Since the release of the Fight Night Round 4 demo several days ago, fight fans have had a few concerns as to the gameplay and overall mechanics. It’s nothing like Fight Night Round 3, and a few users have been unhappy with EA. Brian “Brizzo” Hayes, producer for Round 4, has addressed some of the issues that gamers have encountered at the EA Forums:

Update: 05-15-2009

Couple of quick things that I can speak about right away. First, for those interested in timelines, the demo was locked down about 7 weeks ago in early, early April. As you might imagine, the final weeks of development is when a lot of the fine tuning and polishing gets completed. For example, off the top off my head:

1. Stamina. Stamina loss is a little higher and stamina regeneration is a little slower.

2. Punch connections. Landed punch collisions are cleaner and hit reactions have more intensity.

3. Cuts and Swelling. The onset is very fast in the demo. In the final version, depending on your susceptibility to damage you find that you might have several fights without incurring any significant damage – but then when it does happen, it really affects the way your fight plays out between rounds.

4. Punch Animations. Tweaks on many punches occurred after the demo was out the door to address performance/technique issues.

5. Gameplay Audio. The mix in the demo is not great and we know that. Lots of audio work was done in the final 6-7 weeks and it sounds much better.

6. Counter Punch Window. The counter window is roughly the same length, maybe a little shorter in the final version. But we tuned how often you can open it up. They don’t happen as often overall.

7. AI Difficulty & Exploits. The final weeks were spent heavily invested in finding AI exploits like the hook spamming, body punch spamming, haymaker spamming, etc. It’s tightened up quite a bit. Difficulty on the demo is pretty low, but we did that on purpose so people wouldn’t get annihilated their first few fights.

8. Foot Speed & Locomotion. Little bit faster overall, but also behaves much better changing directions and maintaining distance to opponent when moving laterally.

9. HUD & Settings. There is an option to turn off HUD in final game. Options to change camera too. Gameplay sliders to adjust power, damage, speed and CPU behaviors.

10. Miscellaneous Hatton has his new tattoos. Shane Mosley’s name is spelled correctly. As mentioned previously, several of the boxers overall ratings have been updated/balanced.

Hope that helps. More info to come when its available.

– Brizzo