It's no secret that EA's Fight Night revolutionised boxing games. Moving the control scheme away from the buttons to the control sticks was a genius move, and has allowed EA to pretty much dominate the genre since first coming out with it. However, with Fight Night Round 4, it's apparent the franchise needs something special to continue being held in such high regard. It's not that Fight Night Round 4 is bad in any way; it just lacks the punch (pardon the pun) of the previous entries.

All the good stuff of Fight Night Round 3 is here – the awesome graphics, improved with much more realistic levels of sweat, and fantastic lighting of rings and boxers; the great sound giving the visceral realism the game is renowned for a bigger impact; and the robust fighter creator which creates eerily similar facsimiles of those with Xbox Live Cameras.

For the actual in-ring game play, the punching system has been revamped with a new physics engine, and each punch landed feels more solid and powerful previously. Some punches have changed – the haymaker is now mapped to a button press and a hook movement with the joystick, which means players aren't accidentally throwing them at opponents so much. Likewise, body punches are no longer modified by a button, but instead mapped to the normal punch controls, promoting their importance and use against opponents. Parrying has become a solid block, and there isn't a momentary opening from blocking – you've literally have to fight for openings. Now more so than ever, you need to time your punches when in the ring, get into a rhythm of punching, dodging and counterpunching.

Counterpunching is still the key, and the camera will alter slightly and a sound will play, indicating if you can land a punch, it will be more powerful than a normal punch. Landing the punch is often harder than expected because the opponent will know as well and can get a good block up in time. This of course can work against you, as an opponent can counter a counter, so you've got to be forceful yet tactical when you fight.

Career mode, called Legacy, is where you'll spend the most of your time. You can choose a boxer or build your own, and build up your stats through fights and training, winning bouts and series and belts until you're the Champion. Whilst it's a pretty solid game mode, there are some issues with it. Firstly is its length. I found it simply too long to maintain my interest. I like games to progress quickly, so found the way you win round after round against the early nobodies and then suddenly hit a brick wall of toughness that is impassable seemingly no matter what you try to do. The amount of time I've been stuck at 30 and knocked out with seemingly weak punches and cheap shots is annoying at best.

I realise the trick is to fight lower ranked boxers to build up stats, but I'm far too impatient for that, and I think many other gamers are too. It just feels unnecessary, like a way to prolong the career mode rather than to actually give more substance to it. To make matters worse, the mini-games which improve your stats are often overly difficult. Each different type of game gives you a range of stats, but none give you a change to raise all your stats. To get the full range of stats, you need to do very well in every type of mini-game and some of them feel impossible to achieve more than a mediocre score. Skipping gives you half the bonus, but when it's only +5 or +6 a stat per mini game, your stats are going to take way too long to raise in such a manner.

So you might choose the bag to raise your heart and chin stats one time, and even though you string moving to 10 zones together in a row and still come out with a grade of "bum”, which gives you half points. And as you can only train once between fights, and as there's a month long recovery time after them you simply fly through the years and it feels like you're not developing quickly enough. I realise I may be judging this too harshly, but to me games are all about achieving something. If I'm punching above my weight, I should be rewarded, not punished with cheap shots and hard mini-games.

There's also a fight mode, where you can play against the computer with your favourite real life boxers, or two player which is still as much fun as ever. The hits and bruises are as hardcore as ever, and if you have a bunch of mates around watching, you'll get the same oohs and ahhs as if you're watching a real boxing match on TV. It's not quite the party game Rockband is, although it's one of those rare games where it's nearly just as fun playing as it is watching. Online the game is as good as its predecessor, with little lag. Boxing games seem to attract a hardcore crowd online, so do prepare for some smack talk or get the mute option ready.

Sound was mentioned briefly before, and it's still great, with impact sounds sounding heavy and forceful. Additionally, there has been some great work integrating the soundtrack into the whole game. Whilst being full of the usual EA tracks, spanning multiple genres such as hip-hop, funk, and rock, with some being good and others not so good, during loading screens the tune that was playing in the menu is cut back and looped, and later continues with a different effects process depending on if you're in a ring, a stadium, or the gym. It's a subtle but clever way of making you feel as part of the game or story, and not just jumping from menu to menu.