Genre: Sports/Boxing
Publisher: EA Sports
Developer: EA Chicago
Release Date: February 20, 2006

Buy 'FIGHT NIGHT ROUND 3':
Xbox | X360 | PlayStation 2 | PSP

This game is both a disappointment and a pleasant surprise.

The console versions of Fight Night Round 3 are masterpieces unto themselves. They feature wonderful, seamless control that requires no thumb displacement whatsoever. They feature graphics that are incredible no matter what generation platform they are on, to the point where you can disable the heads-up displays and take your cues from how your boxer looks and moves. They feature touches, attributes and details that make it the most technical and realistic boxing game on the market, without sacrificing any form of intuitiveness. Whether or not this status has been attained by default makes little difference.

So, let's take a step back and ask ourselves: How well would a version of this game play that's been stripped of its intuitive analog control, a third of its boxer attributes, and that's been squeezed down into a package about the size of a GameCube disc and made to run on a slower system setup?

The answer is, not all that badly, actually ... but it's clear to see that things were sacrificed.

A bit of expansion is in order here, so I shall provide it. Fight Night Round 3 for the PlayStation Portable is a throwback to the older Fight Night games, and even the Knockout Kings days in some respects. Gone is the Total Punch Control accessible via the right thumbstick, because, well, there is no right thumbstick. In its place is a control scheme reminiscent of previous days, with the PSP's face buttons mapped to certain hands and punch types. The more advanced maneuvers, such as uppercuts, haymakers, blocks, parries, and even body blows require the holding of shoulder buttons along with face button presses. In worst case scenarios, expect to hold a shoulder button while jamming on the PSP's relatively fragile face buttons at the same time. This setup translates more easily than it sounds, but you'll still need to keep that instruction book handy for a while to remember just how you're supposed to pull off that haymaker again. Control can be rearranged in six ways, but to little consequence.

This rendition is also less technical than the console versions of Round 3 due to the aforementioned reduction of boxer attributes. In other words, there are fewer things that differentiate one boxer from another. Much like Round 2, they merely have to do with boxer endurance and how well they can take hits. Gone are the finer points, such as how quickly movement speed may wear down, or how their body mass will affect their performance in the ring. You'll notice this in the actual fights; no matter how much the meters say you're wearing your boxer down, you'll never really notice it unless you actually pay attention to those meters. The boxer will still move at relatively the same speed as when the fight started, and punch speed will undergo but the smallest of changes. This also means that boxer enhancements given by the extra attributes are lost. In the console versions of Round 3, Muhammad Ali in his prime was a beast compared to the rest of the roster, and rightfully so. Here, well, not so much.

If you can take these losses in stride, however, you'll find PSP Round 3 to be quite the robust package. Even given the PSP's lack of power and disc space compared to its console brethren, Fight Night Round 3 still manages to pack in a whole lot of bells and whistles. The polygon count of the boxers is as high as it can go without sacrificing speed, and the best of the background music from the console versions has made it in. The arenas and fans are still there, and even with all of these graphics being pumped out, the game still flows quickly and at a constant framerate. Announcer speech, the screaming of fans, the sweat that flies when a punch is landed, it's all here.

If the current graphics engine showed any flaws, it would be in places like the create-a-boxer and the boxer select, as well as the actual fighting. For the first – while character models move well once they're finally loaded, that loading in itself is quite a chore, and it gets frustrating watching the game darn near freeze when this takes place. Meanwhile, for the latter, the boxer models are now far too small (and the camera zoomed out way too far no matter what setup you use) to take cues from, body- and face-wise. It's back to using the HUD, folks. Oh, well. It was nice while it lasted.

Multiplayer, via both ad hoc and infrastructure, has made it in as well, meaning you can battle close friends or total strangers no matter where you are. Single-player, however, has not been ignored, and the career mode is just as addicting as ever. Unfortunately, the attribute-raising mini-games of the console versions are nowhere to be found – only non-interactive automatic training.

People weaned on the console versions will feel more than a slight twinge of disappointment upon taking this game home with them. They will, after all, be yanked out of the bliss of those games, and into a method of boxing that's lacking in resolution, system power, ease of control, boxer complexity, and in some respects, streamlining of game code.

The silver lining is that the blow isn't quite as bad as it could have been – but be warned. Portable Round 3 may be great in principle for on-the-go gaming, it's hardly the same experience with regards to boxing-sim gameplay. Depth, and oddly enough, simplicity, have been sacrificed for portability, making this a mixed bag when all is said and done.

Score: 7.5/10