EA Games Latest EA Sport offering enables the Xbox owner to step inside the ring, grab their gloves and protective gear and fight it out with boxing legends such as Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis, just to name a few. As with all boxing games, and probably most beat-em-ups that as always grace every console with it's presence, Fight Night 2004, touts itself as "the most authentic boxing experience to date". But can it beat other less published boxing games to the title or will it find itself knocked out it the first round?

Gameplay:

With Fight Night 2004, EA have enlisted what they call "Total Punch Control" which basically means that instead of your average "button bashing" game, you'll need to master the right thumb stick on your controller in order to perform the right manoeuvres in order to pull of a quick jab, jab and a right hook. Punches are performed in a different way depending on how you move the thumb stick, with jabs being executed with a quick movement forward, hooks being applied with a quick left/right then "up", and uppercuts are performed with a backwards style movement and then forwards again. Sounds confusing? Well it is.

The punch control system never worked for me. You spend too much of your own brain activity thinking about which way your finger should be moving the thumb stick, while you AI controlled opponent is beating the crap out of you. Where first impressions count, I didn't like this game when I started playing it. All because of EA's new "Total Punch Control" system. After losing most of the fights that I played, I set the controller configuration to "button mode", so to speak, where all four of the usual Xbox controller buttons, A/B/X/Y handled the left/right jab, and left/right hook. All of sudden, I started to win. Don't get me wrong though, EA's system of using the right thumb stick is a very unique and new way of controlling a fighter, but the success of its use depends on how you approach and persevere with this game. Finding any game too hard at the start, like with myself, you're less likely to enjoy the game further on. On the other hand, there are a lot of people out there that prefer EA's original style of controller game play. To sum it up, the age old "button bashing" style worked for me better.

Graphics:

There's not a lot that Fight Night 2004 can do with the raw power of the Xbox console. It looks very average in it's overall graphical appearance. As mentioned above, in fact you spend more the time thinking about controlling your character than admiring the scenery.

Then again, as you play in career mode, you have the chance of unlocking various fighting locations from your average dump of a boxing hole, to the all singing, all dancing; high profile locations where world title fights are held.

When you not trying to admire the scenery, you’ll notice how well the game play and graphics compliment each other. There's nothing more satisfying that dodging you opponents right hook, to then plant you own left right on their head, and then watch the blood poor from their chin.

Sound:

With all EA sport games these days, they come with EA's own "Sport's Trax", which is basically, known and unknown artists, providing songs relevant to the EA game that you're playing. In this case, Fight Night 2004 is graced with nine tunes to provide most of the background and menu music, including a tune from the one and only Puff Daddy (or is it P Daddy? Well whatever you want to call him these days) and others generally providing hip-hop style music to compliment your fighting.

The one thing you will notice is, as there are only nine songs available during the game, it all becomes a little bit repetitive. One fight starts with the same song, the same fight ends with another and so on. You do have the ability though you customise you fighter in the "Fight Store" where you can buy entrance music with the money that you have earned during previous wins.

Longevity:

Your first point of call upon entering career mode is to create your own boxer. This formula being used in previous EA games such as Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004. Just like the Tiger Woods game, you can spend hours adjusting the type of hair, nose shape, cheek bone structure, tattoos, and height. This alone is near enough a game in itself, as it'll either take you a few minutes to use the "randomise" feature to create your boxer, or hours adjusting the head shape to create either a spitting image of your own self, or your fighting alter ego.

Within career mode, you start of ranked as 50th in the world. It's your job to get to 1st as best as you can. You can schedule fights against other players, some of which maybe ranked higher than you, others lower. The players that you beat earn you different amounts of prize money to spend in the "Fight Store" where you can purchase gloves, shorts, entrance music etc. Also you can train your boxer using different techniques to add various skill points to make your created boxer more potent in the ring. Fight Night 2004 is built around the career aspect. You win, you move up a place in the world rankings. You lose, well you don't to loose, because losing is for quitters. OK?

Overall:

Fight Night 2004 isn't the best sports game to come from the EA ranch. But then again what boxing game can better the more popular football or soccer titles? OK, it features great boxers such as Muhammad Ali that you "may" be able to knock around the ring when you master the career mode and you really, and I mean really, get great satisfaction when you blow the right punches and knock your opponent to the canvass. The whole "Total Punch Control" system is to each and everyone's own personal taste. If you can't get on with it, EA are kind enough to offer simple people like myself to revert to the age old style of "button presses".

It's very unfortunate that there isn't much of a multiplayer aspect to this game. Alright, you can have two of you going head to head on the one TV, but personally I feel that this game should of had more options available to the multiplayer aspect.

Thankfully, EA have how announced their adoption to Microsoft Live network, so this time next year, this game will hopefully get a hell of a lot better with the prospect of online boxing and rankings. Just you all wait until Fight Night 2005

Pros:

• EA "Game Face" customisation
  
• Fighting against all time greats
  
• Career mode - battling for the title
  

  Cons:
  

  • Lack or more soundtracks and no custom soundtracks
    
  • No Live support