Friday, February 24, 2006

More Fight Night 3 Notes

I just had my rival punch me in the face at a weigh-in for our fight. I knocked his sorry ass out in the first round and called him something unmentionable when he hit the canvas for the second time. So the rivals thing isn't totally hopeless, but the problem with it is that they designate your rival for you--before you've ever even fought. What should happen is that after your first close, tough fight, that guy then becomes your rival. So the rivals concept is a nice idea, but they puked on the implementation.

Here's a note on careers: if you haven't started your career yet, here are a couple of house rules that I think would make it much more interesting. Basically, the training mini-games are too generous, particularly with stamina. When you're in a fight against a boxer who has 20% less stamina than you, he often totally runs out of gas and can hardly even throw a punch. Poor game balance, in other words.

However, and here's the house rule, if you play the training mini-games for only 30 seconds instead of 60, it should work just fine. You can still get big point advances at first, but as your ratings get higher, there won't be any way to get full skills increases. So your ratings will stay more in the range of your opponents, which should contribute to very challenging fights.

One other note. There's a "fight store" where you can buy gear to increase your ratings. Total bullshit, in other words. So the second house rule I implemented was to limit my purchases to items costing $30,000 or less. I was able to buy a few pieces of equipment that way, but nothing that unbalanced the game.

After playing a few more hours yesterday, I think the stamina issue is definitely the biggest ratings imbalance as your boxer develops. Overall, though, a very impressive package.

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