Two years after EA’s Fight Night 2004 came out, it’s almost cliché to say that the series changed the face of boxing games forever. Almost. Now, with the next-gen installment’s release, there’s a new face to the changed face of boxing games. Without a shadow of a doubt, pound for pound, Fight Night Round 3 builds upon the legacy that its predecessors laid out and takes not only the visuals, but the gameplay to another level. They say the third time’s the charm; in this case, consider us charmed, seduced, and smoking a cigarette. For the most part.

The best way to describe Round 3 is that it feels like a hybrid of the best parts of the previous game. The first title was an amazing debut hobbled only by poor presentation and the inability to clinch or move while blocking. Round 2 fixed both of those problems, while inadvertently creating a few problems of its own, mainly in the Haymaker system, which completely ruined the online experience. In that sense, Round 3 feels significantly more like a boxing game than its predecessor.

Visually, there’s no other way to describe Round 3 except to say that it’s one of the first and few Xbox 360 titles that feels genuinely next-generation. Yes, there have been some impressive titles. There have been immersive first-person shooters that feel like the player is a part of the action. There have been racing games that look so real that players can see the cracks in the asphalt as they bend corners. There have been fighting games with jiggling--you get the point. None of them can prepare people for the level of immersion that EA has concocted with this new boxing title. It definitely takes the cake for most realistic sports game on the system up to this point.

It’s amazing to think that players can finally get hands-on with a game that felt so distant and visually futuristic at E3, which was less than a year ago. Textures look not only smooth, but real. Every detail of the roster’s numerous boxers has been recaptured in exceptional fidelity to form. From Roy Jones’ haircut to Winky Wright’s tattoos, it’s all in there in stunning detail. Even the ring girls look exceptionally real, from the tats on their bodies to the way that their bodies jiggle when they walk around the ring. Skin stretches, moves, and flexes with each movement of a player. Blood flies freely, especially during replays of knockdowns. A hard shot to a nasty cut will also send crimson flying through the air. Sweat pours off each fighter, and gets progressively worse, alongside player deformities, during gameplay. Unfortunately, there are no tears, as it’s hard to cry when your eyes are swollen shut from thirty jabs to the face too many.

It’s not just the boxers that make the game so incredible; it’s little elements that go a long way. The crowds are fully 3D and fairly diverse in number, a commonly overlooked step in many sports games.The lighting effects are certainly crucial to mention. Levels such as the Windy City Boxing Gym and the Aragon Ballroom show off the way that light bounces off of skin textures, through windows, and over the ring with remarkable results. Other small and impressive touches include the ESPN Classic mode, in which legendary bouts are re-enacted; visually, the Robinson/LaMotta rivalry looks phenomenal, even in black and white, a nod to both classic boxing and Scorsese.

Acoustically speaking, it’s a satisfactory experience. The sound of a man’s face being shattered by a flying fist has seldom sounded as good as it does in Round 3. Hard hits will work out any good subwoofer on a home theater system. The music selection is a little sweet and sour, however. There are banging hip-hop tracks by artists like Atmosphere and Obie Trice, but they’ve removed some of the Latino flavor from Round 2’s soundtrack, which is unfortunate as it’s doubtful that most of the Mexican boxers would come out to the ring to underground hip-hop tunes instead of a more traditional sound.

Gameplay is where Round 3 truly shines. Don’t let the pretty face of the game lull you into thinking that it’s all glitz; it’s far from it. One of the best things about Round 3 is the way that EA Chicago has fine-tuned the controls. The Haymaker punch, a well-intended feature added to Round 2 that created wildly imbalanced matches that felt less like real boxing and more like a modified fighting game, has been reigned in by slower animation. Power punching, which has always been slightly telegraphed, is even moreso now to keep things even-handed.

New to the power-punching arsenal are the Flash KO and the Stun Punch. The Stun Punch takes gameplay into first-person mode and puts the recipient into first person perspective. It’s a definite challenge to survive, but with proper countering and parrying, a victim can turn things around and prey on an opponent. The Flash KO is the sort of one-punch knockdown that was rarer to see in the last game. Even harder to pull off and slower moving than a Haymaker, the Flash KO gives a battered player a last ditch effort to turn around the momentum of a fight. And it’s pretty damn useful as an "In Case of Emergency, Break Glass" move.

The already-tight defensive system has gotten a better boost due to what seems to be a throwback to FN 04’s emphasis on leaning instead of just countering. It feels easier and more possible for a capable player to pull off Ali’s Rope-a-Dope style or the Philly Shell maneuver than before. Countering still feels intuitive and right, too. Fight Night has always been a series that emphasized sticking and moving more than a mutual punching out of one another’s lights, and the tweaked leaning makes that even more possible within a fight than before.

Career mode, if not excellent, is at least solid. Players familiar to the franchise will breeze through the training minigames in their quest to take titles. New to the game is the trash-talking press conference brawl minigame, although it’s a bit more of a novelty than anything really badass. Again, it’s not awful, but it’s not going to steer anyone away from Fight Night’s incredible multiplayer experience outside of unlocking items, venues, and ESPN Classic grudge bouts. Plus, in order to get a real challenge, players are going to have to crank up the difficulty. Hard Mode, while concussion-inducing to play at first, gives players a real taste of the unleashed and unrestrained fighting styles of the boxers. A match with Roy Jones, Jr. reveals his trademark leans and jabbing style. A match with Marvelous Marvin Hagler left me with a sixty year-old alcoholic’s liver after taking several hard shots.

Round 3 on Xbox Live is a mutually great, yet flawed experience. The game is broken down, much like other EA Sports games, on EA Nation’s servers. Players can pick from Unranked and Ranked matches. EA has also created stratified servers to give rookies a fighting chance and veterans a challenge. There’s also an Analog Only server for Total Punch Control users who want to box rather than turn Fight Night into an arcade-like experience, although it was a bit densely populated when we took a spin online. Unfortunately, a few games were laggy to the point of which I took a loss to disconnect from the server. We’re talking 56k slow here. It’s probably something that could be resolved over time, but it’s still a glaring flaw to have on opening day.

An unfortunate element of online multiplayer that can’t be fixed is the mismatching of gameplay styles. Since EA Chicago doesn’t see fit to either strengthen Total Punch Control more or crippling button usage more within the game, it’s tough to find a match up if you’re a TPC player playing against a twitchy button masher. It’s the fundamental difference of a boxer taking on a Tekken character, and outside of the sparsely populated Analog Only room, it would be nice to have an indicator within the gameplay menu that one opponent is utilizing a different style over another. It makes a huge difference in the game, and shouldn’t be overlooked.

In closing, Fight Night Round 3 is one of the first absolutely must-own titles for Xbox 360. The controls have been greatly improved over last year’s game, with much-abused control schemes getting reined in a bit. The visuals are undoubtedly among the most impressive on the system at this point, as the tech demos from last year whetted millions of gamers’ collective appetite for this title, boxing fans or not. If there are any issues that ultimately prevent this game from achieving five stars, they lie in the realms of online multiplayer and Career Mode. The Career Mode, while somewhat fun, is a tad unfulfilling to play. Xbox Live alternates between smooth gameplay and modem-like lag, and the organization could be a bit better in regard to matchmaking and gameplay styles, although players who keep it narrowed to the friends list should be fine. While Round 3 doesn’t achieve perfection, it comes pretty damn close. It’s undoubtedly the best-feeling Fight Night game to play, and the first sports game on Xbox 360 to truly feel next-gen.