The Blog for the Sports Gamer Three guys who love Sports Gaming rant and rave about various stuff.

Getting Tagged by Fight Night

I’m not much of a fan of the so-called, “sweet science.” Never have been. Occasionally I’ve tried to sit down and watch a fight on ESPN or (when we still had it) HBO and never got into it. At the end of the day what I see is two grown men trying to beat the snot out of each other for a paycheck and that doesn’t appeal to me any more than watching cars circle an oval for four hours. Hell, I don’t even like to watch fighting in hockey. So it was with a certain amount of skepticism that I rented Fight Night Round 2 a couple weeks ago. But I figured what the hell. I did enjoy Mike Tyson’s Super Punch-Out for the NES, right?

I held onto FN-R2 for a week before making time to toss it in my Xbox last weekend. Since then I’ve not gone a night without at least one trip into the ring. I mean, damn, is this game addicting as all get out. For me this has been like “discovering” a movie that’s already been on DVD shelves for five years. I flat out cannot get enough of getting into the ring so I can dodge a slew of haymakers and jab away at the AI boxers.

I ended up jumping straight into career mode with a fighter that best represented me… a scrawny featherweight with decent speed and a punch that wouldn't strike fear into the heart of your average girl scout. At first I thought the game was going to be criminally easy as I cruised through the amateur circuit. I was getting a little to proud of my boxing game acumen until I dropped by GameFAQs and learned that the amateur ranks are intentionally a bit of a joke. So after cruising to the amateur title I moved up to the pro ranks, using the money I earned form the move to nab a suave pair of trunks, new gloves and a pricey mouth piece. Seriously, $5k for a mouthpiece?

My first pre-fight training session was a riot. I chose to hit the heavy bag for a bit and on the following ratings adjustment screen I couldn’t help but laugh at how quickly I’d managed to develop a rock-hard six-pack. If it was that easy in real life or I’d pick up a heavy bag for my garage on the way home from work tonight. Anyway, as any fan of the game probably could’ve told me ahead of time, mauling your way through the 35 to 50 ranks isn’t much more difficult than beating up on the amateur mode competition. You have to be a bit more defensive and generally play smller, but these guys just don’t protect themselves very well at all.

Over the last couple nights, though, I’ve started to crack the Top 30 and it’s starting to get obvious that the climb from here is going to get steeper. (I’m something like 11-0 right now with 10 KOs.) It really feels like a very well balanced game, and my last two bouts (including my first win w/o a knockout) really forced me to bear down and watch my opponent’s patterns and habits. I’ve still only lost a total of about 3-5 rounds and I have yet to get knocked down, but if I suspect if I don’t get better at conserving my energy and blocking haymaker counterpunches that I’ll eventually get myself in trouble. Or maybe that stamina bonus you get from having a music video model appear in your entrourage is really all the difference. Funny, the woman in my real life entourage is much better at sapping my stamina. We may have to have a talk.

But I digress...

With all that said I do have questions for any of the FN vets reading. What’s a good pace to set in terms of deciding how far up the rankings to pick your fights? Is it ever a good idea to fight a lower-ranked opponent? How many weeks should you try to give yourself between fights and should you enter the non-ranked events that always seem to be 24-48 weeks out but that unlock more equipment? Can you add your own music to the pre-fight announcements? Is it worthwhile to try and move up a weight class? Should I even bother trying to throw or upgrade my special punches or illegal blows? Does taunting an opponent have any strategic merit in the game or is it window dressing?

I can probably go back to GameFAQs and get most of those answers, but honestly, I’m more interested in hearing from you guys.