EA’s Fight Night Round 3 was one of the best sports games in recent memory. The controls were innovative, the gameplay was fun, and the graphics are still among the best we’ve seen on the next-gen consoles. Nevertheless, the game still had some drawbacks. The lack of relevant licensed boxers was slightly discouraging, with certain obvious omissions like Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Mike Tyson being most notable. Furthermore, while the Total Punch Control system was extremely well executed, there was little advantage to using it over the buttons, which allowed for faster and more responsive punching. Also, the heavy emphasis on cartoonish haymaker punches was for many a step in the wrong direction as far as gameplay was concerned.

With the recent announcement of Fight Night Round 4, EA is promising overhauled gameplay, including a new physics and animation engine, which supposedly will address many of the concerns players had with EA's last offering. Key additions like inside-fighting and differential punch power, hopefully will provide for a much more realistic and entertaining pugilistic experience. And oh yeah, Iron Mike is prominently featured too.

Will the new changes lead to a game that is even more entertaining than the first? Or will EA once again rely too heavily on gimmicky features, which ultimately do no justice to the gameplay itself? In this article, I will examine some of the promised new additions, and identify what looks promising, and what could be problematic.

1. Mike Tyson

First of all, it’s about time. People have been crying for Iron Mike’s return to the digital canvas since the Punch-Out! days. With each release, Fight Night forums all across the Internet become littered with posts entitled, "why no Tyson?" or some similar variation. Therefore, the addition of Iron Mike can only be a good one. He was invincible in his prime, with an unprecedented style, and an even more unprecedented combination of speed and power. He dismantled nearly everyone he faced early in his career, winning his first 37 professional fights. Of those, almost all were knockouts, many in the first round, and the few opponents who managed to survive the distance lost in unanimous decisions. With EA’s commitment to individual boxer-styles, we can expect an authentic replication of the bob and weave, as well as animations that are true to Tyson’s wildly explosive techniques. Surely, it will be a joy to recreate his heyday in Round 4.

But there are a few issues surrounding Tyson’s inclusion in the game. First, which Tyson do we get? Will EA include the aforementioned 37-0 Tyson, or the Tyson who got a tribal facial tattoo, and then got his face tattooed again by scrubs like Danny Williams and Kevin McBride? Perhaps EA will do something similar to what they did with Jordan in NBA Street Vol. 2. In that game, they included 3 versions of Air Mike: rookie Jordan, Jordan in his prime, and over-the-hill Wizards Jordan. This strategy worked well in a basketball game, especially a 3-on-3 version which allowed for an All-Jordan team, but would it transfer to boxing? Presumably the new career mode will still allow players to recreate the career of any boxer in the game. In that case, how will they handle Tyson’s evolution over the course of his career?

Also, Tyson media-friendliness is presumably one of the reasons that EA has passed on including him in their games in the past. This could conceivably be problematic in the marketing of a new game in which he is prominently featured. We don’t know for sure if Tyson will be on the cover, but if he is, it will be interesting to see how he handles the additional responsibilities of the cover-athlete in marketing their game. His craziness is what made Tyson so intriguing as a fighter, and I know EA will have to hold back on truly capturing that insanity in the game. Whether that will undermine the experience of playing with him is something only time will tell. What I do know is that I don’t expect to see the "Ear Bite" as a new illegal punch in Round 4, and that is just a shame.