Overview: It's the season of EA Sports games as its lineup of baseball, racing, arcade basketball, football and soccer and — hey, is that rugby? — hit the game emporiums. And, if you have even a passing interest in these sports, or even just in great gameplay, you'd be silly to resist the juggernaut.

Fight Night Round 2 Platform(s): Playstation 2, Xbox*, GameCube Company: EA Sports Type/Genre: Sports, boxing Rating: T (for "Teen"; blood, mild language, suggestive themes, violence) *-Reviewed • Official Site • Arcade360 Index

Sure, they might not put out the most original sports games, but the games they do release — endless yearly updates of popular titles — still rule the roost.

And then, there's the series that continue to get better every year, like "Fight Night Round 2." This year's model of the boxing game boasts many of the familiar faces of past games, such as Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and my favorite, Evander Holyfield. Still MIA, as with last year's edition, is Golden Boy Oscar de la Hoya.

This year's "Fight Night" expands last year's successful new control scheme, using a combination of analog controls and shoulder buttons for bobbing and weaving, punching and blocking. A few new options are available, including the devastating "Haymaker" uppercuts and hooks, and a between-rounds "Cutman" feature allows you to control your healing by working on swelling and cuts in your corner. There's new music, new player graphics and an expanded create-a-boxer feature.

In short, it's everything that made last year's "Fight Night" so great with a few new control challenges for experienced players and almost unlimited gameplay in career modes and online.

Modes: Instant fighting, career and "Hard hit" modes in single player; two-player head-to-head and online play (for Xbox and PlayStation2). GameCube players miss out on online play, but get to play the old-school "Super Punch-Out!" from the Super Nintendo era, which is included. It's not really a fair trade.

Game Play: Last year's shift to analog/shoulder controls was a huge step forward for boxing games with more precise and intuitive controls (once you got used to them, at least) that rescued boxing fans from the days of button-mashing mayhem. "Fight Night 2" continues in that direction, but adds "Haymaker" punches, which are punches that can be charged for a much harder hit. Pulling them off isn't easy: you have to swing the analog stick in one direction to charge, then curve it back the other way to throw the punch. Timing has to be precise and, at least in the Xbox version, it's not always easy to differentiate between an uppercut or a hook haymaker. At first, I thought the new punches needlessly complicated what seemed like an already perfect control scheme. Once you get the hang of them, though, haymakers aren't so bad. But don't forget blocking and dodging. Once you start challenging CPU-controlled boxers in the upper ranks, you'll be getting hit by plenty of haymakers, and your opponent won't ever have a problem pulling them off.

Like most EA Sports games these days, there are plenty of options for things to buy — everything from mouthguards to entourage members. Many of these gain you skill points in the ring and are worth the cash.

Training modes are well-done all around and genuinely seem to contribute to your acclimation to the controls and to increasing skills.

Creating a boxer is fun with plenty of options to capture that perfect look (my favorite — the "muscle vs. fat" body-shaping mode), but be careful — you can't take your general created boxer into career mode (see "Engraging quirk," below).

The "Cutman" mode, where you scrub up swelling and clean up cuts, is a great addition. It's easy to learn and, with its 30-second time limit, doesn't take too much time out of the game. If you don't like it, you can skip it, which is awfully thoughtful of EA for those of us who want to get through a quick game without the niceties.

Quick confession: At the end of a round in one match I played, I knocked out an opponent. As he was going down, I kept punching, and landed a hard blow on the back of his head. It was my shameful "Million Dollar Baby" moment.

Technical Presentation: At least on Xbox with its 480p progressive scan display, the textures look incredible. The game's got great surround sound design and flawless graphics.

Ease of Use: The controls are still a challenge and will frustrate those who don't have the patience to learn them properly. But if you do, you won't find a better way to play a boxing videogame. Menus are mostly intuitive and the game rewards you with virtual cash to spend for each bout won.

Nice Surprise: Instant replays in the game are a joy to behold, as are the extreme face close-ups in "Cutman" mode. The boxers — sweaty, bloated and bruised up — are stunningly detailed and beautiful to behold.

Enraging Quirk: If you take the time to create a boxer in normal mode, you can't bring that boxer in to start a new career mode. You have to create one all over again, at least as far as I could figure from jumping through multiple menus to try to import my created boxer. One other source of frustration: staying an amateur in career mode seems to have no real benefit as you keep taking low-paying bouts with little advancement. I lost my patience and went pro. Call me a sellout.

Tip: Career mode starts off very easy, but the difficulty will ramp up quickly if you don't train your boxer well. Learn the training modes and get those skills up before you try to take on high-ranked boxers. Learn to block and counter-punch.

Bottom Line: We're getting to be a bit of a broken record, but with only one or two exceptions, EA Sports has delivered the goods with its spring sports lineup. "Fight Night Round 2" offers enough improvements and innovations to make it a worthwhile purchase for even casual gamers. Unless some unexpected contender enters the ring and takes the title, this is the best boxing game you'll play this year.