Fight Night Round 3

After countless hours playing through Fight Night, I am completely torn on the game. It looks fantastic and plays a mean game of boxing, but the career-mode is so shallow, half-assed and flat out un-involving that it practically kills the experience.

This series has so much potential to be spectacular, but idiotic omissions keep it back. There is nothing in career-mode to make it seem like anything you do even matters. It just feels like random fights that have nothing to do with a much bigger picture. There is no ranking system, it has lackluster ring entrances, no championship belts (you can "win" them, but don't expect the championship fight to be any different from any other fight and you never see any boxers wearing a belt. EVER!), if you're champion you aren't acknowledged as champion, you still always enter the ring first, you cannot see your own boxer's career stats other than win/loss record, you cannot see opponents stats as well other than win/loss record, and since there are no rankings, you have no idea who your opponent is, where they rank, etc. Like I said, career-mode is complete garbage.

Once you get in the ring, the game shines. It is the only thing that kept me playing. I finally retired my boxer with a record of about 50-7. I had won the middleweight belt, light-heavyweight belt and the heavyweight belt. I still needed to win another championship I think to get the pound-for-pound title, but my boxer was 38 years old and his stats were going down incredibly fast and every opponent I faced was just manhandling me. So instead of ruining what was a great career, I decided to hang up the gloves.

I was going to do another career (as torturous as it is) but I am now in the possession o GRAW . . . and really, that game is going to taking up all my time. Until oblivion comes out that is. :)