As already insinuated, you don't need to expect a completely new game. The controls are almost the same, luckily, as that was one of the strong points of the series.

The Haymaker, a strong hit which we still know from Round 2, is back but now you also get two other possibilities to quickly get your opponent on the floor. First one up is the K.O. Punch that allows you to destroy your adversary in one time. Secondly there's the Stun Punch that gives you the possibility to watch through your opponent's eyes while you're beating him up. Especially this one is hardly useful but also the K.O. Punch is a bit useless as you need too much time to have it suceed. On top of that you risk of running into an annihilitating counter-attack.

These counters can of course be blocked and FNR3 gives a lot of possibilities to protect your brains: you can hold on to your opponent, use your arms to protect body or head, or you can just dodge by swirling around your upper body. Especially in the more difficult fights you'll love using this option to afterwards give some decent punches to the surprised opponent. Variation is the message.

The variation isn't only present during the fights. Also in between rounds and before combat you can have some fun with mini-games. You train your fighter by doing some games (boxing bag, weight lifting, sparring, etc) after which your stats will improve and you get a little closer to your goal. If during fighting something starts to swell (no, not below you sick perverts!, ed.) you can get this back to normal size thanks to the cut-man game (damn, this really starts to sound awkward!, ed.). All fun, but not really something to write home about. Compared to the previous versions some new and more challenging games could have been implemented.

New compared to last time is the ESPN-mode in which you can replay classics, but unfortunately it isn't more than a dressed up version of "Play Now". Especially the overwhelming amount of advertising and sponsorships is bothering. Unfortunately it doesn't add to the realism but on the contrary destroys some of it.

The most fun part of the game is for those without friends still the career mode (not mentioning the bad loading times). There you may start by selecting a boxing legend or create your own fighter, choose your style (quick and light, heavy and powerful, etc) and work your way up from moron to world famous fighting machine. Thanks to all the possibilities you can really design a character that plays just the way you like it.

A ranking is no longer present as now you have to put all your efforts on becoming "popular". That's the only way you'll gain access to the title or sponsored (pffff) fights. As said you need to sign contracts, train, improve your fighting and as such progress to be able to finish important matches. Unfortunately, there isn't really a storyline present or any other element that creates a red line so you sometimes have the feeling nothing really matters. Luckily the gameplay itself is fun enough to keep you clustered to the screen. The possibilities are there, you can think of a strategy, and you opponents will - especially for newbies - present more than enough challenge.

But as with about any sports game things get really exciting once you plug in the network cable or invite a couple of friends. Punching your mate to the floor gives so much more fulfillment than kicking the ass of the Xbox360's 3 cpu's. Lag never causes any problems and what you do in the ring nicely gets shown in leaderboards and through a lot of statistics. Contrary to other online fight games (think DoA4) thngs go a little slower but you do have the feeling that strategy and experience with the game have their influence.

Graphically, the Xbox360 version is of course a good step in the right direction. The textures and player models are very sharp and detailed, something that gets demonstrated more than you'll like with the reruns of known-downs. In slow-mo glory you get to see crashing bones, flying teeth, blood and saliva. Faces are shown to the smallest detail and you can easily see whether the player is tired, exhausted or fresh like a feather. Spectacular!

Also the places you visit to get your ass kicked are beautifully brought to the screen including nice lighting effects, animated audience and lots of details. The rounds are again announced by a ton of babes but for some reason they look soulless and all but sexy! Second downpoint is probably the way fighters hit the canbes: strange spasms are more often present than you'ld like. Apparently it's still hard to animate someone realistically that way.

Auditively the game doesn't stay behind either. The sound when you knock someone KI is nicely sharp and you get to hear his muscles and bones crack very well. The commentary is atmospheric but as usual, they sometimes really are talking besides the point and often repetitive. The music has a high hiphop level which fits in nicely with the content of the game.