. You earn money and unlock certain things, but they’re all irrelevant. Clothing, gloves and protective devices are mostly the same, just different colours, and the signature moves and taunts are rarely used, and not at all if the face buttons are configured to punch. Most of the other unlockables are for the entrance animation, such as your entourage (chicks in bikinis), music and effects. After you’ve seen it for the first few times, you want to get into the fight and simply skip it by pressing a button. There are also only six arenas to unlock too. And in a weird move by EA Sports, you’re forced to retire at the age of 40. What ever happened to the geriatric featherweight division?

Choosing anything but heavy weight causes matches to be long and drawn out, becoming a battle of stamina and wit rather than brute force, much like real life. Whilst this may be more realistic, it turns into a battle of YOUR stamina, as matches in career mode consist of 3-minute rounds and can last for 15 rounds… 45 minutes in one fight is a cheap way of extending gameplay in my mind, and there’s hardly any knockouts in the lighter divisions. This is made even more apparent in two-player mode, where battles can last as long as you set the timer and rounds for.

The graphics of the boxers and the six different arenas are quite good. Light reflects off the canvas, and some of the later arena’s look quite pretty. But these don’t really tax the Xbox at all, and compared to something like DOA3 it looks nearly second rate. The real time blood, cuts and bruises look great, but we’ve seen it before in Mortal Kombat and Tao Feng. The crowd, although rendered in 3D, has the same looped animations and they look to suffer from a bad frame rate, although the action in the ring itself remains steady.

Another let down graphics wise are the fighters themselves. Although they all look different, due to the robust fighter creation system, they’re all essentially the same model with the same moves. For example, watch Ali or Frazier fight in real life, and you can see they’re totally different sorts of fighters who move differently, hold their weight differently, and punch differently. In the game, the only differences between fighters are the stance and the fact that some fighters (Ali for instance) move faster.

Sound wise, the fighters are again quite well done, and the sound of the harder hits will make you wince. The sickening thud of the knockout blow is very satisfying, especially as you near the top position in your career. However, the commentating gets quite repetitive and boring. Sure, it’s boxing, and how much can you really say about a punch, but listen to classic boxing commentators like Howard Cosell or Col. Bob Sheridan or even Larry Merchant, all who have got an excellent range and make boxing exciting. Luckily the commentating fades out as you or your opponent get closer to being knocked out, replaced by a thumping heartbeat that amps up the tension dramatically. In Fight Night 2004, you’ve got a “street” mentality as you work your way from owning nothing and fighting at the Apollo Gym, and this is reflected in the “ghetto” style music, and quite frankly it sucks. P-diddy, Nelly, and a heap of wannabes do awful “rap”, and it makes me think the custom soundtrack feature should be legally REQUIRED in all future EA games. What’s even worse is there’s only about 10 tracks, so you’ll hear them again and again and again.

Conclusion:
It appears as all the effort of Fight Night 2004 went into the boxing controls, and everything else was added as an afterthought. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing: boxing is all about hitting the other guy hard, and any realistic representation that seeks to move away from the plain old button mashing so common to boxing games should be applauded. But the unlockables aren’t really worth it, adding nothing at all to the gameplay, and unless you’re a hardcore player who likes to get 100% of everything then I don’t see many people playing beyond a season, apart from the multi-player.

Pros:
+ Outstanding and innovative representation of boxing moves
+ Fantastic realistic damage. Feel, hear and see the bumps, bruises and blood
+ Excellent range of boxers to fight as or against, and a robust create-a-boxer

Cons:
– Career Mode feels rather empty, with unlockables that add nothing to gameplay and forced retirement at age 40.
– Lightweight divisions take too long to play through.
– Average graphics on the crowd.
– Awful soundtrack and very repetitive commentary.

Score: 78/100