Fight Night Champion
PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Style: 1-Player Sports (2-player online)
You can keep doing what got you there, but your movements and punch combos become predictable over time and opponents will inevitably expose your weaknesses.
To avoid losing their standing atop the boxing world, champions must constantly reinvent themselves, adopting new tactics and shoring up weaknesses while at the same time preserving their unique talents that landed them atop the rankings. EA Canada is facing a similar dilemma with Fight Night Champion.
How do you improve a game that won universal acclaim? The development team went to the tape to find some hidden flaws, and discovered the telemetry data showed players threw a considerably higher amount of left-handed punches than they did right-handed.
It's not hard to understand why moving the right analog stick to throw a right uppercut or right hook forces your thumb to contort in unnatural ways.
To bring the stats back in line with true boxing, the team decided to reinvent the Total Punch Control. The new punching system still uses the right analog stick, but instead of swinging the stick with different gestures to create different punches, you now just need to flick the stick in a specific direction.
Different angles determine different punches, and the new system has allowed EA to cram twice as many punch types into the stick.
With all of these new punches being added to Fight Night, EA Canada went back to the mo-cap studio to recreate more signature punches from star fighters like Manny Pacquiao and Mike Tyson. Throwing winning combos is only one aspect of becoming a winning boxer.
To improve its defence, EA also implemented a new reflexive blocking system that changes the way you play defence and counterattack.
Instead of holding down the block button and swinging the analogue stick to the appropriate blocking location, you now can either tap the trigger to block a punch right before impact or hold down the button to rely on the boxer's reflex ratings.
This also frees up the directional control to let players to punch from the guard position for the first time in the series. Perhaps the most dramatic change EA is making to Fight Night is the increased importance of stamina.
In past games you could indiscriminately and continually throw a flurry of punches.
The new stamina system drains and refills more quickly, encouraging fighters to be smarter about when to unleash a long combo.
Other changes include one-punch knockouts, a 20-point levelling system for each type of punch, and the ability to choose where you train to earn more stat boosts. Taken together, the list of improvements and tweaks to Fight Night Champion is impressive.
We can't wait to go a few rounds in a few months to see if the changes result in a more impressive boxer in the ring. Boxing is no stranger to drama critically applauded films like Rocky and Raging Bull have captured the brutality of the sport both in and out of the ring to great effect.
EA hopes to conjure some of its own storytelling mojo in the new Champion mode.
The story opens with a bang, as the main character gets clocked in the head and falls to the mat.
After he comes to his senses and his eyesight adjusts, you realise this isn't any old boxing match.
The protagonist is going head to head with a tattooed skinhead in a state penitentiary as inmates watch and cheer beside the ring.
Don't expect this to be a happy-go-lucky tale, as the dev team says Fight Night Champion will be the first M-rated game in EA Sports history.
