Product ReviewsFight Night Round 3 (Microsoft Xbox 360, 2006)

I love this game!

I highly recommend this boxing game. You really can’t go wrong with the price. I used to have this game years ago, but I leant it to a friend and never got it back. I decided to rebuy it, and I’m glad I did. My only complaint is that I feel like when I had it years ago I had more options when creating a boxer. But the game is super fun and I would highly recommend it to anyone.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: powerupvideogames

Its Just EA Sports

Ok, I've had all the fight nights and after deciding I hated 4 and Champion primarily because they stink. ( For me the no push buttons and poor fight controls and stupidly hard training in 4 and the fantastically stupidly hard training in Champion as well as opponents with ESP who know exactly when you're going for the body etc etc etc.) I decided I'd go back to my favorite. FN 3. And sure enough they had it for the 360. So far so good.
Now don't get me wrong, FN 3 had harebrained drawbacks only EA could manage; in career mode no real rankings, a bizarre rival system where just about every belt fight you face one of your rivals, an absolutely set pattern to your career etc etc etc. But the feel of the fight controls and the fighting itself I always felt was as close to real boxing ( I was actually a boxer) as I was going to get. Unlike Champion dudes don't take downs every 3rd punch, so you can get some pretty good fights going.
So how is it on the 360? Just gotta have much better graphics right? Nope. They fiddled with the player faces and tried to improve the gear but failed miserably. It actually looks worse then the XBOX version. With the chance to upgrade they just had to fix the stupid stuff right? Nope, the stupid stuff was left unchanged, and the fighting feels as though it was tweaked and just seems off. Way to go EA. AND there are now numerous glitches that pop up in career mode, like your fighter's hair style, (try and keep a buzz cut on a fair skinned dude) in the promo that announces the past or coming fight I get some totally different dude then my created fighter, and slow out of sync loading etc etc etc.
So, in sum, FN 3 for the 360 is just another warm plop from EA who should change their name to ETC ETC ETC with their motto being: " Just give us your money and forget about the game. You have no choice, there is no competition."
But what are you gonna do? There's nothing else out there.
If you can't stand 4 or Champion like me, you might as well give it a go---- 4 bucks or so on eBay. Its worth that much, anyway.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: goodwill-wi-books

Graphics Cool, Gameplay Great, but nowhere near perfect

A common theme with a next-gen system is that the Graphics are the best I've seen on any system ever for a boxing game, even compared to a PC. The controls are also one of the best, making use of both Analog sticks. The Total Control Punch system is just revolutionary for boxing games.

Fight Night Round 3 has a pretty good career mode. You can make your own boxer and progress him towards the ranks of becoming a champion. Heavyweight, Middleweight, Lightweight, Flyweight, you name it. The progression is a little repetitive, and the challenge quite similar (training, fighting, etc).

Remembering an old Boxing Classic - Mike Tyson's Punchout on the SNES, FNR3 is not about finding the weakness of a boxer, but more about reacting and counterpunching, but as you progress the ranks, you find everyone seems to react the same way, but just gets harder and can take more of your punches. As far as sports games go, it's fun, but could have been much better.

Still, this game has to be seen to be believed. The crowd animation is great, the girls carrying the placards between rounds look a little awkward, but the Boxers, trainers, crowd animations are really excellent. Sound is a bit weak, especially the trainers, announcers all repeating themselves over and over. The ambience effects are pretty good (crowd noise, punch sounds, hits, etc) and music is average with hip hop and rap songs that could get repetitious again. Definitely worth a rental.Read full review...

Knocked Out

Electronic Arts presents the third edition of their Fight Night series. This time, it's back with better graphics and more balanced gameplay. There is no doubt that this is one of the best games EA has put out in their market as far as visuals.

Gameplay: 8
The game has more realism to the game as far as facial physics and facial movement. As I recall in Fight Night Round 2, Muhammad Ali was just any other regular boxer. In Round 3 he actually tip toes around the ring and has amazingly powerful jabs. So already seeing that difference shows that EA put some effort into adding some more realism and authenticity to the game. Round 3 provides a career mode. It is very limited to what you can actually do, you can't really choose ring entrances, take on sponsors, or buy some extra cool items (whatever they may be). Rather, you are left listen to your SAME ring entrance in EVERY SINGLE fight, see and listen to the same advertisement in the game, and provided with incredibly expensive gears such as $300,000 pairs of shorts and $300,000 sneakers.

Controls: 9
It's practically the same as the other series. You still have the TPC (Total Punch Control). Six different configurations. A new thing they added was the Flash KO Punch: it's basically a haymaker with more windup on the analog. Another new feature is the Stun Punch: This is done with more wind up and a follow through punch all the way. What the Stun Punch does is it puts the person who has been hit in First Person Perspective and a little mini-game ,as EA likes to call, comes into action.

Challenges: 7
There are three modes of level difficulty including: Easy, Medium, and Hard. Easy: it's just like the demo, you can practically KO your opponent in 1 or 2 rounds. Medium: a decent fight, but you still end up winning all the time. Hard: In my opinion, this is by far one of least difficult "hard difficulties" I have ever experienced. It's too easy to be labeled hard. For those mild gamers, I would stick with Medium but for those who a hardcore gamers, you can stick with Hard. Every so often you'll come across some "hard" fights, but nothing too overly aggressive.

Sound: 8
You feel so good when you hear that boxing glove smash into your opponents face. It's even more satisfying to hear it again and see it again in replay. There are even situations when you choose a roster character in the game and the crowd even starts chanting your name. It's awesome, but nothing we haven't seen. Commentary can get absolutely repetitive but they have some unique comments to each individual player in the game which is a great add-on. The music selection was also pretty nice. It gave the game a kind of casual feeling.

Overall: 8
Fight Night Round 3 is an amazing game. Visually it is amazing (watching people bleed and watching the stream of blood/spit that comes out after each hard it). Even facial reactions look real. This game is a must buy for boxing fans. Although the single player might be repetitive, short, or have no storyline, the Multi-Player Live factor is what will bring you back to the game.Read full review...

The Next Generation Wakes Up

Fight Night Round 3 on the XBOX 360 is easily the best sports game I have ever played. Coming from a guy who's never really grasped the appeal annually-updated athletic releases, that's saying something. What makes me take notice? It's more than accessible controls, strategy that any would-be pugilist intuitively understands, and lighting effects that make graphics snobs coo like amused infants. It's the little things; watching Ali snap jabs into my Frazier's face, sweat and blood specks popping into the air, I almost forget that this is a game as I frantically bring up my defense with the hopes of setting up my next devastating hook to the body. Unprecedented character detail and fully-rendered crowds lend this game realism unmatched by any other on the market. This is the game that changed my mind about the necessity of an XBOX 360 in my home.

Why isn't it perfect? While my qualms are few, they do exist, and you should know about them. Occasionally the audio track will bug out, leaving gaping sound holes where you expect Joe Tessitore's commentary or a trainer's advice. On another note, I really hope to find more depth in a future Fight Night career mode, as this year's seems rather shallow (intense boxing rivalries should garner more attention, and the monotony of "contract, train, repeat" needs to be broken). And please, EA Sports, cut back on the in-game advertising...though I could really go for a burger right now...

The next generation just punched me square in the face, and I can't get enough. Believe in the 360...it's the real deal.Read full review...

Fight Night fun

Great boxing game. It is challenging because it is more 3 dimensional than most boxing games. Many are just "hit high, hit low, knockout punch". But Fight Night allows for different fighting styles, like speed or power or balance, you can switch to lefty stance, you use both arms for many different types of punches and you are using different styles of defenses to block various punches. It makes it more of a thinking game. You don't just hit the block button to block, you have to watch for the type of punches being thrown. You have access to many of the boxing legends of past and present to fight against or use for yourself. Career mode is fun as you fight your way up through the ranks and win trophies. As you prepare for fights, you train your character using reflex games of skill to raise attributes. It gets much harder as time goes on and can be frustrating to master at the higher levels. There is an auto train mode but you miss some of the benefits. Same with healing between rounds. You can heal automatically but it is probably only half as effective as doing it yourself. But doing it yourself is difficult and hard to master as well. Overall it is a great fight game that will give you lots of hours of fun.Read full review...

Can you say KO

After two strong showings with Fight Night 1 and Round 2 on the current gen consoles, EA Steps into the next gen ring with a KO!

Graphics: As you already know if you have played a demo or seen screenshots of this game, the graphics the focal point of Fight Night Round 3. Everything has been remodeled and upgraded for the Xbox 360. Skin on the boxers looks real and has all of the right textures. The faces are accurate to the tee as they scrunch up and contort with every blow. The crowd n the game is in full 3D and even the ring girls FINALLY look like real women. EA Sports hyped up the graphics and they lived up to it completely. Perhaps the best graphics in a sports game, ever.

Gameplay: The core gameplay from Fight Nights in the past is meated up with some new mechanics to create a balanced experience. When stepping into the ring you will notice the basics such as the Total Punch Control, haymakers, clinching, and illegal punches are back, but EA added 2 new things to the game. The first is the "Flash KO" punch. By charging a punch the right way, your boxer will throw a "Flash KO" punch that, when landed, will put your opponent in an instant daze, leaving him one big blow away from being knocked out. The new Stun Punch works in a similar way, but when it connects the game switches to a first person view through your opponents eyes, as he watches you wail on him. Both of these mechanics bring new strategy to the game and make fights more unpredictable then ever. Adding these things while leaving the core aspects basically the same help make R3 the best playing fighter since Punch Out.

Presentation: The first thing you will notice is no more health meters or HUD at all! This creates a realistic atmosphere in which you will have to look at your opponents body language to see his status. However, the "Heartbeat" remains when your opponent is about to be KO'd. When that KO punch does happen, the game goes into a slow motion closeup of your hand ripping the opponents face or body, spit/blood flying and all. This makes for great fun and adds to the impact of the bone shattering punches.

Also EA Sports brings in their ESPN rights in this years version, but it could have been done better. While you will see ESPN logos everywhere (along with logos from about 10 different companies), you will not get that ESPN feel. Instead the feel of fights is darker, and cinematic, which is cool at first, but in the long run I wish they would make it more like a TV broadcast. It would also have been nice to add the live ESPN ticker on the bottom like they did with MVP 06: NCAA Baseball.

Sound: The sound of the fights are about as realistic as you can get. The commentary is small, but effective as the punches are called as they happen. The sound of the gloves hitting the body, the fighters grunting as they throw that killer blow, or receive it, the crowd, and the body smacking the canvas all make for a great experience. The music in the game is all rap, which fits boxing like a glove. I know not all enjoy rap music, but thats what custom soundtracks are for. Overall the sound of the game is great, but nothing we haven't heard before.

EA Sports Fight Night Round 3 has officially taken video game boxing to another level graphics wise, and gameplay wise. Even though the presentation could be better, Fight Night R3 on the Xbox 360 is still one of the best boxing games to date and a MUST HAVE for any 360 owner.Read full review...

EA Sports Fight Night Round 3 xbox 360

Great game, Graphics are amazing (very amazing), music is great,and the detail is awesome, but the reason I give this a 4 out of 5 is for the replay value. Now that might be for me personally due to me not being a huge boxing fan, you might find a great replay value. I really enjoy the new gamer score for the 360, and this game only has 8 achievments for a total of 1000 points and all 8 acievments are in career mode which, is very fun to play, but I will probably only do this completly 1 time. You can achieve this quickly probably 16 hours (all offline), but if you like this game and want to play online then that is where the replay value comes in. You can win several awards on online play which makes you want to play some more, each fight take a while though, especially if you go all 10 rounds. If your into 360 games and like the gamer score feature than rent this game. If you are a true boxing fan then you should probably buy this one because it is a very neat and well put together game.Read full review...

HIGHLY ADDICTIVE!

When Fight Night Round 3 for the Xbox 360 made its way onto my desk, I have to say I was very excited. As many of you know I review a lot of games, but there are a lot that are just like going through the motions. And as much as I try to keep my mind as open-minded as possible, there are just some games that you're more excited to put through the tests. So going into Fight Night Round 3 interested to see what the final results of the game were, I have to say that the results may or may not surprise people. One of the most fundamental parts of any boxing game is the career mode, which Fight Night Round 3 does contain. I must say however that as much as I did enjoy my time with the mode I have to say that the developers left room for improvement. You start the mode by of course creating your boxer, and thus choosing the right weight class is also a key to how you want the career to go. Following that you are thrown into the meat and potatoes of the mode, which basically means you train, you box and you train, you box some more. The formula for the career mode is still nearly identical to what we have become accustomed to for a while now. Once you get your boxer ready to go there is really nothing more to the mode. The game tries to throw in this new "rivalry" system, which means that your rival is going to be your arc enemy that you face throughout. Besides that and some different commentary lines during those fights, there is really nothing special about this idea. I liked my experience with the career mode, but I just wish the developers had put more into it. As sports games grow, storylines are becoming a part of these games and I think a boxing game would be a great place to implement just that. Boxing has brought about some of the greatest stories in sports, and I would imagine a boxing game with some sort of path/story would be a great idea. So the career mode in my opinion was a good but not great experience. The actual boxing mechanics in my opinion were along the same lines. Some may wonder why I wasn't a huge fan of the gameplay and my main reaction after playing the game for a few hours was that it still felt a lot like Fight Night Round 2. Sure this isn't a bad thing, because Round 2 was a solid game but there were things that I still felt a bit weird about in this game. One thing is the realism, because knockouts very rarely happen after one or two knockdowns even as a power puncher. This to me takes away from the realism of the game and therefore just makes you kind of feel like you can see the numbers that are being worked behind the screen. The game does feature Xbox Live support, which I actually played extensively to try and get a better idea of the average experience online. For a boxing game, latency can be a huge issue, and for Fight Night Round 3 I would say that more times it did not interfere with the gameplay then it did. That is of course not to say that the game always plays great online, but I wish the game had more options. In the end, Fight Night Round 3 is a great game, but it just is missing the great pieces to put it over the top. While I enjoyed my time playing Fight Night Round 3, I just felt like there was a lot of room for improvement. GraphicsRead full review...

Good game

Good game and worth picking up for a sub $20 purchase. The Achievments are easy to get and are 100 a pop.

Good character customization, and easy to change between fights.

The controls are easy to use and the learning curve is quick. Soon you'll be bobbing, weaving and parrying like the greatest.

The training mini-games are boring and repetitive, which is why I gave this review a 4 out of 5. Watching your fighter come out with the Burger King Trainer is great though!

Overall, this is probably the best boxing game on the market right now.Read full review...

One of the greatest of all time

I really cannot decide which is the greatest boxing game of all time, Fight Night Round 3 or Fight Night Champion. The newer game is more realistic for sure, with better graphics and polish, but this one has a certain style to the graphics and gameplay that make it such a fun game its hard to deny. I would argue that no collection is complete without both, and which disc goes into the console depends on the temperament of the day and whose company you're in. This one is epic and flashy, and it didn't seem cartoony at the time but it certainly seems that way after you've played Fight Night Champion.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: thevalueprovider