Interview with Fight Night Producer Kudo Tsunoda
Posted on Tuesday, April 6 2004

PREVIEW INFORMATION By Damon "We have posted our interview with the Producer of Fight Night 2004, Kudo Tsunoda." Publisher : EA Sports Developer : Tiburon Release Date : OUT NOW ! Genre : Boxing Platform :

TSJ: How is punch damage handled in the game? Can a strong puncher knock down his opponent with a crisp clean punch or is it based on a power meter being emptied with a series of punches before a knockdown happens? Also how do body punches differ from shots to the head?

[Kudo]: Like most of the elements in Fight Night 2004 we modeled this after how punches work in real life boxing. Boxers can be knocked down either from a single powerful punch or from a series of punches that wear you down. Head punches are more damaging to a boxer’s immediate health then body punches. If your opponent is hurt and you need to knock them out now, go to the head. Body punches will wear your opponent down over the course of a fight. If your opponent has a big hand or foot speed advantage over you, they can use that to their advantage. By going to the body early in the fight, you can slow your opponent down over several rounds. Take away their advantages. This will enable you to start landing more punches in the later rounds. You can then switch to head shots and try and take them out!

TSJ: How do the online rankings work? Does weight division matter? Do knockouts help you get farther up the ranks?

[Kudo]: Only fights that occur between opponents of the same weight class will affect your ranking within that weight class. This prevents online cheating of boosting your ranking by fighting naturally inferior opponents. Your ranking is determined by your overall record, your recent record, the quality of your opponents, and the % of your fights you win by knockout.

TSJ: When going to a decision is the fight actually scored by 3 judges and do any fighters have an advantage when going to the score cards.

[Kudo]: Yup! All of our decisions are scored by (3) different judges. Each of the judges score fights by different criteria. Some look for total number of punches landed. Some give more weight to the amount of damage you are able to do to your opponent. Others will give a better score for the boxer who lands the higher percentage of punches, the more efficient boxer. Just like in real boxing, you never really know who is going to win a decision until the fight result is announced. It makes for some tense moments after a tough (12) round brawl waiting to see who is going to win.

TSJ: Does fight night have any hidden boxers to unlock?

[Kudo]: But of course!  There are characters to unlock as well as other fun cheat modes you can use if you know the correct code to enter. Some are just plain hysterical!

TSJ: Can a human player have the trainer throw in the towel and vice versa for the CPU opponent?

[Kudo]: Any human controlled boxer can quit in the middle of the fight if they so desire. But for our CPU opponents, we let you finish them off with a crushing knockout no matter how hurt they get. We found this to be a lot more satisfying than to see your opponent is really hurt and then getting a message from the game saying the CPU fighter has quit.

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