s much as certain events have made gamers a little bitter at EA’s business tactics, Fight Night: Round 2 does illustrate what the company is very good at: taking a good thing and making it even better.
It’s obvious that the developers, while continuing to fine-tune the all-analog gameplay, have placed a focus on creating a more compelling career mode. Largely, they’ve been very successful. The new create-a-boxer is very comprehensive, allowing you to morph almost every aspect of your pugilist’s appearance on the fly. A new type of match mode, available as a standalone option called Hard Hit Mode, makes an appearance on your schedule as special events. In these events, a round doesn’t end until someone is knocked down, lending a more brutal, over-the-top feel to the contest. Thankfully, these are optional and, while they can unlock new items in the store, they don’t usually count against your ranking. For hardcore fans, you’ll be pleased to note that you can now change weight classes mid-career as you age and that each pro’s career is made so you’re fighting era-appropriate foes.
On the gameplay side, the most important new aspect is the Haymakers – powerful blows that allow you to pre-load a punch for extra impact. Of course, using them is risky, but their power makes them an important tool in winning the belt. Although the initial matches are a bit easier than in last year’s, the difficulty stiffened once my rank climbed to the mid-30s. The AI seems a bit savvier, and opponents will grapple when you’ve got them nearly knocked out to buy for time. I find it a little strange that rival boxers have an almost Jason Vorhees-like ability to rise from the mat, sometimes recovering from as many as four knockdowns in two rounds, but that’s a minor quibble.
Another nice addition is the "woozy" camera angles that appear when you or an opponent is nearly knocked down. It’s a small touch, but a very dramatic one, just one more of the many little things that EA did right in making Fight Night: Round 2. The sum of these is a game that might just be the best boxing video game to date.