Punch-Out Updated Hands-On
Little Mac and a cast of mildly insane opponents return in this updated take on Nintendo's old-school boxing franchise.
During last month's Game Developers Conference, Nintendo had Punch-Out for the Wii playable on the show floor. We braved the crowds and spent a bit of time with it to see how the series has evolved since its last outing on the Super Nintendo 15 years ago. As it turns out, the game maintains a lot of the simplicity and eccentricity that made the original so appealing, while avoiding the pitfalls of excessive motion controls. Recently, though, we've been playing an updated build of Punch-Out here in the GameSpot offices in order to dig a little deeper into this updated take on Nintendo's nostalgia-laden boxing series.
Like any sports game worth its salt, Punch-Out gives you the option to enter the ring either in a series of career matches or in individual exhibition fights. As Little Mac, you'll begin Career mode in the Minor Circuit against a quartet of ragtag opponents who transition in difficulty from mobile punching bag to solid challenge. These initial four characters include Glass Joe, the Frenchman with a 1-99 record who bleeds croissants when you knock him out; Von Kaiser, the German who cries out "Mommy!" during a match and clearly battles emotional trauma as much as he battles opponents; Disco Kid, the New Yorker with a penchant for flamboyant dancing midfight; and King Hippo, the morbidly obese Pacific Islander who can't ever seem to keep his shorts up. Later opponents increase considerably in difficulty, including familiar faces Don Flamenco (suave Spaniard) and Bear Hugger (hairy Canadian).
What that added difficulty means is graduating from raining punches down on your opponent to a more patient, calculated approach that requires you to wait for an opponent to reveal when he's about to punch, then dodge that blow and counter with an attack of your own. As time goes on, those "tells" become more subtle and mixed into a larger repertoire of punch styles with each opposing boxer. To accomplish the goal of clobbering your opponent, you're given a simple control layout that includes hooks, jabs, super-powered uppercuts, dodges, and blocks. Controls work with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk in motion form, or by holding the Wii Remote sideways like an NES controller. If you choose the former control option, you'll find that violent flailing just won't cut it; Punch-Out doesn't let you get by with blind swinging. In short, it's still all about finding your opponent's weak spots and taking full advantage of them.
While the controls stick closely to the game's roots of pattern-based fighting, Punch-Out has received a hefty visual overhaul thanks to its newfound home on the Wii. The 3D, cel-shaded characters are packed with oddball facial expressions, and they'll show comically oversized lumps and bruises as the fight wears on. Each match is prefaced by a series of hand-drawn stills giving you a little insight into the fighters' pasts: Glass Joe sipping coffee in front of the Eiffel Tower, Von Kaiser suffering a loss at the hands of schoolchildren, and King Hippo gorging himself on a mountain of food. But what's perhaps most exciting are the reworked, Rocky-inspired training montages that show up between fights. You'll see Little Mac cheered on by his coach as he does everything from practicing punches to running around in his signature pink sweat suit--all while an updated version of the original theme song plays.
Right at the moment, Punch-Out seems to have struck a nice balance between nostalgia and clever improvements. And even with a move to the Wii, the original gameplay hasn't been sacrificed for excessive motion gestures. It looks like a game that should appeal to a solid cross section of old-school Punch-Out fans and Wii owners unversed in the realm of eccentric boxing. You can expect to see the game released on May 18.
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