GCHD FaceBreaker Review

FaceBreaker is EA's attempt to revive the arcade-boxing genre, last seen in Midway's Ready 2 Rumble series in the early 2000s. As you might expect, it's full of cartoony, over-the-top characters slugging it out in the square ring. It's been two years since EA's last boxing title, Fight Night Round 3, was released and acclaimed by critics everywhere as one of the deepest, most realistic boxing games ever created, and some are looking to FaceBreaker to carry on that mantle, albeit more flamboyantly. But while FaceBreaker is definitely a flashy, attention-grabbing, decently fun brawler, the gameplay just doesn't have the depth to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Fight Night series.

Right from the get-go, FaceBreaker wants you to know it's "extreme"-even something as simple as scrolling up and down through the different options in the main menu is accompanied by brutal punch sounds and shaking-screen effects. At the character selection screen, you get to choose between a wide variety of Saturday morning cartoon rejects, clichés, and weirdos. Most are pretty unoriginal (the fat role-playing nerd, for instance, or the Spanish ladies man); it feels like somebody was trying too hard to come up with a sufficiently "wacky" cast of fighters. There's also a handful of celebrity (although I use the term loosely) guest characters, so if you've ever wanted to pummel Peter Moore or the cast of The Hills, now's your chance. Of course, if you don't like the characters you've got to choose from, you could always just make your own-you've got a pretty robust set of character creation tools at your disposal. You can upload your mugshot to put yourself in the game, or browse the user-created characters at EA's community site.