Professional boxing is both a very good and a very bad sport. Very good, because it’s genuinely exciting and unpredictable, and a true test of the physical and mental capacities of the competitors involved. Very bad, because these people are really, really hurting each other – risking their lives for money and fame while crowds of bloodthirsty onlookers cheer them on. It’s kinda disgusting when you look at it that way.

By removing the HUD from the game entirely and forcing the player to pay particular attention to the graphic detail of the visible, physical damage on their boxer’s face and body, Fight Night Round 3 both captured, and emphasised, the brutality of the sport. It was undeniably an impressive game, but what about those of us who actually appreciate the entertainment value of boxing, but get a little bit squeamish about all of the blood, sweat and slobber fl ying about all over the shop. By ‘shop’ we mean ‘ring’. And by all the other stuff in the rest of this paragraph we mean ‘we like cartoons better than real life’.

When someone punches someone in a cartoon, their fi st turns into an anvil fi rst and makes a big, hammer-shaped bulge in the back of the head of whoever they punch, and their head shakes and rattles about like a punching bag. But they’re fi ne afterwards. It’s brilliant, harmless violence, and it’s what FaceBreaker is all about.

If you’ve ever played Ready 2 Rumble Boxing – supposedly one of EA Sports’ president Peter Moore’s favourite games – then you’ll know exactly what to expect. There’ll be larger than life (much larger actually) characters with huge, ‘funny the fi rst few times but gets annoying quite quickly’ personalities, and really silly special moves. It is from the same studio as Fight Night, but don’t expect the same game with a coat of cartoonish paint.