Fight Night Round 2 does what nearly every sequel is doing these days: Improving in some areas, while destroying others.
Why: Well, while Fight Night Round 2 has improved on it's boxing formula greatly. (eg: You can now punch and move at the same time) The game simply feals too arcade-ish. There needs to be more depth, and custimization has taken a fall since the last game with the inclusion of entrance packages. Now you can only choose a package 1, 2, or 3 which gives you a bunch of entrance sparklers and fireballs whereas before, you could pick if you wanted sparklers and fireballs, or just the sparklers, or just confetti etc.
The fact that you can now move while punching is a great feature. Now there are no fiends who dance around the ring and it is near impossible for you to get a knockout. Having said that, the new training system in this game along with the new ability to throw massive haymakers, can lead to some smooth sailing throughout the career and you might not have the challenge you had with Fight Night 2004.
Graphics: 8
Why: While the graphics are much improved, the character models leave much to be desired. For instance, in create a champ, when you try to make your boxer and, as I did, try to make him look like me, it was terribly difficult. In fact, in Fight Night 2004, the create a boxer was perfect. All it needed was some of the new features that Round 2 has added like the ability to move the mouth up and down on the face and etc. However, Round 2 feels more like it has traded the old create a boxer style for something completely different that lacks much more than 2004's did. This is a simple problem most sequels face, they don't 'improve' on the formula, they change the formula and call it an improvement. At any rate, all of my boxers ended up looking exactly alike no matter what I tried except in one instance that I actually made Tom Hanks.
Sound: 5
Why: Ok, what's with this? We've got a real life ESPN boxing announcer! Which is great, except that he doesn't sound as enthusiastic as did Big Tigger from 2004. Major dissappointment here. We might as well have kept Big Tigger in my opinion. I'd rather have an annoying announcer that sounds like he's actually into the fight then an ESPN guy that sounds like he's doing this for a video game. Also, the lack of custom sound tracks is another huge let down, and you'll find that this game features even worse selection of songs than did the first.
Value: 7
Why: This game is a good boxing game. Having said that, it doesn't match, in my opinion, Fight Night 2004. There are some improvments, but the game traded too many of the near perfect qualities away and replaced them with what, in most cases, would have made the previous better had it been added on.
Reviewer's Tilt: 6
Why: Well I was dissappointed to say the least. The character models look bad, the graphics are good, skin, blood, canvas etc, but the models are terrible. ESPN's announcer sounds as if he's going to fall asleep in many cases, just doesn't make the game feel real. Also, the arcadish style and lack of depth/custimization makes me cringe. Fight Night 2004 is still the better game.