Leading up to the release, Facebreaker was getting immense amounts of hype behind the new EA Sports Freestyle Brand, which was in and of itself a brief existing label -- replacing the oft-use EA Sports Big label from the previous eight years or so.

I remember Facebreaker and the promise behind it as if it were yesterday, it was going to be the modern day replacement to Mike Tyson's Punch-Out -- with over the top characters and boxing action. Coincidentally, a year later the actual Punch-Out franchise made a brief return on the Wii to critical success.

What happened is we got a game with questionable gameplay mechanics and almost no depth to it.

What Went Wrong With Facebreaker

Facebreaker had one serious flaw which superseded all others: it just wasn't fun.

An arcade game built not for realism but for fun fell short of it's one mission. Instead of resembling boxing even a little bit, Facebreaker took the traditional 10 count and replaced it with a knockdowns system -- while arcade sports titles shouldn't be sims they are best done when they at least include the basic tenants of scoring of their parent sports.

What Facebreaker did would be like a baseball game assigning scoring based upon how far you hit a ball and where, not on the actual runs scored. It simply didn't work.

The gameplay itself was a shallow experience which focused on more on timing and less on strategy, with characters which weren't very memorable.

To top the whole package off, Facebreaker simply didn't have any game modes worth diving in to. The core mode had very little to offer depth wise, as a customizeable character career within the shell of an arcade boxing title would make a lot more sense than a level by level progression.

Should EA Try Facebreaker Again?

This is a tough question, because while I feel Facebreaker did a few good things the execution of the title was so bad it was not memorable in many real ways. Facebreaker didn't create a world worth revisiting, so there's no reason to go down that path -- Fight Night Champion offered gamers a far more compelling boxing experience wrapped with simulation overtones after all.

I believe EA should explore the story mode driven individual sports titles a bit more, especially if they go for the arcade angle -- as I believe just because a title is arcade doesn't mean it necessarily has to be shallow or completely unrealistic.

Should You Try Facebreaker?

In my original review I called Facebreaker a good weekend rental type of game. You pick it up on Friday, play a few bouts and get some achievements and return it on Sunday. While it's unlikely you'll find the game as a rental anywhere, that same type of approach is still best today. Facebreaker is not a wholly bad title, it just doesn't offer you much more value than a $5 rental over a couple of days.