Feature By

Chi Kong Lui

Few disagree that EA Sports Fight Night 2004 is the definitive boxing game of our generation. After its arrival in 2004, it was apparent how little the genre had really evolved beyond Nintendo's venerable PunchOut! franchise. Granted there have been some boxing releases that made strides in replicating the sport like Empire Interactive's underrated Victorious Boxers: Ippo's Road to Glory and Electronic Arts' own Knockout Kings series, but thanks to its unprecedented visuals, a brand new control scheme that emphasized use of analog sticks over the traditional face buttons and EA's marketing muscle, Fight Night was the splash of cold water to the boxing game genre. After a

Kudo Tsunoda—the one on the left—Executive Producer, EA Chicago

successful debut, Fight Night is back for another… round in the aptly titled Fight Night Round 2. We first met Kudo Tsunoda at a recent EA press event in New York and were impressed by his passion for both his game (as executive producer) and the sport of boxing. We decided to pick his brain about his new game, the boxing game genre and boxing in general.

Tell us about yourself. How did you come to head Fight Night's production?

Really it all started back in 1994 when I was still actively boxing in and around New York City. While fairly successful as a boxer, it was somewhat obvious that my dreams of being a somebody in the fight game were dwindling fast. One of my last fights was against Brian "Bulldog" Hayes who was somewhat of a legend in the local area. I broke my right hand on his hip with an errant punch in the 3rd round and he pretty much beat me to a pulp for the rest of the fight. After the fight, a guy came up to me and asked me how my hand was. I happened to mention that I was angry cause my hand injury was going to severely limit my professional video game playing career. It turned out the guy I was talking to happened to be CFO at a games company and he hooked me up with my first video game job. Eight years later when EA offered me the opportunity to work on their boxing franchise, I could not have been any more thrilled. It was like coming full circle.

Were you joking about the "professional video game playing career?"

At the time I was joking with the guy in the crowd about my pro gaming career. I played a lot of games at the time and was pissed that I was going to miss out playing due to my broken hand. It is just funny that it turned out to be true!!!! But my pro gaming career has gone much better than my boxing career ever would. [laughs]

When you set out to create the Fight Night series, were you looking to create a "simulation?" Was the game made for boxing aficionados or were you shooting more for the "casual" market?

The main thing that frustrated me about every boxing game made before Fight Night was that it really had nothing to do with the sport of boxing. Gameplay in other boxing games was centered around the mindless button mashing that resulted from the rudimentary button punch controls. With Fight Night, we definitely wanted to deliver a game that was true to the sport of boxing. Gameplay is centered around effectively controlling your boxer and fists and using intelligent combat tactics. It is nice when you see somebody like boxing legend Bernard Hopkins playing the game and commenting on how just like real life boxing Fight Night is.

But Fight Night is not a game that can just be enjoyed by fans of boxing. Fight Night is also a great fighting and trash talking game. Unlike other sports that have complex rule sets that make a game frustrating to play if you don't follow the sport, Fight Night is simple. Hit or be hit. Everybody understands the basic rules. The controls are intuitive and easy to pick up but the gameplay is skill based. Anybody who loves a good fighting game or addictive multi-player action will love Fight Night Round 2!

Victorious Boxers (Hajime No Ippo) on the PlayStation 2 came out of no where and set a new standard in boxing games when it was released. Were you a fan and did it have any impact on the creation of Fight Night?

When we started working on Fight Night, we played every boxing game made going all the way back to the Atari 2600, Victorious Boxers included. I would not say any of the games we played was more or less of an influence then others. All of the games we played provided games a horrific lack of control over their boxer's fists and body in the ring. Defense was always slow and cumbersome to use. This was something we completely fixed in Fight Night with our analog control system.