If you care about realistic boxing at all, this is your game.
But like Gran Turismo has found, this will find its niche gamer crowd who love the realism. Everything looks ans animates beautifully, from sweat on a fighter's back, to the trail of spit flying from your opponents mouth after a flush right hook. Cloth moves realistically, no matter what type of cloth you choose your trunks to be. Thats right, multiple cloths baby.
The biggest gripe of the series has been its career mode, gripe no more. Its now deep and rewarding. You start a career as an 18 year old amateur fighting in a mini tournament, seemingly representing the Olympics. Win lose or draw you'll find yourself at the bottom of a 50 man roster in your division. Other than the top 10, which you can rank yourself, the fighters are fictional and randomly created. You'll fight your way through the ranks, choosing to take on any of 5-8 available opponents. You can take on the highest ranked to rise quickly, or fight the lower ranked bums to polish your skills and rise slowly. With the difficulty of the training games, and the inneffective auto-train, I find this route best. You have full creative control over your boxer, until you begin fighting pro. For some reason at this time, you're hair and fighting style become locked. A minor problem.
Online, the game shines too. With career mode, you fight through 30+ opponents who have Cut/Swelling ratings of 99, for some odd reason. This causes you to miss out on realistic cutting, swelling, and ref stoppages, that you can only find in Quick Match and online. Nothing like throwing right hooks nonstop for 5 rounds and having the ref wave the fight off because his left eye is a bleeding mess. Its a shame you dont get this in career mode, where most of your time will be sunk. But this game also attempts to fix the quitting problem by having any and all disconnected fights go to the scorecards. This can be exploited however; a fighter can rush out at you, throw 150 punches per round, knock you down, then quit and get a win. This is rare, and they have to win the rounds to get the win, but its still frustrating. But for the most part, if you were going to win anyway, you'll get your deserved W. Theres also a mode I have yet to explore where you create a fighter, and fight through an online career attempting to acheive a title shot. If you win, you're the champ. No ifs ands or buts, you have the title, and countless other fighters around the world will be gunning for it.
The voice overs are the best in the series. Finally, ESPN color commentator Teddy Atlas, the famed trainer, joins his co-host Joe Tessitore, giving the series a much needed team effort. And Teddy's antics were worth the wait. If you land a good combo, he may start talking about The Pirates of the Caribbean, so be on the lookout. They give your created fighters a decent selection of voiced last names, so with a good nickname, they'll actually have something to say when talking about you, a welcome change.
The controls. A lot of people will bash this game for this, but at least until a Fall patch, there are only analog controls. This means everyone plays on a realistically even playing field. Fights play out realistically, meaning if you're going to throw a 10 punch lightening fast Ali combo, you have to be physically able to do so, no button mashing. But the whiners have gotten their way, and soon this game will find a swarm of button warriors in the online ranks. And sadly they'll probably beat you by throwing crazy fast combos and 200 punches per round.
But the gameplay is incredible. Never before has an intense match played out like a complex chess match. Work the body early, and even if you're losing the rounds, it'll play off in the later rounds, when he can barely throw punches and is slower than George Foreman. Then go upstairs and finish him off. It feels great to see your strategy work and leave a player helpless.
This game is a must-own for fans of boxing, Fight Night, or realistic fighting. Dont listen to the Street Fighter fans who dont get why button mashing doesnt lead to wins. Get this game, learn how to play right, with the sticks, and enjoy.