Fights shallow in button-basher game

Its a case of brawn over brains for EA's latest disappointing fighter...

Facebreaker
EA Sports Freestyle
Xbox 360

2 stars (out of 5) 

Review by Hayden Meikle

Electronic Arts has exposed the great divide between arcade and simulation sports games with this boxing title.

Fight Night is considered the definitive boxing video game because of its lush graphics, intuitive gameplay, authentic components and, well, because there's really not a great deal of competition.

The great thing about Fight Night Round 3, last year's brilliant addition to the series, was that it wasn't horribly difficult.

It might have been a thorough recreation of the sweet science but it was also very close to a pick-up-and-play effort that would appeal to the casual gamer.

Nevertheless, EA decided to use its new Freestyle brand to come up with Facebreaker, a pure over-the-top button-basher aimed fairly and squarely at the old-school arcade player.

The characters are grotesque parodies, the sound is all pumped-up aggression and the gameplay is fiendishly difficult, snap-crack-pop fighting.

Deep customisation allows you to play with the look of your boxer, and the cartoonish possibilities really are endless.

But in the ring, Facebreaker is more like hair-tearer.

Controls are simple, with high punch, low punch and parry the very basic options.

But simple doesn't always mean good.

The actual fighting feels shallow and frustrating.

The AI is an absolute killer.

The idea is you work out which tactics are best suited to each opponent, but to be honest, I never got that far.

When you're backed in a corner and getting pummelled mercilessly, the only option seems to be the white flag.

Even on the easiest difficulty setting, Facebreaker is intimidatingly tough.

It's also too short on a decent career mode.

If you can handle that, and don't mind a game where you lose twice as often as you win, then you won't hate it as much as I did.