Fight Night Champion

[Scott_Arm]

I didn't think it was going to happen any time soon, but we're getting a new Fight Night game! Not much in the way of details yet, but there is one bullshot to look at.

http://blog.fightnight.easports.com/archive/2010/07/20/welcome-to-fight-night-champion.aspx

I see blood spatter and I see motion blur. Will either make it into the game, or pure PR effects? I guess we'll see. I hope they go with that perfect 60 fps again. Fix the counters please!

IGN story with an additional screen

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/110/1107055p1.html

New control scheme and a mega single-player mode. Will the single player actually have a story? They're saying its big and won't reveal anything. For multiplayer, I expect a lot of the crazy features from their MMA game to find their way over. 65 fighters.

I'm excited.

 

[Graham]

Now if ever there was a game crying out for Move/Kinect support...

 

[Arwin]

Now if ever there was a game crying out for Move/Kinect support...

My first reaction (on Eurogamer as it happens) was also that I would consider it if it had Move or Kinect support. Apparently there have been rumors / leaks about this already, though so there is hope. It's not a foregone thing though, as it brings a bunch of complications to this game in terms of multi-player, balancing, stamina issues (players getting tired), etc. Will be really interesting to see how it turns out.

I will definitely only get it if it supports Motion control. I expect that from September on into infinity, the games I will buy that support dualshock only are going to be in the minority, and probably a really small minority at that, particularly as LBP2, Killzone 3 and GT5 all support Move in some form or another, and those together with games like Heavy Rain which I held out for, and the staple Start the Party and Sports Champions titles, will easily fill half a year.

 

[slider]

Now if ever there was a game crying out for Move/Kinect support...

Having boxed and practiced martial arts for years I was taken aback when an 8 year old knocked me out in a matter of seconds on Wii boxing. I'm all for Kinect/Move support!

 

[Scott_Arm]

Agreed. Hopefully both, but I'll accept either.

 

[Billy Idol]

I liked the first Fight Night on the Xbox...was one of my fav games back then: controlling with sticks was the coolest stuff ever.

I was super exited for the new Fight Night, bought it - was shocked the first fight I did: controlls have changed: it is not so fluid anymore....ok, I can adapt, but it turns out that I could only to some extend...so after playing the game only for a few hours, I did not touch it anymore!

I hope that they somehow change the controlls again and that I can get into it again...because the first game was a blast!!

 

[Scott_Arm]

Round 4 had probably the best stick controls in the series. Round 3 had by far the worst controls in the series. Everything felt delayed and slow.

 

[Billy Idol]

Round 4 had probably the best stick controls in the series. Round 3 had by far the worst controls in the series. Everything felt delayed and slow.

is 4 the newest version?

then I don'T agree - I liked the controlls of 3 much better.

the controlls in 4 indeed felt more responsive, but it felt more like playing with buttons imo and I did not "feel" the movements of the boxer, which was cool in 3!

 

[Scott_Arm]

is 4 the newest version?

then I don'T agree - I liked the controlls of 3 much better.

the controlls in 4 indeed felt more responsive, but it felt more like playing with buttons imo and I did not "feel" the movements of the boxer, which was cool in 3!

4 was the latest release, yeah.

 

[RobertR1]

Having boxed and practiced martial arts for years I was taken aback when an 8 year old knocked me out in a matter of seconds on Wii boxing. I'm all for Kinect/Move support!

Yeah. My gf kicked the crap out of me in Wii Boxing. I could never get it to register my punches. I think Kinect1.0 will not be fast enough to register quick hands and subtle movements but I have high hopes for kinect2.0 launched with the next gen console.

I'd love to be able to virtually spar with people on line. As you know, even shadowboxing is one hell of a work out (done right) so it'd be an amazing fitness tool for anyone. People would be shadowsparring from home without the initmidation of being in a boxing gym or the fear of getting hit during sparring. I think it'd be awesome.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I still hold hopes that Kinect will be ok for a basic shadow boxing game, even if you can' t really move around. The EA Active 2 demo with kinect looked like it was registering some moderately quick punches for their heavy bag workout. But then it's a question of whether it could register a variety of punches, body movement and blocking without too many screwups.

 

[slider]

Yeah. My gf kicked the crap out of me in Wii Boxing. I could never get it to register my punches. I think Kinect1.0 will not be fast enough to register quick hands and subtle movements but I have high hopes for kinect2.0 launched with the next gen console.

I'd love to be able to virtually spar with people on line. As you know, even shadowboxing is one hell of a work out (done right) so it'd be an amazing fitness tool for anyone. People would be shadowsparring from home without the initmidation of being in a boxing gym or the fear of getting hit during sparring. I think it'd be awesome.

Heh, I was bobbing and weaving, hooking as I stepped in and all sorts of stuff. No effect though. Can't describe how crestfallen I was when my character dropped to the canvas!

Whoa, hadn't even considered online sparring. There's something about the psychology of actually doing it that'd be missing though. Equally that could be a good thing too - it wouldn't act as a barrier to entry. C'mon motion support...

 

[tha_con]

I didn't think it was going to happen any time soon, but we're getting a new Fight Night game! Not much in the way of details yet, but there is one bullshot to look at.

http://blog.fightnight.easports.com/archive/2010/07/20/welcome-to-fight-night-champion.aspx

I see blood spatter and I see motion blur. Will either make it into the game, or pure PR effects? I guess we'll see. I hope they go with that perfect 60 fps again. Fix the counters please!

IGN story with an additional screen

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/110/1107055p1.html

New control scheme and a mega single-player mode. Will the single player actually have a story? They're saying its big and won't reveal anything. For multiplayer, I expect a lot of the crazy features from their MMA game to find their way over. 65 fighters.

I'm excited.

Very excited!

Scott: What do you mean by "fix the counters"?

Also, one of my biggest complaints was the representation of stamina in the series (particularly in FNR4 when playing online). It made the game a ridiculous slug fest online, with the majority of the "top" players simply spamming out a ton of moves with ridiculously built characters.

Also, more weight classes for the Online Championship mode!! Nothing sucks more than being hunkered in with Heavy Weight boxers and getting dominated...ugh.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Very excited!

Scott: What do you mean by "fix the counters"?

Also, one of my biggest complaints was the representation of stamina in the series (particularly in FNR4 when playing online). It made the game a ridiculous slug fest online, with the majority of the "top" players simply spamming out a ton of moves with ridiculously built characters.

Also, more weight classes for the Online Championship mode!! Nothing sucks more than being hunkered in with Heavy Weight boxers and getting dominated...ugh.

Round 2 and Round 3 had the parry system, which was incredibly unrealistic. If you parried correctly, your opponent would drop his hands giving you a chance to land a haymaker combo. This turned the game into pretty much a game of parry, haymaker, repeat, with little reason to do anything else.

Round 4 replaced the parry system with an equally crappy system. Perfect blocks, dodges and weaves gave you a "window" to throw a big shot, which would usually result in a stunning blow. Given so many options to open that window, you could essentially abuse the counter game, even landing stunning uppercuts by blocking a jab, which is incredibly unrealistic. The problem was, it took any kind of boxing fundamentals out of the game. The other problem was it could be abused horribly by the AI, especially if you turned up the difficulty. If you punched first, you'd get knocked out. You basically had to wait and counter. If you tried to control your opponent with a jab, you'd just get stunned over and over. They even patched it to reduce the time of the window, but the AI would still land perfect stunning uppercuts after slipping your jab from range. You couldn't turn the window right off.

Basically, I want sim style, so I want counters that happen at real time. Sure, make them do more damage, but make countering a skill aspect of the game, not something incredibly easy that can be abused.

They did patch the stamina at some point, which reduced the spamming considerably. I still think it could have been more severe, at least for a sim mode. You don't see guys throwing six punch combinations every five seconds. No one could go 12 doing that.

For online, they need to constrain the physical proportions of the characters, to keep things in balance. There were basically two styles that I saw. Bob and weave uppercut guys with short arms that could get stuns with their first punch of the fight, and long armed fighters that stayed at a distance to spam.

 

[tha_con]

Round 2 and Round 3 had the parry system, which was incredibly unrealistic. If you parried correctly, your opponent would drop his hands giving you a chance to land a haymaker combo. This turned the game into pretty much a game of parry, haymaker, repeat, with little reason to do anything else.

Round 4 replaced the parry system with an equally crappy system. Perfect blocks, dodges and weaves gave you a "window" to throw a big shot, which would usually result in a stunning blow. Given so many options to open that window, you could essentially abuse the counter game, even landing stunning uppercuts by blocking a jab, which is incredibly unrealistic. The problem was, it took any kind of boxing fundamentals out of the game. The other problem was it could be abused horribly by the AI, especially if you turned up the difficulty. If you punched first, you'd get knocked out. You basically had to wait and counter. If you tried to control your opponent with a jab, you'd just get stunned over and over. They even patched it to reduce the time of the window, but the AI would still land perfect stunning uppercuts after slipping your jab from range. You couldn't turn the window right off.

Basically, I want sim style, so I want counters that happen at real time. Sure, make them do more damage, but make countering a skill aspect of the game, not something incredibly easy that can be abused.

They did patch the stamina at some point, which reduced the spamming considerably. I still think it could have been more severe, at least for a sim mode. You don't see guys throwing six punch combinations every five seconds. No one could go 12 doing that.

For online, they need to constrain the physical proportions of the characters, to keep things in balance. There were basically two styles that I saw. Bob and weave uppercut guys with short arms that could get stuns with their first punch of the fight, and long armed fighters that stayed at a distance to spam.

I think the "window" is just fine. What I think needs tuning is the variables of the counter, i.e. damage off of the type of punch blocked, etc. We already know the game has a great physics engine, so naturally if I weave past a jab / hook / etc, I should get a counter. The catch would be adjusting the damage accordingly depending on the type of punch and the position of both fighters. If the opposing boxer is finishing a missed uppercut and his chin is exposed, a counter uppercut would do massive damage, while a jab or straight wouldn't do quite as much.

Maybe a better example would be doing more damage against, say a blocked hook as opposed to a blocked jab.

I think the counters are necessary for the game to be accessible and, more importantly, successful. I just think they really need to adjust the game more for balance to accurately reflect real boxing, as opposed to going full sim. There are ways to "fake it" and still maintain an accessible nature.

One thing I think we can agree about though is that the game requires some work, and I hope that they do a lot of it now, so we don't have to worry about a tarnished online community in FNC like we did in FNR4.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The weave to get inside is one thing, but having a long window makes it far too easy. But blocking a jab and countering with an uppercut is ridiculous. It just doesn't happen. The way the window works you're penalized for jabbing first, which is counter to actual boxing. Of course, you need to keep appropriate range, but jabbing first shouldn't lead to getting smoked with an uppercut or hook from the outside. In the case of southpaw vs conventional, you'll see them do things like hook over/under a jab, but they time the punch. There isn't a period of time where their opponent stops moving. They throw their punch while they're slipping.

Part of the problem is in the game the boxers drop their guard entirely when throwing a punch. If they throw a jab with their left hand, their right hand should still be protecting their chin. A good boxer can throw a jab and block a jab at the same time. That's why you see guys going jab for jab. I think the way it works is regular punches should leave your guard up correctly, but haymakers should leave you exposed.

 

[Delta9]

Round 4 had probably the best stick controls in the series. Round 3 had by far the worst controls in the series. Everything felt delayed and slow.

FNR4 is the only game I ever traded in within a week because the controls sucked so bad!!
FNR3 was far away better and I still own it Seriously , if they don't bring back the control from FNR3 with the same weave and haymaker stick control, I'm not buying.

 

[Scott_Arm]

What's the weave control in Fight Night Round 3? The only thing I know that they changed is the body punching controls, switched to a modifer for haymakers , added the bob & weave and removed the face button control (patched back in later). Oh, and they simplified blocking as up and down only, rather than having angles for parry. As far as I can remember, body movement, blocking, moving and punching were all performed with the same controls.

 

[Delta9]

What's the weave control in Fight Night Round 3? The only thing I know that they changed is the body punching controls, switched to a modifer for haymakers , added the bob & weave and removed the face button control (patched back in later). Oh, and they simplified blocking as up and down only, rather than having angles for parry. As far as I can remember, body movement, blocking, moving and punching were all performed with the same controls.

Holding a trigger and just using the stick to do it.You remind also of the blocking which was a much better set-up in FNR3 IMO.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Holding a trigger and just using the stick to do it.You remind also of the blocking which was a much better set-up IMO.

You can hold the trigger and weave in Round 4 exactly the same way. I wouldn't mind if they want back to directional blocking like they had earlier, but the parry system was garbage. You will never ever ever see a real boxer drop his hands because his jab was pushed aside. That one game mechanic basically broke the entire game. You'll see fighters catch a jab and jab back, but it looks seamless. At real time you won't even notice they're doing it. The problem with both the parry and counter systems from round 3 and round 4 is they become the entire strategy of the game, which has nothing to do with real boxing. I'm sure a lot of people couldn't care less about real boxing, but I guess I do.