Since the dawn of time, man has always cherished the concept behind beating their fists into each others faces to prove their dominance.

Since nothing has changed, boxing is still a very popular sport worldwide that has shown us some of the most strategic, heroic and downright brutal head to head match-ups from many of the greats.

Naturally, we all want a piece of the action and Fight Night Round 4 sets out to bring that same experience into our living rooms, albeit without all of the pain and blood that goes along with it.

I put my gloves on and stepped into the ring to find out if this game was the real deal.

I was one of the unfortunate saps who missed out on Fight Night Round 3 when it was released a couple of years back although I kept the demo on my machine for nearly 2 years, you know, just in case.

Fight Night Round 4 is everything that you would expect it to be. A storyline is replaced with a straightforward career mode in which you get to pick or create your own custom boxer and then work your way to the top by scheduling fights and partaking in training sessions.

One of the best parts of the game for me personally was that every fighter that you face truly does feel unique. Some will be quick and aggressive, while others will be large and defensive. Every fight felt completely different and brought about it’s own challenges and required me to change my style so that I could adapt and win.

This new Fight Night also introduces realistic “glancing blows”, which basically means that punches wont always connect or miss. Their damage is now dependent on how the actual blow lands, meaning that arms connecting each other as well as dodges and so on will now affect the actual gameplay. It gives the game an even more realistic feel and when combined with the already fantastic gameplay and controls that many are used to, it is solid and plays really well.

The Fight Night series has also been known for its amazing visuals and Round 4 is no exception, boasting some of the most realistic human models and textures that can be seen in a videogame, with great sound to go along with it.

One of the real attractions of Fight Night is the multiplayer. While two people playing on the same console is as fantastic as always, the online multiplayer is what most people are looking at.

The multiplayer online works really well and the lag is even decent enough to handle when playing people from other countries, although I do have one major complaint. When we gave the online multiplayer a go on the Playstation 3, it took us ages to try and figure out how to create a private lobby and eventually had to fall back on good ol’ google to find the answer for us.

Seems we weren’t the only people to have trouble creating private games and once we did find the answer, we were stunned at how incredibly out of the way the options were and really had to wonder why in the heck the decision was made to hide the function in a place that was not logical in any way.

Once the bell had rung and the towels were thrown in, I was left feeling very impressed with the feel of the game as well as the career mode and fun factor. It managed to draw me in enough that when I wasn’t playing it, I was thinking about it and wondering how my next fight would go.

Scoring

Gameplay: 9.0
Solid controls and a fun and intuitive style of gameplay.

Presentation: 9.0
Beautiful visuals, great looking menus and environments.

Sound: 8.5
Music won’t suit everyone but the selection captures a nice vibe, sounds is fairly solid all around.

Value: 9.0
A long career mode as well as a hugely fun and unlimited multiplayer mode means that this game is good for the long haul.

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Overall: 8.9

Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee.