I didn't have high hopes for Fight Night Champion, the iPhone version of EA's hit Fight Night series on consoles. The Xbox 360 titles I've played made for hours upon hours of entertainment and I can't imagine an iOS version really coming close to recreating that.
Fortunately, EA proved me wrong. The boxing game turned out to be a mighty fun experience, even with the occasional hiccups (it crashed twice on me -- yikes) and the obvious limitations of the platform.
Fight Night Champion's overall gameplay shares many similarities to Fight Night 4, with fast and furious pugilistic action taking center stage round after round. Controls can be a handful to learn, so make sure to take some time to learn it before giving up in frustration. Once you get the hang of it, though, you'll realize it's actually pretty intuitive -- you tap to jab, swipe sideways for a cross, swipe up for an uppercut and so on. The one really tough area is the movement: you need to tilt your phone to get the boxer to move and it feels like a chore even after 50 or so rounds.
As with all Fight Night games, there's a career mode with some depth to it, as well as quick play for short pick-up matches. I'm really glad they managed to add multiplayer over WiFi and Bluetooth -- really ups replayability tenfold when you can bust heads with your friends. Graphics are really good for an iPhone game and it comes with 20 big names in tow (both active and retired boxers), so there are no complaints on either end.
Overall, Fight Night Champion is a welcome download that will likely be a bestseller on the platform. You can get it now for $4.99.
[EA]
