Saturday morning was interesting to say the least.
I found out I was an African American named Andre Bishop. That was surprise enough. Then I was thrown immediately into a bare-knuckle prison brawl (which I barely survived.) After that I got my ass whooped by some racists in a prison shower room.
Thank God the R-Rated scene faded out before it went into X-Rated territory.
For Andre Bishop it was not a good morning.
For me, assuming the role of Andre Bishop while playing Fight Night Champion I was having a blast.
First of all I never intended on doing a write-up for this game. I told my wife to get it for me for my birthday in May. By then I figured anything I’d write about FNC would be old news.
Judi sprang this game on me four days after its release to get my mind off the frustrations of book promoting. Frustration is: sending over a hundred personalized messages to media outlets, having only two reply with answers of the ‘Thanks but no thanks’ variety.
But I got to knock some teeth loose last weekend. That definitely helped burn off some steam.
Video games are great for burning off tension. Vicarious violence lets you experience things you’d never experience in the real world. Violent video games are no more dangerous than the toy machine guns that we used to run around with when I was a kid. Only extreme idiots don’t know the difference between what’s real and what’s not. Extreme idiots don’t need video games to teach them how to be dangerous. They’re stupid enough to do that all by themselves.
I’m rambling on, so let’s get back to the game.
The Champion or story mode is something new to Boxing games. Maybe it’s been done before but this is the first time I’ve seen it and I like it.
What’s good in the story mode is unfortunately what’s bad about the sport of Boxing. I’m only about half way through the story. I’ve already encountered crooked managers and promoters, as well as referees and judges who have been paid off. My fighter has had his hand broke in one match and a severe cut opened at the beginning of another bout. That’s just a sampling of the bad stuff that’s waiting for Andre Bishop as he tries to climb the ladder to fistic success.
Boxing as a sport is not being portrayed in a sanitized manner in Fight Night Champion. That’s what makes the story mode all the more fun and captivating to take part in. This is Boxing with all its bumps, bruises, blood and ugliness.
The best fiction, be it novels, movies or video games do one thing really well, they make you fall into the story and ride along with the experience.
Fight Night Champion, Champion Mode earns a grade of A for doing exactly that.
The only reason why I didn’t give it an A+ is because I would have liked the dialogue to be even grittier than it is. Maybe it will get a bit harder edged before the story is over. Only time will tell.
Fight Now Mode:
Just like the title says, in Fight Now mode you can hop right on in there and bust knuckles as a famous boxer or a guy you created. Speaking of creating fighters, just for this article I created Ken Norton specifically because he had a unique fighting style. In previous Video Boxing Games where character creation was possible, it’s been extremely hard to even get in the neighborhood of approximating what Norton did. He threw strange punches and almost seemed to stagger when he moved.
When I created Norton it took me about forty five minutes to come up with a fighter that could pass for Ken’s brother. Getting exact might be impossible. (There is a photo upload feature that I’m not using. If someone has used that, please post a comment. I’d be interested to know how that came out.)
But getting a look that was close to Norton was the least impressive part of creating him. After I put in what I thought were his attributes and used Norton in a fight against Chris Arreola I figured I’d done pretty good.
What was startling was when I let him fight first against Old George Foreman, then Butterbean. (Young George Foreman is locked. Since my PS3 is not connected to the internet eventually I guess I’ll be creating him myself.)
Against Old George, Ken did pretty well until he got caught with a really big right hand and went down and out. Against Butterbean the fight resembled the real bout of Norton against Ron Stander. Butterbean just wasn’t fast enough to catch Ken with any real hurtful punches. Ken basically chopped the Bean up and had him for dinner, stopping him in round eight.
The thing that was startling is that my created Norton moves a whole lot like the way the real Ken Norton moved. He even seems to drag his foot and has real difficulty retreating.
It’s almost spooky.
I did use the game’s inserted last name of Norton. Maybe there are some hidden programmed attributes attached to those last names.
I don’t know. Maybe I’ll never know.
One of the good things about the Create a Fighter feature is that you can edit the fighter even after you’ve used him in bouts. That way if you figure you got something wrong you can change it.
The first time I tried my created Norton against Ali he got stopped early. After tweaking Norton’s settings so that he moved his head more and jabbed more he lost a close decision. Since that was closer to reality I left it like that.
The bottom line is that the Fight Now mode used with the Create a Fighter feature is very elastic. Basically you can build any fighter from history whose facts you can dig up and fight him against anyone else. He’ll be as accurate as you make him.
The Fight Now mode gets an A Grade.
Legacy Mode:
This is where you can build a fighter from scratch or use a famous Boxer as a template and run him through a career all the way from Amateur to All Time Great.
I’m only a couple fights into the pro career for my created guy. If you played Fight Night Round 4 you’ll find that this career mode is pretty much the same game with a few improvements.
The improvements are that you have more choices when you build up your fighter’s athletic abilities and Boxing skills. While it is more in-depth it also takes more time to climb your fighter up the ladder than the previous Fight Night installment.
The good part of the Legacy Mode is that like in an actual career, early on your fighter is more vulnerable and less capable of hurting opponents.
The bad part of the Legacy Mode (at least for me) is that most of the training games are more of an annoyance than anything else. I just want to get in there and start fighting. I’d like to spend more time fighting and less time training. After all, this is a game, not the real world. I play games for fun.
Because of that I give Fight Night Champion, Legacy Mode a grade of B. Probably like a young fighter, I want to get my shot at the champ faster.
One final word about Legacy Mode: As far as I understand it is possible to upload your created fighter to the internet and have fights that way. I don’t do gaming on-line. But if you like doing that you might love doing it with Fight Night Champion. You can meet nice people from all over the world and beat the hell out of them. What could be more fun than that?
Controls:
To me this was particularly important because with the previous game in the series Fight Night 4, the controls were extremely awkward. It was just very hard to string together combinations.
With Fight Night Champion they’ve cured that. The old push a button; throw a punch has been combined with the total punch control system of Fight Night 4 to make it much easier and faster.
I give the controls of Fight Night Champion a solid A for combining the best of previous installments to give back the ability to throw combos the way the real pros do.
Graphics:
This is where Fight Night Champion is at its best. The facial damage sustained during a fight is widely varied and subtle. It’s done so well it is stunning.
The arenas are great. The Round Card Girls are really healthy looking babes. The corner men are realistic. In the story mode, when the people talk they actually look like they are talking.
To put it plain, this is the best graphics any Boxing game has ever had. Fight Night Champion has earned an A+ for its graphics.
Overall:
Fight Night Champion is really three video games in one with all three; Champion Mode, Legacy Mode and Fight Now Mode being a fun experience all on their own.
If you like video games and you like Boxing take note that Fight Night Champion is the Undisputed Champion of Boxing Video Games. You really should buy this one if for no other reason than to find out: Which Klitschko reigns supreme?
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A short statement about Daniel Ponce De Leon VS Adrien Broner
Daniel Ponce De Leon got robbed.
As bad as that is, I actually predicted the robbery.
After six rounds I had it scored five rounds to one in favor of Ponce De Leon. That’s when I told the people at my house, “Ponce De Leon is winning the fight but I bet he’s going to get screwed.”
Somebody asked why.
I explained, “He’s not a future money maker. Broner is. If it’s close at all, Broner is going to get this decision.”
As it turned out, the fight wasn’t close at all.
I had it scored Ponce De Leon 97, Broner 94.
It’s sad when corruption is so bad that these things can be predicted.
Usually, I don’t hate to be right.
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Boxing Quote: “The bigger they are, the further they have to fall.
—Bob Fitzsimmons (1863-1917)
Three Time World Boxing Champion