Fight Night Round 3 features some pretty good commentary even though it does get repetitive after a while. The music consists mostly of hip-hop tracks that are played throughout the menus. The sound effects are pretty solid in regards to the punching and the various grunts and groans from the fighters.
Much of the control and gameplay in Fight Night Round 3 is similar to Round 2, with some additions and tweaks. Total Control Punching is back, although you can also choose to use the buttons to punch if you are not comfortable with it. The way Fight Night’s total control punching works is with a combination of both analog sticks and the top triggers. The left stick moves your boxer; left and right sidesteps your boxer in the ring, while up and down moves your fighter forward and backward. It will take you a couple of fights to get that figured out right. The right analog stick does all your punching. Up and left throws jabs to the head, up and right throws straights to the head. To throw body punches, you need to hold the left trigger and punch as if you were throwing head shots. Throwing hooks and uppercuts are accomplished by doing "street-fighter"-style fireball moves on the right stick. Moving the stick to the right, then up will throw a right hook, and vice-versa for a left hook. Doing a dragon punch will throw an uppercut. And of course, holding down the left trigger will throw these to the body. A match in the last version of Fight Night often turned in to a haymaker fest. This essentially took any strategy out of the fight. EA changed that in Fight Night Round 3 with the addition of three new Impact Punches. It only takes one punch to change a fight, and these new punches can do just that. There is a lot of risk with these punches, but the reward is well worth the risk. One of the new punches will even put you in a mid-fight mini-game that will let you land a knockdown punch. If you fail to land one of these punches, you better be prepared to take a beating. Also, you can really use ducking and blocking to your advantage much more than before. In fact, ducking and weaving becomes a critical part of winning bouts in the game. And just like before, you can parry a boxer’s attack and open him up for a devistating counterpunch. In fact, if you can parry off someone’s punch, and counter with a heavy Impact blow, you can pretty much send your opponent to the canvas in a big hurry.
The Cutman also returns in Round 3. Basically, you take over what happens in your corner between rounds. As you know during the fight as you take a pounding your face will get banged up, swollen, and bloody. This is something that Fight Night: Round 2 does well. So when you’re in your corner, you can target the swelling on your face, or the blood coming out of your nose. Your face is split into 4 "regions" on the Playstation 2 and Xbox, 2 "regions" on the Xbox 360. Lets say you choose to work on all that swelling on your right eye. Well, as the cutman, you highlight that region of your face with the left stick, then use the right stick motion back and forth to move the swelling tool around and bring it down. Then you can switch to a swab and clean out a cut as well. You have to work quick because you can only work on your face until the bell is about to sound again. If you don’t want to bother with any of this, you can simply hit the "Auto" button and the computer will work on your face equally. It’s wild to watch, especially with the Xbox 360 because as you’re working on your boxer’s face, you’ll visually see swelling going down.
