Fight Night Round 4 Community Event - Money99's Blog

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Fight Night Round 4 Community Event Stuck

Posted on February 27, 2009 at 08:02 AM.

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Where to begin?
Actually, for me, the EA experience kicked off while sitting in a Dallas airport on route to Vancouver.
After finding my departure gate, I look up and see a familiar face. I had to do a double-take until I realized it was Jason Thompson from the EA Tiburon, Orlando team. I had recognized him from a recent video that was posted on the EASports official Fight Night website, http://fightnight.easports.com/.

After introducing myself, he brought me over to the meet the rest of the Tiburon group. This team was responsible for covering the event, capturing video and pictures as well as lending commentary.
As I was about to find out over the next 72 hours, all of them were friendly, fun and absolutely crazy.

EA representative, Alain Quinto would be our guide for the event. It was the first Community Event he's coordinated but you wouldn't know it by how smoothly everything took place.

Once in Vancouver the festivities began at a local sports bar at 8pm PST that included food, drinks and two LCD's hooked up to Xbox 360's playing Fight Night Round 3.
All of the community leaders were there. Everyone but me. Here's a little advice; don't trust hotel wake-up calls. Mine came in the form of a two-rap knock on the door that barely stirred me from a hibernous sleep. Any parent with small children will attest to that.

However, I managed to wakeup in time to arrive at the bar by 9:30 so all was not lost. I met many of the other community leaders over a pint or two before making my way back to the hotel.

The next morning kicked off with an early breakfast in the hotel. We were warned that the shuttle would be picking us up at 9am sharp and if we weren't on it, we would be left behind to mourn our inept time keeping abilities.
Lucky for me, I would not make the same mistake twice. I set the hotel alarm, my cell phone alarm and made sure the concierge of the hotel gave me a phone-related wake-up call. I had to threaten physical violence, but lucky for her it did not come to that.

The breakfast itself was great. Not only did I enjoy Vancouver's finest eggs and ham, I reveled in the company of other boxing fanatics. It wouldn't be the last time such things as Tyson's demise, Hopkins perseverance or the dominance of a prime Roy Jones Jr. were discussed.

After piling on the shuttle it was revealed to us why we were to bring gym gear along. EA was taking us to a boxing gym by the name of Griffin's Boxing Club.
The resident trainer, Dave Brett was to put us through our paces. Paces is a euphemistic way of saying 'personal Hell'. Just as I was about to find out that Dave Brett really stands for sadistic S.O.B.

With the basics covered in a 5 minute physical tutorial, we paired up and were put to task on various exercises such as hitting the heavy bag, striking at contact and jumping rope. Of course, it wouldn't be right if we were allowed even the slightest of pauses in between each activity. Not when your trainer is part Norman Bates and part Jake Lalane.
So while you're partner was hitting the heavy bag, you were doing elbow to arm push-ups. During the sixty-second break between rounds, you were doing burpees. Instead of water, help yourself to a lap around the gym. If anyone was caught leaning on anything, give yourself twenty pushups. Awesome.

I always had a great respect for boxers and the training they endured before a fight, but you really don't have a clue as to how hard these guys work until you've done it yourself.

Just when the lights were starting to go dim in my subconscious, a ray of inspiration walked into the gym. Two rays actually. One in the form of top middleweight contender, Sergio "The Latin Snake" Mora. The other, current WBA welterweight champion 'Sugar' Shane Mosley.
To say the gym exploded with excitement would be an understatement. Actually, it occurred after the raw disbelief wore off our weary limbs.

Both fighters milled about the gym answering questions while posing for pictures or obliging plugs for video on various websites.

We were in for another treat when Mora emerged from the change room dressed to spar with three lucky Community members. He was a tremendous sport, urging his opponents to hit him or 'let them go'. It was a shock to see precisely how fast and agile a world class boxer really is. If he wanted to, Mora could have easily lasted all three bouts without having a punch landed on him, or even broken a sweat. But Mora's sense of humor and playfulness would not allow for such a boring display. He engaged each combatant, carrying them along, while entertaining the crowd with his 'drunken windmill' strategy (encouraged by EA's Jason Thompson who acted as his temporary trainer), or getting floored or dazed by phantom punches he saw 6 miles away.
After his bouts with the Community Leaders, Fight Night Round 4 producer, Brian "Brizzo" Hayes, stepped through the ropes to engage Mora in a three round tilt. Hayes may be a video game producer, but he knows how to throw down. In fact, he, and many other producers on the Fight Night series, have been training at Griffin's for more than three days a week for many months now. It's something that lead producer, Dean Richards, encouraged so they would truly understand the mechanics of the sport they were trying to capture in graphical form.
Again, Mora carried his opponent, but Hayes showed his boxing talents and could quite easily be the pound-for-pound best game producer in North America when inside the squared circle.

With our legs numb and our heads light, we moved on to lunch and eventually EA Canada's headquarters.

I'd like to ramble on in detail how beautiful and breathtaking this facility is. But I fear my limited vernacular would not lend it justice. It's more a work-of-art than a place of work.
A full soccer field, multiple basketball courts, coffee bars, arcades, a complete workout facility, dedicated mini-warehouse just for motion capturing along with several arcades and relaxation rooms; this is more a playground for adult children than an office.

With the tour complete we were corralled into a presentation room complete with a giant 20' foot screen. Thinking that our time with Shane Mosley and Sergio Mora was over, we were pleasantly surprised when both joined us for a brief Q&A session.
Both fighters were engaging, but Mora was downright hilarious. When his career inside the ring is over, HBO, ESPN or Showtime would have it in their best interest to hire him as an analyst. The man oozed charisma. I think it was his unbridled honesty that really caught my attention. When speaking about his strengths and weaknesses or how he picks an opponent you couldn't help become a fan instantly (if you already weren't one).
When the Q&A portion had ended, both fighters again stood for photos and signed anything placed in front of them.

After Mora and Mosley made their exits, the presentation began. This is where the EA team really impressed me.
They went through a brief video summary comparing the difference between Fight Night Round 3 and Round 4. Needless to say the changes that have been made are staggering.
Afterwards, two producers engaged in an Ali-Tyson battle. During this time we were encouraged to ask questions or make comments. When I say the team responsible for Fight Night Round 4 wants to make the best boxing game possible, I'm not exaggerating. These guys live and breath the sport. And when it came time to critique anything, they were all ears. One got the sense that they took our opinions extremely seriously.

The night wrapped up with a three-hour session with the game itself. While the non-disclosure agreement I signed prohibits me from mentioning anything about the game I will say this; I love this game. This is a must-buy, first day purchase. No question. Boxing fans and even non-sports fans will enjoy what EA Canada has in store.

Wrapping up, I have to mention the best part of the trip. During the hands-on session, we stopped for a quick bite. I wolfed down a plate of food intent on returning to the virtual ring as quick as possible. On the way, however, I stopped in the middle of a small pow-wow between a few community leaders and producers Mike Mahar, Brian Hayes, Freddy Ouano and Jeff Atienza. For the next 40 minutes we discussed boxing, boxing video games and the future of the Fight Night series. Ideas and philosophies were bounced back and forth. This is where I really saw the depth of passion for boxing amongst this team. Fear not boxing fans, the Fight Night series is in great hands. You'll come to realize this soon enough when the game is released.

In the meantime, we will be providing information specific to certain areas of the game in the weeks leading up to the release of Fight Night Round 4. So stay tuned and keep those hands up.

Comments

# 1 rudyjuly2 @ Feb 27

Great write-up Money. Glad you had a great time. For us east coast guys to travel west, I would never be able to adjust to those times either. I'm a morning guy and staying up to midnight on the west coast would require toothpicks under my fingernails.

# 2 Money99 @ Feb 27

LOL. Yeah, I didn't think it would be a big deal. When I got into the hotel I was so wired for the event. Then I made a big mistake by sitting on the bed to catch sportscentre. It really hit me then as I only got 4 hours sleep the night before and spent the entire day on a plane. That's when I thought it would be best to take a nap before the 8pm supper.
Rude, you would have loved talking to the Thompson brothers. They had their own nationally syndicated sports talk show, out of San Antonio. I believe they were on 1310AM in Detroit. Really funny guys with tonnes of stories. One of them told me how they grew up near a town of only 1500 and these people would have Town Hall meetings to discuss firing the resident High School football coach. LOL. That's insane!

# 3 rspencer86 @ Feb 27

Awesome stuff Money, sounds like a great experience. I can't wait to see how FNR4 turns out!

# 4 Money99 @ Feb 27

You're not going to be disappointed. I'm absolutely dying to get more information out there. The FN team has improved a LOT since Rd3. It's going to blow a lot of people away.

# 5 SHAKYR @ Feb 27

You guys can take his word. This game is going to be awesome.

# 6 Vast @ Mar 18

Great write-up. Extremely informative. I wish you did go into detail about how beautiful the facility is. I've seen pictures of the LA complex. Its like my dream job come true. Its Nucking Futs.