I'll admit that I have a certain affinity for female protagonists in fighting games. In fact, Kitana (MK2) is perhaps my favorite femme fatale to step into the killing arena. Any character with sex appeal who can also hurl razor-sharp fans at her opponents, sending them into a blood-drenched recoil, receives my vote. Even some of the characters in Virtua Fighter and Toshinden, who can only be described as immanently "cute," ultimately prove that cuteness can be deceiving - deadly deceiving. In contrast, the female boxers in Starhill Production's Total Knockout aren't just unthreatening, they're kind of offensive.
Basically, TKOB is a rehash of Nintendo's "Mike Tyson's Punch Out," except that you're dealing with an all-female cast. Before each round, you're treated to irrelevant centerfold-style statistical information about each contender (i.e., bust size, turn-ons, etc…). In the game, you play as Daphne "the Drill" D'Marko, and your object is to seize the world title by pummeling the crap out of your international competitors. Like Punch Out, you're rendered as a transparent wire-frame model, enabling you to see through to your opponent. Your character can execute high or low punches, block, and duck to the left or the right. Daphne can also perform two "special" moves that cause more damage - a double-uppercut and a windmill punch - the execution of which require the extremely dexterous coordination of tapping a single key or button.
Your opponents, again following in the tradition of Punch Out, hail from locations all over the world, each with different fighting attributes and special moves in their bag of tricks. You begin by duking it out with the Russian boxer Illiyanna "the Sickle" Moroskova, who will perform a Russian dance on your head if you're not careful; there's even an Australian boxer who "BOOM"-erangs around the ring, clobbering you at each pass. You have to knock out these opponents twice to beat them and step up another rung on the ladder to victory.
The main problem with this game, besides its over-attentiveness to the fighters' bodily dimensions, is its failure to capture the simplistic intensity and humor of Punch Out. While the graphics are more robust than Punch Out's, the gameplay leaves something to be desired. It's pretty easy to defeat most of your opponents, and even though a few of them pack more of a punch, the game really isn't engaging enough for you to care to beat them. This game actually ends up being more reminiscent of Catfight than Punch Out - cheapening the valor of the "female fighting character" for the sake of a bad gimmick. If you try playing Total Knockout and you're looking for something beyond an exaggeratedly buxom, watered-down revisit of Punch-Out, you may decide to hang up your gloves.
