Fight Night Round 2

There’s no beating a sport where large sweaty men pummel each other into a bloody pulp. So why not take such a fine contest of manliness and make a videogame out of it? While I’m sure this is a question that has long been answered my limited experience with these games make this my first foray into the boxing genre. If there’s any game to start out with this is still a great choice.
Fight Night Round 2 offers up great game play even to this day with the presumably superior Fight Night Round 3 out. I say presumably because I’m still stuck with the original xbox and only had limited time playing Round 3. With such an obvious lack of money this review will go largely unnoticed and only useful to the stingiest of bargain bin cheap men such as my self. Heck I burrowed this game from my friend, I didn’t pay a dime for it though and I wouldn’t be surprised if this game was only three dollars now anyways, enough rambling from this old incompetent man.
Well let’s just get to the meat of the review. The graphics don’t dazzle like their big brother on the 360 and PS3, but they still sport a nice amount of detail. In particular the character models look great. You can see the tautness of the muscles and the models sport realistic damage from cuts to bruising. Animations are nice and smooth for the most part. The occasional graphical hiccup skips a frame every now and then but it only happened to me once in a couple of fights. The rest of the graphics include the crowd and the ring, which look decent.
Game play has quite a bit of meat on its bones and would make for one hearty stew. All punching (save for the signature punch) is mapped to the right analog stick. This creates a very fluid and natural way to throw punches. The punch corresponds with the direction in which the analog stick is moved. A straight horizontal movement angled towards the right will throw a straight right punch and vice versa. The big punches (known as a haymaker) works in conjunction with moving the analog stick out in one direction then sliding it backwards to wind up the punch, when pushed forward it unleashes a devastating punch. The fighting is very fluid and smooth, the game rewards players who throw combinations and uses guarding and parrying effectively.
The game modes round out the experience. The career mode allows you to create a boxer from scratch or rebuild one of the boxing legends found within the professional roster. Training mini games let you specialize the physique and attributes of your boxer to suit your playing style, weather that be power, speed, or a little bit of both.
The licensed sound tracks mostly include rap and hip-hop, not my cup of tea but I’m sure fans of this music will be pleased; the tracks are only found in the menus and during the fighters ring entrance. You’ll hear all of the announcers banter after a couple of fights, and there are some inconsistencies within some parts. For example I scored a knock down in the first punch of one of my fights. The announcer exclaimed I’ve been hitting punches like that all night. Despite the inconsistencies it doesn’t annoy too much.
All things considered this is a very solid game and a great buy for cheap bargain bin gamers such as myself. The solid fighting with the satisfying career mode should keep you busy till you work up the cash for that 360. Here's hoping that this quality of fighting remains in Round 3.