Best Online and Tourney Video Game

Over the past 10 years sports video games have more and more been made for online play and competition. Every Madden or NCAA or NBA Live has a new feature that is geared toward the online player.

I have a PS3 and the online experience is nothing like offline or even XBOX 360 so I really don't get out there too much.

I do however take part in many tournaments amongst my friends, usually with NBA 2K or College Hoops 2K.

This past weekend my friend Andrew Espidol was visiting in Orlando because he had made it past the qualifying tournament for the game Fight Night Round 4. I have to say, this is by far the best game out there to be played online or against another person in general.

It was a single-elimination, 24-man tournament to be played inside a bigger than normal Gamestop with HD TV's everywhere. There were always two fights going on at a time and they could be seen on multiple TV's at once.

I almost felt like I was at a real fight. Nearly every competitor showed up with a posse that did nothing but shout at weird encouraging words as if their friends were actually in a fight themselves.

The areas where Fight Night succeeds and other video games fail all stem from the control the user has over the outcome. It is by far the most control over any other video game I have seen. In my opinion, this is the most important thing for a sports video game to succeed.

You couldn't really take advantage of many glitches in the game or get lucky at any random point. If you were good, it showed. If you knew boxing, it showed. If you were Asian and were just born with crazy video game skills, it showed.

My friend Espidol emodied all of the above to form the perfect Fight Night player. There was one problem.

Nerves.

The competition and large room filled with over 60 people got to him and he almost looked like he was going to throw up at one point. Still, the competition was not that great, at least according to him. He was still confident he could take anyone in the room.

Already set on the boxer he was going to use, Ali (don't know if you've heard of him), he felt he had the advantage over anyone in the room.

Unlike real boxing, these fights were restricted to a six-round maximum and Espidol was confident he could outscore anyone.

The most common fighter being chosen before Espidol would hold the sticks had to be George Foreman and then Ali and Mike Tyson.

As it would have it, Espidol faced off against a gamer who actually had a black eye himself, immediately reinforcing the nerves for Espidol.

Espidol's competition chose Foreman and Espidol stuck with Ali.

Once the fight started Espidol was immediately on the defensive in the fact that he was trying to figure out his opponent's strategy before making his move.

It would cost him.

While I kept yelling at him "Rope-a-dope," Espidol would lost the first round and then badly lose the second as he was knocked down twice before barely getting up the second time.

It wasn't looking good but it also was not over. Espidol, being the more skilled of the two, began making his move. Knockdowns would be hard to come by as Foreman's size and durability kept him afoot with Espidol never being able to land the one big punch he needed.

Espidol took the next three rounds but he wasted a lot of energy in those rounds and one small slip-up early in the sixth and final round would cost him his life in the tourney.

All of this detail I have just gone into is why this game is so great. You don't get that kind of atmosphere combined with realism in any other sports title.

With the football games you get cheesy playcalling and there's 11 players on the field so obviously the user's impact on the outcome isn't near that of Fight Night.

In basketball it's all dunks, blocks, and crossovers, enough said.

I guess baseball's just not that popular because I could see a game like the show working fine in tournament style play.

The other one-on-one sports like golf and tennis just are not that popular either.

That is why I crown Fight Night as the best online and competition based sports game around today.

This doesn't mean I am going to buy it because I'm terrible at it and usually when I am terrible at a game I end up paying double because I break at least one controller.

So to wrap up, Espidol didn't end up winning the tournament and flying out to Vegas for the championships but we're better for it. It was an awesome experience and something all other sports titles need to take a look at and a page from.


Thank you, my name is Andrew.