Sign in to like videos, comment, and subscribe. Fight Night 2004 gives you a PhD in the sweet science. This is the first boxing game to truly recreate the look and feel of a real boxing match. You can duck and dance, jab and upper cut, but once you've truly mastered the game you will find, like in the real world, boxing is all about strategy.

'Victory' is a song recorded by American hip hop recording artist Puff Daddy. The song was originally written by The Notorious B.I.G., Jason Phillips and Steven Jordan for his debut studio album No Way Out (1997). It features heavy use of mafioso-style lyrics, as was popular at the time. It features The Notorious B.I.G., who raps two verses, and Busta Rhymes, who raps the song's chorus. The song also heavily sampled the Bill Conti song 'Going the Distance', which featured on the soundtrack to the movie Rocky making it a darker start to a rap album that featured many (at the time) club-standard singles. The song was released as a single in 1998, peaking at number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100. This song featured the very last verses recorded by The Notorious B.I.G. before his 1997 death as these verses were recorded a day before his shooting. The song was used for the EA Sports video game, Fight Night 2004, and the 2K Sports video game, NBA 2K13 by Puff Daddy and the Family featuring The Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes. This was re-used for the soundtrack of NBA 2K18. It was also used on professional wrestling, for Masahiro Chono's Team 2000 faction in New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

Music video[edit]

The music video for the song was directed by Marcus Nispel on March 31, 1998 (although he was supposed to remain anonymous at the time of premiere) and is an homage to The Running Man. The almost eight-minute-long video featured cameos from Dennis Hopper as a New World Order dictator ('President Victor Castiglione') and Danny DeVito as a live action reporter. Tamara Beckwith was also in the video. Hopper and Devito reportedly appeared in the video pro bono as a favor to Combs.

Sean Combs' character (known as 'Contestant #5' or codename 'PD') runs through the dark streets of the year 3002AD, chased by armed gestapo-esque forces of Chase TV. At one point, Contestant #5 is cornered on a rooftop, where he decides to leap off instead of submitting to the armed troops.

Footage from Biggie's 'One More Chance' video was used in 'ghost' images, representing a flashback for Sean Comb's character. Busta Rhymes, dressed in black feathers, raps atop a statue representing Victoria, the goddess of victory. The Victoria statue overlooks the chase scenes. Biggie appears in the video only through archive footage due to his death a year earlier.^[1][2]

The production costs ran upwards of $2,700,000.^[3] It is listed as one of the most expensive music videos ever made.

Remixes and Freestyles[edit]

• In 2002, 50 Cent and Lloyd Banks freestyled over the instrumental for their mixtape, No Mercy, No Fear, which Diddy used a year later as the official remix, 'Victory 2004', for Bad Boy's 10th Anniversary.. The Hits album. This remix also has a new verse from P. Diddy.
• In 2003, while not remixed, the song was used as the main theme in EA SportsFight Night 2004.
• In 2009, there was an unofficial remix leaked that featured 50 Cent, Lloyd Banks, Diddy, Busta Rhymes, The Notorious B.I.G., and also features Jay-Z rapping over Diddy's first lines.
• In 2010, another unofficial remix titled 'Legends' leaked which featured Diddy, 50 Cent, 2Pac and an unknown artist. The original 'Victory' beat was replaced with a motivational-emotional Piano and String instrumental.
• In 2010, British rapper Lowkey used the instrumental for his diss track The Warning which was aimed at Chip. The freestyle was a result of an altercation on Twitter between the pair.^[4][5]
• In 2019, Shaquille O'Neal made a diss track against Damian Lillard called Second Round Knockout. Victory was used as a sample song.^[6]

Track listing[edit]

Victory (Remixes)[1]

1. Victory (Album Version) (4:58)
2. Victory (Nine Inch Nails Remix) (5:33)

• Producer, Featuring - Trent Reznor
• Remix - Nine Inch Nails

3. Victory (Drama Mix) (4:58)

• Vocals - Ron Grant, Terri Hawkins

4. Bad Boy's 'Been Around The World' (Remix) (5:30)

• Co-remix - Jay Garfield Additional Production By: Jesse WIlson
• Featuring - Mase
• Producer - Deric 'D-Dot' Angelettie, Ron 'Amen-Ra' Lawrence
• Remix - Nashiem Myrick
• Vocals - Carl Thomas

Charts[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Yoshii (2010-08-26), Puff Daddy - Victory (full), retrieved 2017-05-10
2. ^Yoshii (2010-08-26), Puff Daddy - Victory (full), retrieved 2017-05-10
3. ^'Soyouwanna.com - Ten most expensive music videos'. Archived from the original on 2010-02-10. Retrieved 2012-03-03.
4. ^Lowkey VS Chipmunk – The Sage ContinuesArchived 8 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine The LALA Report Wednesday, 16 June 2010
5. ^Tom Talks the Truth: Lowkey v. Chipmunk beef Published: 30 July 2010. Accessed: 9 February 2019
6. ^'Shaq - Second Round Knockout with Victory as a sample song'.
7. ^'Billboard Top 100 - 1998'. Retrieved 2010-08-28.
8. ^'Best-Selling Records of 1998'. Billboard. BPI Communications Inc. 111 (5): 75. January 30, 1999. ISSN0006-2510. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
9. ^'American single certifications – Diddy, P. and the Family – Victory'. Recording Industry Association of America.If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Single, then click SEARCH.

It was obvious that the Knockout Kings series had run its course. EA had to draw a line under the title to totally reinvent it for a determined return to the ring, fighting fit and ready claim the crown back from Rage, which unexpectedly landed a killer blow to the chops with Rocky just before the Britsoft publisher's inevitable demise.

This not-entirely-unexpected comeback arrived last Friday under the snappier moniker of Fight Night 2004, although its presence was largely unheralded by EA's standards, it has to be said. Still, we were curious to find out how the world's biggest games publisher had overhauled its approach to the noble art of pugilism, and it's as glitzy and glamorous as you've come to expect from EA with a full suite of 32 licensed boxers across six weight divisions, complemented by real venues and a pumping Hip Hop soundtrack.

Final Fantasy Fight Night

Since it's an EA Sports title, the presentation is absolutely lavish, bordering on stunning. As ever, EA displays a clinical knack of leaving no stone unturned in providing the user with a marvellous entry point into the game, allowing you to jump straight into a bout between some of the greats of world boxing over the decades. Fancy a fantasy contest between Ali and Lewis? As ever, EA provides the source material, and you get to act out the scene, and it's this priceless ability to tap into people's imagination that EA does best with its licensing muscle.

Couple this with a contemporary soundtrack (Puff Daddy et al) certain to win over a large proportion of its audience and its uncanny ability to render the boxers with eery precision (for the most part) and you've effectively got a game that walks off the shelves before you've even played it. Is it any wonder at all that EA's games sell when it packs so much effort into the presentation side of things?

Even if you're not bothered by the licensed tricks, the comprehensive create-a-boxer tool allows you to tweak and tease the life out of your creation to the point where you could conceivably make it look like pretty much anyone if you spent enough time messing around with it. Attempting to make a ginger afro-ed approximation of one of my colleagues was almost more fun than the game itself. Kudos to EA for coming up with such a simple yet effective tool to allow the user to feel somehow more attached to the game.

Careering out of control

Away from the quick match options, the Career mode is undoubtedly where the meat of the game lies, and will be the place most users will get the majority of their enjoyment from Fight Night, unless you happen to have endless two player opportunities (with online play stripped from the PAL version for some arbitrary reason).

Everything in Fight Night is designed with fantastically good intentions. Case in point being the game's radically redesigned (and original) control system, which in theory seamlessly allows the boxer to bob and weave incoming punches (by holding down L1 and circling your body around with the left stick), while the right stick offers a slick (on paper) means for delivering punches. A right hook, for example is performed by hitting right on the stick, then moving it 45 degrees anticlockwise (mirrored for the left hook). A right jab is a simple diagonal up and right poke, while a right uppercut is a diagonally down and right motion, followed by an anticlockwise circular sweep.

It all sounds so logical on paper, and you can completely understand why EA did it. For a start it completely nullifies the whole tiresome button mashing frenzy that most beat 'em ups descend into and feels much more logical as a result.

Slugger

Sadly, as much as we wanted it to work, it just doesn't feel natural at all, and unlike most EA Sports titles feels like the sort of game you'd have to spend ages getting to grips with before you feel remotely at home with the concept. The chief reason it doesn't work is the punches rarely connect when you want them to, and more often than not your jabs appear well after you've moved the stick, or seemingly not at all, while even the most useless Rank 49 opponent seems like a prize fighter by comparison.

The lack of responsiveness makes no difference whether you're training up your rookie or engaging in a top ranked quick fight and quickly becomes a tiresome interface to battle against. The system does make for a jarring change, admittedly, and does slowly improve, but even after several hours it felt slow, sluggish and unsatisfying, and for a beat 'em up that's the last thing you want. It's possible that it's just one of those games that if you stick with, it all clicks eventually, but within the confines and limitations of a lengthy session of review time, it wasn't happening.

War commander rogue assault guide. Guides Strategies for War Commander: Rogue Assault. Incorrect phone number or incomplete captcha. Standard text messaging rate may apply based.

Going back to the old, logical, system of button presses thankfully is possible if you reconfigure the controls, but this isn't something the game readily points out. It's a system that is fundamentally not broken - sure it can lead to frenzied skill free button mashing, but skill wins out in these situations in our experience. The mashing effect doesn't really apply any less here - you're simply stick mashing instead, albeit with little to no benefit.

Try before you buy

As an exercise in providing an accurate representation of a boxing match, it's practically unmatched. Frenzied fighting will wear you down, the damage modelling is excellent, and everything to do with the training and career progression is carefully considered. It's almost as good a boxing game as you could wish for.. apart from the default controls. With this in mind it's definitely a try before you buy.

Who knows, maybe you'll have a difference experience and get on with it, as some people obviously have, but in this reviewer's estimation, it's a system you'll want to admire but ultimately come away from feeling unsatisfied. Fight Night works well for the most part, but feels almost overly tactical even when a degree of control mastery is attained. At the very least a more responsive stick-based system would have been a plus. but as it stands it almost feels too much of a simulation at the expense of action - although doubtlessly some of you will admire that approach. In short, Fight Night is a heavyweight contender in so many ways, but ultimately has a glass chin in the controls department. Approach with care.

6 /10