EA has been king of the ring when it comes to boxing sim games, dating back to 1998 and the Knockout Kings series. The latest installment in the series, “Fight Night Champion,” is darker, grittier and more graphically polished, but is it better?

Champion has the distinction of being the first game released under the EA Sports brand to earn a “Mature” rating from the ESRB. This stems in part from the game’s new story mode, appropriately titled “Champion Mode,” which puts you in the shoes of Andre Bishop, a middleweight contender framed and sent to prison by a greedy promoter. After completing his sentence, Andre comes back as a heavyweight and fights his way up the ranks, eventually getting a title shot against undefeated champion Issac Frost.

The story is rife with boxing clichés, violence and strong language (on a couple of occasions, Andre’s trainer tells him to “knock this motherf***** on his ass”), but the six-hour story is entertaining and well-written, and adds to the game’s depth.

Something that is both entertaining and frustrating about Champion Mode is that most fights have specific conditions added in to contribute to the story: in one fight, Andre breaks his right hand in the first round, and has to win the fight while avoiding that hand, or risk damaging it. Another fight requires you to only throw punches to the head, since a bribed referee will call any punch to the body a “low blow” and dock you points. There’s some novelty to this, but it gets old when you can only win by fighting that particular style.

Legacy Mode is the other single player mode, and it’s mostly unchanged from Fight Night Round 4. You create a boxer or pick one of the game’s legends, and guide the fighter through the ranks of his weight class. Each fight earns you money, which you can invest into training at a better gym and every successful fight earns experience points, as well. It’s entertaining, but it does get old quick, even once you’re contending for belts.

Mechanically, the game benefits from the increased detail and depiction of the violence present in boxing, including splattering blood that can be seen falling off a fighter’s face after a blow. The game’s graphics are a step up from the previous game, with smoother animations and the extra attention to detail; repeated shots to one side of the head will make the eye visibly swell shut.

One common criticism of the previous games’ control schemes is the reliance on Full Spectrum Punch Control. This has mostly been simplified; just a flick of the right stick in a given direction will throw a given type of punch, but the controller’s face buttons can also be used to throw basic punches.

Online play works well in “Fight Night Champion.” Like every other EA game in recent months, any online activity requires EA’s Online Pass, which comes with new copies of the game, or a 7-day trial for rental copies. There is an online career mode, called Online World Championship, which offers more of a challenge. There’s satisfaction from being in trouble in a fight and coming back to knock a real opponent out.

Outside of Champion Mode, “Fight Night Champion” doesn’t bring anything really ground breaking to the table, but outside of the story, you’ve got a capable fight sim. If they can tweak Legacy Mode and make it more interesting, they may have a pound-for-pound king in a future game.

Rating: 4 out of 5

— AJ Lansdale, professional writing senior