Just keep reminding yourself that the game was free, and you'll enjoy it just fine despite its brevity

User Rating: 7.5 | Doc Louis's Punch-Out!! WII
By TissueShoe | Review Date:
To say thank you to the platinum members of Club Nintendo for being such great fans and playing plenty of their games, Nintendo has offered a nifty little prize. The options were a sweet looking Mario hat or a special WiiWare game called Doc Louis's Punch-Out. I chose the latter, and so I get to write up this nifty little review rather than wear a Mario hat around for Halloween (which would have been pretty cool, I must confess).

Doc Louis's Punch-Out is modeled after the full Punch-Out game for Wii and is basically a set of three training fights with the Doc himself, each one progressively getting harder as you go. Fighting is very simple: use the control stick to dodge and swing the remote or nunchuk to punch. It's a simple control method, but it's perfectly effective and fun. The hard part is actually landing punches on Doc, which requires quick reflexes and good timing. It's very challenging at first, but once you get the hang of it, fights become less frustrating, which they most certainly are at first.

And that's because difficulty is simply in the series' nature, unless I'm mistaken. From what I've heard, the Punch-Out games are quite challenging despite their simplicity. Doc Louis's training fights are definitely challenging, but there are only three of them and the whole game was made to be beaten in one sitting. Even for someone who has never played a Punch-Out game before (like me), the game doesn't last long. The game also doesn't save your data, so you have to start back at fight #1 every time you want to play. In regards to the game's lack in length and saving, we must recall that the game was FREE…

But despite being free, the rest of the game's qualities are pretty top notch. The graphics look great with nice textures and fluidly moving animations. The fights look great as exchanges work so smoothly between Mac and Doc Louis. Doc Louis's voice actor also did well, his voice is very likable. He has a few clever lines that are pretty well said, but you will have heard all of them within about fifteen minutes of gameplay.

So while Doc Louis's Punch-Out is very short, it's a fun and challenging game to play through. It has sparked a little more interest in the full game for me, although I'm certainly intimidated by the probable difficulty of the game. Either way, this quick and free spin-off is worth playing if you are a platinum Club Nintendo member and chose it as your prize.

Positive:
+ fighting is simple but fun
+ graphics look great
+ Doc Louis is a likable character

Negative:
- REALLY short

LAST WORD: When it's all said and done, Doc Louis's Punch-Out is free, fun, and challenging, and for being so short it's pretty solid in its gameplay. I obviously can't recommend the game to you because at this point you either can get it or you can't, but for the sake of a review I will say that it's a nice game considering it's free.

7.5/10
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