While FNR4 is superior to its predecessor's, a few weaknesses keep it from being the Greatest of all Time.

User Rating: 8.5 | Fight Night Round 4 X360
The Good:
+ Amazing graphics
+ Improved Legacy Mode
+ Online World Championships provide extended gameplay
+ New control system can be rewarding
+ Customized Entrance Music

The Bad:
- Training games are way too hard, which makes it difficult to improve your boxer
- New control system can also be very frustrating

The Questionable
? What happened to the tattoos?

Fight Night Round 4 is the highly anticipated sequel to EA's Fight Night series. Round 3 was released shortly after the Xbox 360's launch and was widely considered a hit, making expectations for Round 4 that much higher. For the most part EA Sports has delivered on those expectations however, a few things prevent it from being one of the best games of the year.

The big change with FNR4 is the new "Total Punch Control". Say goodbye to buttons, throwing jabs and hooks is all down using the right analog stick. Many fans have expressed displeasure over the removal of the button system citing that TPC is non-responsive. While this accusation has a little merit, if you can spend enough time getting used to the new controls and accept them instead of wishing for the button controls, you'll come to get used to TPC.

The Legacy Mode has been revamped and has improved greatly over FNR3. You start as an amateur and you're goal is to move up the career ladder hoping to retire as the "Greatest of All Time". However, becoming the G.O.A.T. will be harder than it should be, thanks to the new training games. While most of these can be mastered or at least grasped fairly well after some practice, two of the games, Heavy Bag Combos and Heavy Bag Push can be VERY frustrating. Whats worse is both these training games help increase your punch power so if you're fighter is a power fighter it'll be hard to improve his statistics. Other than the training games, the Legacy Mode is superb, it would be nice though if they had captured more of the "life" or "feel" that comes with being a boxer. For example, in FNR3 you had a rival, and there were cut scenes of you at a weigh in, which would lead to a short brawl taking place. It would have been nice if EA Sports had improved on that instead of just omitting it.

Online play can be very fun, or just down right frustrating. Most of time your opponents use some sort of exploit or knock you down by using the illegal headbutt or low blow moves. The amount of exploiting that goes on during online play has almost turned me away from it for good, but if you can overcome the severe amount of cheap fighters you'll find online play, particularly Online World Championship, a lot of fun. OWC is basically a career mode without the training, each boxer is maxed out to 86 overall and you fight in either Light, Middle, or Heavy weight classes. Your rank depends on your record and you try to move up the rankings. Definitely a nice addition to the game.

Overall FNR4 is a very good game but thinking back its obvious a few changes here and there could have made it really shine. If you've enjoyed the previous Fight Night games this is a must have, and if you are new to the series you should definitely check it out.