EA steps into the ring with a solid boxing effort in Fight Night 2004.

In 1998, EA Sports introduced Knockout Kings, the first boxing game for the U.S. owners of the Playstation console. With 38 playable fighters and three weight classes, Knockout Kings was a welcomed addition for sports gaming fans. More versions and updates followed to the current generation consoles, with a few improvements and graphic enhancements. However, there was a rather strange release schedule for the various consoles, with PS2 and XBox owners getting Knockout Kings 2002, GameCube owners getting 2003.

In 2004, EA re-brands the 6th game in the series as Fight Night 2004, and with this new look, they bring 32 prize fighters over six weight classes, Total Punch Control, an innovative way to throw your punches and block devastating combos, and online play, only for PS2 owners. In addition to improved visuals, Fight Night's presentation is on par with the rest of the EA Sports franchise. Once you pop in the disc and wait a few seconds for the intro to load, you are thrown into the Westerholz Arena, greeted by a roaring a crowd, pyrotechnics, flying doves, and Roy Jones Jr., the cover athlete of Fight Night, coming down the ring with an entourage which includes a booty shakin' ring valet.

One of the gems in Fight Night is Create-A-Boxer. You choose a name, weight class, and a nickname, which Big Tigger, EA's ring announcer, will use when doing play-by-play. When you get to appearance, there are a myriad of choices, from hair, eye shape, eye size, ear size, nose width, nose size, etc. Give your boxer a mullet AND unibrow. You can add tattoos, and change your ring wear. At the end, you can max out the skills, or be fair about it and divide it up reasonably.

Total Punch Control is EA's new control scheme for Fight Night. Instead of mashing buttons to throw punches, hooks, and uppercuts, a player will use the right analog stick and mimic Street Fighter-esque to land punches. Use R1 and you can now block, or even parry punches, setting up great counter-punches and stunning combos. Hold L1 and you can throw jabs and hooks to the body. L1, when used with the left analog, will also allow you to lean away from punches. The in-game tutorials for offense and defense are a definite must-see before venturing into the game modes.

Not to fear, button-mashers, there are other control configurations where you can still use the face buttons as punches. But a true master of Fight Night knows it's all about counterpunches and timing. In addition to blocking, you can parry punches, giving you a little time to wind-up and throw uppercuts and hooks. Catch your opponent off-guard and they'll stagger after receiving a devastating punch. If you're lucky, maybe they'll spit blood. Keep punching away at his right eye, and eventually it will swell up or his face will be cut. Boxers will resist movement if they take way too many body shots. But if you throw too many punches, your boxer will get tired. Suddenly, those 5-punch combos aren't coming out, and dodging becomes more difficult. The knockdowns are perhaps the most unrealistic part of the game. Legs turn to jelly and the rag doll physics is hilarious. And of course, you will see a replay of the devastating hit.

"Play Now" is essentially exhibition mode in Fight Night. You can use your own created character, or professional fighters faithfully modeled by EA. If you a huge boxing fan, you're able to recreate great moments in history. Muhammed Ali vs. Joe Frazier? Will Frazier get the better of Ali this time around? Always wondered what would happen if Sugar Ray Leonard faced Roberto Duran for a fourth time? Is Ronald "Winky" Wright really better than Sugar Shane Mosley, or was that a fluke win? The possibilities are endless in the Play Now mode. You can even make a poor featherweight take on a heavyweight in a fight of epic proportions. Unfortunately, there is no practice/sparring mode in Fight Night, so you must learn hard-way.

Career mode, however, is a much more rewarding. Create your own boxer or choose professionals like Lennox Lewis and take him from the rank 50 and take him to the top. You get to allocate points to 8 different attributes, then take your boxer to different venues like a restaurant (you must see the large fish tank inside), to small gyms. There are four mini-games that will allow you increase your attributes once you schedule a fight. As you progress, you face nobodies, earn meager purse money, and unlock more valets, equipment, and entrance effects. As I write this article, I'm 43-3 with 29 KOs, and yes, it's very gratifying. Of course, there are a few things lacking with career mode. The first is the ability to move from weight class to another. Roy Jones Jr., cover athlete, has done that in his career, so it's very odd to leave that out. Also, I wish there was a way to practice playing the mini-games. I had a little trouble with the heavy bag, so it would have been nice to be able to practice. Also, Fight Night doesn't tell you how to unlock the unlockables. Is it based upon wins? Winning awards? Total earnings?

For PS2 owners, you can take your created boxers online and slug it out with a fellow man, or choose the professionals. You can look at each fighter's attributes before you choose to slug it out. USB headsets are supported, and are activated as soon as you arrive to the character screen. If you're using broadband, the game flows very well, and is very comparable to offline play. For 56K users, mileage may vary. At its core, online play itself is excellent. However, it is missing so many elements, which brings the score a bit down. For starters, the cutscenes that you see offline are taken out. Where's the flash and pageantry? Between rounds, you can't see how many punches you've thrown, or where they've landed, unlike the offline game. This is pretty disappointing for a stat buff like me, cause I want to find out if my opponent's left uppercuts or left body hooks are killing me. And when your opponent loads up a character, the name is CREATED BOXER, not Asian Sens8tion, Buster Brown, The Answer, or whatever names your opponent chose. That's definitely dropping the ball.

Fight Night gets the typical gloss of cool doused onto its EA Sports titles. The soundtrack is rap/hip-hop heavy, but it's missing one ominous track. If you're going to go after Puff Daddy, Busta Rhymes, and Cee-Lo, you must fork over the money to LL Cool J and add "Mama Said Knock You Out." Big Tigger's role as a ring and play-by-play announcer is decent, but I've always believed that an announcer should always wear a tuxedo, and not a sports jersey. Being at a prize fight should always be treated as if it was a special event. And if by some strange chance two boxers have the same nickname, you can't tell if you or your opponent is throwing down brutal combos or if Big Tigger things you're ahead.

Overall, offline play is extremely polished, and worth price of admission alone. I could not make that statement without Total Punch Control, as it makes the game even more challenging. Online is a great bonus, but it seemed rather rushed near the end. If you're on narrowband, and you must play online, rent this game first. Fight Night 2004 is a great offering to the boxing genre.