HBO Boxing Hands-On

Acclaim's HBO Boxing is starting to come together as it nears its November release date. From the 60-percent-complete version we played, it's apparent that the developers are working hard to re-create the look and feel of an HBO Sports boxing telecast. From the flashy opening FMV sequence that shows highlights from great fights, to the familiar voices of HBO boxing commentators Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant, and Harold Lederman, the game will seem familiar to fight fans who watch boxing on HBO.

Whether or not you watch boxing on HBO, you'll surely recognize some of the fighters featured in HBO Boxing. More than 30 boxers are in the game from just about every weight division, including stars from the past and present, like Roy Jones Jr., George Forman, Michael Grant, Sugar Ray Robinson, Hector Camacho, Jake LaMotta, Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler, Rocky Marciano, David Tua, Floyd Patterson, Larry Holmes, Fernando Vargas, Mia St. John, and Bridgett Riley. You can take all of them through the game's four basic modes of play: career, exhibition, tournament, and quickbout. The single-player career mode lets you attempt to make a run for the title and superstardom. You begin in local gyms and work your way up the HBO Sports boxing ladder, starting out on HBO's KO Nation and continuing up the ranks though HBO's Boxing After Dark, HBO World Championship Boxing, and finally onto TVKO Pay-Per-View, HBO's premier boxing telecast. The exhibition mode lets you pick any of the fighters and either take on a computer opponent of your choice or fight it out with a second player. The tournament mode lets you set up a single-elimination-style tournament where 16 fighters are matched up with one another. Quickbout, as it sounds, is a simple one-button selection that picks two fighters at random and puts them in the ring. The game also includes a create-a-boxer feature, as well as a create-a-Pay-Per-View-event feature that allows you to choose the fighters, venue, and the championship belts that are up for grabs.

The control in the early rev of the game we played was unique. The buttons on the face of the PlayStation controller were used to throw various punches such as jabs, hooks, and uppercuts, while the shoulder buttons were used to modify whether those punches were left- or right-handed punches. You could also choose to use the analog sticks. The left stick controlled your fighter's movement, while the right stick controlled his punches. It will be interesting to see if these configurations make it into the final version of the game since they were rather confusing at first - but they seemed as though they might offer a greater degree of control than we've seen in previous PlayStation boxing games. In any event, the control is in need of some work, specifically in the area of reaction time. The early build of the game we played wasn't fast enough. When we pressed a button to throw a punch it would take a second before the fighter would react. The fighters currently move too slowly, making it hard to slip punches when coming in from an angle. When the game is completed, Acclaim says that the fighters in the game will be realistically balanced and will reflect the styles and tendencies of their real-life counterparts.

The graphics of HBO Boxing are starting to come together. The polygonal models are in place and look fairly solid. Each model is proportioned differently to try to accurately represent the real fighter's size. The texture-mapped faces of the fighters are very clean and are good enough so that you can totally recognize the fighters just by their faces. The animation is still a bit on the choppy side, which makes it hard to anticipate opponents' punches and to counter effectively. In the audio department, the voice talents of HBO commentators Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant, and Harold Lederman add a sense of authenticity to the game. The sound effects are still rather primitive though.

While HBO Boxing still has a couple of months left in its development cycle, it's evident from the version we played that the developers still have a lot of refining to do. Hopefully they can improve the game's frame rate, add more animation, and fine-tune the balance of the fighters. Being big boxing fans ourselves, we're optimistic that Acclaim will pull the game together for its November release.