Game: "Fight Night: Round 2."

Console: PlayStation 2; also out for Xbox, GameCube.

Developer/publisher: EA Sports.

Genre: Boxing.

Number of players: One to two.

ESRB: Teen.

Premise: Train a fighter to peak physical condition in hopes of creating a boxing heavyweight champion.

Game play: After a series of both good and bad games with the "Knockout Kings" series, EA broke down and rebuilt the game's foundation into the "Fight Night" franchise.

The second in the series is possibly the most realistic boxing game yet. The kinetics and physical qualities of the boxers are near lifelike, and you feel as though you're actually in the ring. The longer you box and more damage you take, the slower are your reflexes. Although that's the way it's been for most boxing games in the past, never before has it been demonstrated onscreen so well.

What will pull in the more die-hard sports gamers is the career mode. Here you are able to resurrect the career of a boxing legend such as Muhammad Ali or Sonny Liston or, even better, create your own boxer and mold him into championship material. With each fight, you have the opportunity to build statistics through training and win money that allows you to buy gear and custom moves such as knockout punches and illegal blows (not that such a tactic is encouraged).

Once you've dominated the amateur league and completed all training sessions at the amateur league, your boxer is ready for the professional circuit. You can buy his entry into the league and have him fight for bigger prizes against more prominent opponents such as Evander Holyfield. (Sadly, this game is sans ear-biting.) You can also get some extra training for your fighter by using him in exhibition mode and picking any opponent you feel is best.

To add to the realism, the EA Cutmen — in exhibition mode and career mode after enough advancement — give you advice on how your match is going and allow you to heal cuts and swelling that you've sustained during the fight.

The good/bad: One bad thing about this game is that tutorials are unnecessarily embedded into career mode. You must complete them to further train your boxer, and that kills a lot of momentum while playing. There was no reason for this to be added when a separate option in the main menu would have sufficed.

Tips: To unlock rapper Fabolous as a boxer, type in GETFAB as a created boxer's first name and press start.

My take: I haven't been a big fan of boxing games since I stopped playing "Super Punch-Out!" for the Super Nintendo. Although there have been decent games released since, such as the "Ready 2 Rumble" games in the early PS2 days, nothing got me back into the genre until "Fight Night." Great game.

Jeremy Castillo is a student at Windward Community College and editor of the college's newspaper, Ka 'Ohana.