by: John Olin

March 09, 2006

You will also have grudge matches with people you knocked out before in titles, and the way the game presents information on the Xbox 360 is more unique than the way they approach it on Xbox. On the 360, you will see live “quick reels” of the progress of your fighter, and the menus themselves give you the feel that you are actually progressing, despite the fact that in reality you are just fighting fight after fight. What makes it worse though are some of the belts and titles are extremely stupid. As I mentioned before there is the “Burger King” which you unlock as a trainer after beating the Burger King title, and even worse there is also a Dodge Ram title, complete with a vehicle in showcase next to the ring. It can get distracting, and the heavy product placement seems to take out a lot of, if not all the soul this game has going for it. Even worse, many of the Xbox 360 Achievements are based on these belts and titles, soaking the product placement for everyone to see, even if they do not own the game. Probably the worst part about the Career Mode however is that it is over all too soon. All the achievements and belts in the game are received through the career mode and before you know it, everything has been unlocked. A decent player can probably beat the game in two-three days, and that is with an eight-hour workday.

The game has an extremely unique way of controlling, which basically depending on how well versed you are in the mechanics, you can control the game with a left analog to move, right analog to throw numerous punches, and the left and right triggers to weave and block. This method, using the right analog can get a bit getting used to, and in most cases is not always going to be the most accurate thing in the world. In order to even do certain things which you will certainly need to know how to do when playing online or against tougher opponents on. To use the right analog you push the analog back and then forward in a certain motion, allowing you to throw punches left and right, haymakers, and variations of haymakers or impact punches. What haymakers and impact punches are, are extremely hard punches that will send a nice jolt in your opponent, sending them back in many instances.

When winding up for the punch using the right analog all you have to do is pull back, the further back the more powerful the punch, and then slide forward for the punch. In any other instance however, you can of course use the buttons, and there are plenty of different configurations to use. The blocking and weaving will take a bit to get used to, using the left trigger to weave and the right trigger along with a direction on the right analog to block. Pressing all the way up you put both gloves in the air, and pressing down will guard your character. The impact punches and haymakers can be slow but they are affective, especially depending on how fast your player is, how slow the other person is, and if you are fighting against the computer, or a human player. The flash KO which is a bit harder to do basically sends the game into slow motion, something the game does when you are about to knock out an opponent anyways. When it does this you have to quickly set up jabs, and it can be hard to do. Using this slow motion, you can also dodge and block punches better leaving the opponent open for longer.

Since you can get through Career Mode a few times on different weight classes and difficulties fairly quickly, there is of course multiplayer options. Of course, you have your leaderboards, and you are treated to the EA Sports online board before starting a match. Both versions of the game have a bit of lag, but it is nothing to serious. Most of the fights online are far more gruesome than you can ever hope for playing Career Mode, sometimes you can just simply get knocked out within one round if you don’t know what you are doing. Even two player play on one Xbox or Xbox 360 is pretty intense.