17-Mar-2005 Have you ever been properly punched? Ever felt a full-on, cheekbone-shattering, nose-bending wallop straight to the boat race? If not, you'll discover how it feels when you suck up one of Fight Night Round 2's new Haymaker punches. These brutal blows rock the camera like a car crash, land with a 'CRUNCH' sound so gruesome it'd give a pathologist the dry heaves, and usually introduce your boxer's arse to the mat. Good night.
Fight Night Round 2's sweet presentation jams the block-rocking power of these punches into your eye sockets, but it's the truly awesome Total Punch Control that makes them hurt so much. Controlled pops and twists of the Right analogue stick unleash stinging jabs, neck-snapping hooks and chin-disintegrating uppercuts, while holding the triggers let you block, bob and weave with ease.
Haymakers are powered-up punches. Adding rotation to your stick twist puts extra hot sauce on your glove, sending the crowd wild and rebooting your opponent's brainframe instantly. It's brutal, it's vicious, and we love it.
Unfortunately, the Haymaker system is Fight Night Round 2's only important new addition. Being able to control your Cutman (the poor bloke who has to clean up flesh that's been reduced to rotten mince) is a nice extra, but it's really just a simple mini-game between rounds.
The Career mode in particular could have done with an overhaul. True, you now have to fight your way through the amateur ranks wearing one of those padded nugget-nappies, but since you can't upgrade your stats until you turn pro it's really just a glorified tutorial.
Once you're slugging it out as a pro you can start spending cash on new equipment, entrance effects, and bikini-clad girls. But that's all just show - to really make it to the top you have to train. Funnily enough Round 2's training mini-games aren't as good as last year's. Weightlifting is cool - you have to use the analogue sticks to drag up heavy stacks - but the Combo Dummy and Heavy Bag are just dull.
Progressing up the rankings until you're sporting a fancy new belt is fun and there are plenty of unlockables, but ultimately it's just a procession of similar fights. Xbox Live support would have been a great way to give the career mode some real punch... ah well, maybe next year.
Still, the boxing action hits like a heavyweight while also offering deep, strategic gameplay for the true ringmaster. Things really rumble in two-player mode, where bouts evolve into ridiculously tense face-offs more like chess than a messy scrap outside the pub. Fight Night 2004 (Issue 29, 8.5) was the jab that opened our defences and Round 2 is the sucker punch follow-up. Hopefully next year's edition will be the knockout blow.
Official Xbox Magazine staff
// Overview
Verdict
Succumbs to the EA Sports curse of not adding enough improvements, but
Round 2 is still a worthy king of the ring.
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