Being into to boxing like I am I decided to take some time out to buy myself a boxing game. Also I remember playing contender a few years back and wanted to get a new generation boxing game. I had demod it enough times at stores to buy it off the shelf for 50. That good.
The first thing that comes to mind with fight night 2 is the excellent punch system controlled by the joysticks. It's really neat and offers many more styles than one might expect. The downside is unless your going to get into it, the punching system is hard to get used to and overall figure out. The best way is to start a boxing career (in the game, obviously) and learn in the ring by your trainer.
Multi player is very fun but, as with many games, not as fun if someone has more experience than another. The certain punches you learn and how you combine them is very important and throwing smart combinations will give you the edge over your opponant.
Single player. Campain mode is very easy to get into but gets a lot harder as your boxer wins more fights and gets better stats. But after a while the fights are lame and, well, don't really feel like boxing. You see, there are these things called haymakers. They are very big punches that can ruin a boxers day by drastically lowering their energy. These are awesome when you use them, which is at first difficult because of the flashy movements of the jostick you use. But heres the catch. The AI boxers use haymakers like there is no tomorrow and they land them. This makes the game a good challenging, but for the boxing fans, no technique here.
Single player is great though, but here is the biggest downside in my opinion. You start as a 20 year old amature boxer. You fight, go for the beslt, yatta yatta, and you are aging. Suddenly you are 30 years old and the stats you worked a whole "10 years" are steadily decreasing and no matter how hard you try to increase them by lifting weights or whatever workout they decrease faster than you and suddenly you abs are gone. Yah, sounds cool to some because it seems realistic, but beleive me, it's a bummer.
Let me come to a rambling close. Graphics are awesome, all elements are involved and are very nicely done with the exception of the audience (they are box people). One of the biggest highlights is the very awesome slow-mo replays that would review your knock out blows repetedly, although there is no replay option to view fights manually, at least that none that I know of. Gameplay flows well and there is a good use for every button, ther is one for illegal punches, signature punches, taunts, clinches, and many more things. There are some down sides I havn't mentioned though. There isn't a very large selection of boxers per weight devision, althoughall in all there are quite afew to choose from...assumng you want to fight a feather weight against a light heavy or something. No biggie though. Last badthing to say, knockouts. To many times to you knock your opponant on the canves and they get back up. They average amount of knock outs in a round are three...which is a tad to many I think.
Overall: Buy it is you like pro games or fighting games. I loved it and my money was well spent. 10/10.
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