Fight Night Round 4 was first officially announced on 9 May 2008. It was released on 25 June 2009 to North America and on 26 June 2009 under the genre of sport (boxing) with an ESRB rating of T for teen. The boxing video game is developed by EA Canada and published by EA Sports. Fight Night Round 4 is the sequel to EA Sports’ previous boxing title, Fight Night Round 3 which was released in 2006. The game features 48 licensed fighters with the Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson featured on the game’s cover. There are also several new modes included in this sequel, such as the Legacy Mode. A few days before it was released, PlayStation Stores releases a free demo of the game which featured an exhibition mode featuring playable boxers Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton, as well as a tutorial mode that’s automatically started upon beginning the demo, although it can be skipped.
Reviews
Although not necessarily realistic, Fight Night Round 4 encourages you to think about every punch you throw in a very similar way to that which a real boxer does. It borrows some of the controls from Fight Night Round 3, with a more organic feel to its action as seen through its brief-but-adequate tutorial. This is because most of the fighters’ movements do not have a scripted feel to it, thus players need to look for openings every time before throwing punches. Not only that, when the right analogue stick is flicked or rotated, there are several possible consequences that might occur. In Fight Night Round 4, boxers are capable of throwing a lot more punches in each round than their real-life counterparts, although it still results in an impressively believable fashion. There is also an ingenious new corner system introduced to Fight Night Round 4 that allows you to spend the points on replenishing your stamina and health and on repairing damage in between rounds. However, the number of points that players are allowed to spend are limited by the different aspects of your performance in the previous round. Fight Night Round 4 features more than 40 instantly recognizable professional pugilists on its roster including Zab Judah, Evander Holyfield, Danny Williams, and Floyd Mayweather.
“Sequels are always under a considerable amount of pressure to live up to the accolades of their predecessor, but Fight Night Round 4 has the unenviable task of improving on a title that helped shape this generation of gaming. Fight Night Round 3 was many people’s first look at refined HD graphics and what that can bring to a living room gaming experience. Now EA Canada is taking the reins from the defunct EA Chicago and they’re taking plenty of chances with the already-established formula. At the end of the day Fight Night Round 4 is, to put it plainly, a wonderful boxing game. There are certainly issues to be found in the new Legacy Mode, but it’s much closer to what players want from a career mode. The online offering, while not hugely different from the previous Fight Night, still delivers where it counts. I didn’t experience any lag in my fights and the World Championship mode will hopefully be something that fans cling to. Aside from the modes, you’ll find the best boxing experience in gaming in the ring. Punches sound and look great, fighters move fantastically well with muscles flexing and blood flowing and spattering from cuts, and if you want a boxer that isn’t included in the original roster of more than 50 (including Mike Tyson for the first time since Punch-Out!!), you can use Photo GameFace to put them (as well as yourself) in the game. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s a cool replay editor that lets you create clips of you rendering people’s faces unrecognizable. I have my issues with Fight Night Round 4 – and so will you – but when you get down to it FNR4 is just a great all-around videogame experience.” (IGN, 2009)
