Fight Night Champion

Highs

Interesting story mode

Improved graphics

Complex fighting mechanic

Lows

Story too short

Unrealistic damage

Too many on rails sections

The Fight Night series has always been one of those series that grabs my attention as soon as one of their games enter development, but before I fully start my review I feel its important to state that I am a massive Boxing fan, which means that some aspects of the game that a lot of people would find annoying and tedious I actually found to be a valuable part of the game, and also I'm aware of the fact that whether your a fan of Boxing will inevitably have the largest impact on your decision to pick this up or not.

Main Protagonist

I always like to start on a positive note so this being the case the first thing I'd like to mention is "Champion Mode" which is Fight Nights attempt at a real boxing story, the story puts you in the shoes of a young boxer named Andre Bishop who is serving time in a correctional facility, he starts off fighting in the jail and then the story goes on to the point where he becomes a professional boxer, I won't give too much of the story away but its essentially a Rocky styled rise to glory, with constant peaks and troughs throughout. The story is one of the games main successes, from my knowledge their isn't another boxing game that has attempted to create a real and believable narrative so the fact they are pioneering a new direction for the entire genre has to be applauded.

 "their isn't another boxing game that has attempted to create a real and believable narrative" 

Visually this game is something special, the likeness of the boxers is nearly perfect, even down to the tattoos and scars, when each punch lands you see the sweat and blood spill from the boxer in a visually stunning fashion. Its not just the boxers that look amazing though the arenas used in this game are just as good, the arenas have massive amounts of detail and you can tell that a lot of work was put in by the developers to create a vibrant place to fight in. 

Alternative

Alternative 

There are several aspects that stop this game being the "GOAT" in the genre though, one glaring aspect is that while the story is innovative and daring it is entirely too short, you can easily get through it in one sitting and couple this with the fact it has no real replay value means that the game will struggle it keep its way off the pre-owned shelf.

Ultimately this game is the best boxing game you can buy on the 360 but the competition it has is so poor that this title is not an hard thing to gain, their are promising parts of the game such as the game engine itself which is capable of stunning realism and fluid animation, but their are parts where more work could have been done, maybe if the devs had a few more months to work on this they could have made the story mode longer and improved other aspects of the game that would have made it better but this not being the case we have to face the reality that to boxing fans like myself this game didn't live up to the potential it had. 

6.5/10                             Buy or Rent ..... Rent