Fight Night: Round 4
ESRB Rating: T for Teen
Platform: Xbox 360
Developer: EA Canada
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: June 25, 2009

Wow. That’s really all you need to know.

Since the sport of mixed martial arts has exploded onto the scene and pretty much completely over-shadowed it, it’s tough to find things to be excited about when it comes to boxing today. Every once in a while a fight comes along with fan favorites like Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, and Ricky Hatton — but aside from that, boxing has become a mostly unappealing spectacle. Fortunately, the cats over at Electronic Arts know how things are done when it comes to their sports games, and that’s no different when it comes to Fight Night: Round 4, which is now the best boxing video game ever made.

The Fight Night franchise has always offered up great boxing games — the best since Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!, to be precise — that fans have loved, even with some kinks here and there. One of the best thing about video games, though, is that many of them get better with new installments. This is because developers can take the good and the bad feedback from their previous games and build from that until they reach perfection. And so far, Fight Night: Round 4 is about as perfect as boxing games get…for now. The scary thing is knowing that they will probably keep finding ways to get better.