Fight Night Champion

Now this is another knockout game from EA Sports. Fight Night Champion is a boxing game featuring the world's greatest boxers like Muhammad Ali, Roy Jones Jr., Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard and of course our very own Manny Pacquiao. There are still a lot of great boxers to choose from. Fight Night Champion is available in XBox 360, PS3 and PSP but I'll be sharing my impressions of the game using the iPod Touch. This game is also available in other iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad.

After downloading and installing the game, you get to choose a quick fight or a legacy mode where you build a boxer's career. You can choose on a known boxer already or you can start from scratch. For my legacy, I chose Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao. The controls are just fine and respond to the touch gestures with good sensitivity. I wasn't able to calibrate the movement of the boxer but I can move around the ring with ease. The controls are also displayed while loading before the boxing match.

At first I'm having difficulty getting a good hit on my opponent. You'll get a hard time when your opponent moves a lot, knows how to defend and counter punches effectively. You get two bars on top when you start the game. The bar on top represents the health of the boxer. The boxer gets knocked out when this ran out. The second bar jut below the health represents the stamina of the boxer. This gets replenished during the game but decreases every time the boxer punches. There are replays at the end of every round. You also get points every round that you can use to replenish health, stamina and damage.

Here are just some of the highlights of the Pacquiao matches:

I really had a fun time playing this game. It's a little difficult at first but you'll get used to it when you play the game a lot. I already had great combos from jab, to left hook then an upper cut. It's very fulfilling too when you knock out your opponent. I was able to download the game during the EA Back to School sale at only $0.99, now it's back to $4.99. You might want to wait again for another EA sale. You can check out the game here.