Fight Night Round 3 was the first true next-gen sports game, but it's since been superseded.
Gameplay (8.5/10): It is thrilling to step into the ring and take on another fighter, mano e mano. There's no other experience quite like it in sports, except perhaps UFC fighting, which did not have a video game experience until UFC 2009's release.
The action in the ring feels very realistic thanks to some big innovations on the part of EA. The default settings have your health and stamina meters invisible, so you can only tell how injured or tired your fighter is by the look of his face and the heaviness of his breathing. With the right set-up, this is an awe-inspiring decision. After patiently breaking down your opponent with jabs, crosses, hooks and uppercuts for a few rounds, you know that you should unleash everything you've got because you hear how labored your opponent is breathing. It really gets you "in the game," to borrow EA's own catchphrase, and was a bold and successful design decision on their part.
There are bad parts, however. First of all, the pacing of the action is unrealistic. You throw way more punches than the average real-life boxer, and tire far less easily. In fact, based on what I've heard, they only exacerbated this problem in Fight Night Round 4 by speeding up the pace of your punches. Personally, I wished for a more tactical boxing game, in which realistic matches would unfold where you work the jab to keep your opponent at a distance and have to really be patient and judicious about your power shots like hooks and uppercuts.
Presentation (10/10): When this game came out, it was the best-looking game on the block. Without exaggeration, Fight Night Round 3 has a lock on the title of first next-generation sports game. While Madden and FIFA were dead in the water, this game showed people who had purchased a 360 or a PS3 what these new consoles could really do. It was as impressive a technical achievement as Halo for the original Xbox.
Now, after several years, it still looks great. I don't think Fight Night Round 4 actually looks all that much better, based on what I've seen from its demo. Both suffer from slightly plastic player models with occasionally goofy faces, but that's true of all video games in this era.
As mentioned earlier, sound is really quite crucial to gameplay and more than holds up its end of the bargain. You really hear the crunch of power shots landing, and also can detect your opponent's weakness in his breathing and his visual appearance - cuts, swelling, etc.