HBO Boxing Hands-On

We've received a near final version of Acclaim's HBO Boxing and have found that while the game has improved in many areas, it still has some control issues. Whether or not those issues will be completely ironed out before the game ships next month remains to be seen.

After playing the latest version of Acclaim's HBO Boxing, it's easy to see that the presentation of the game has come a long way since the last version. The game's interface and menu system have received some attention and now look extremely sharp. A snazzy window shows some video clips of star HBO fighters like Roy Jones Jr. and George Foreman while you pick some of your basic options. The game has all the standard modes of play like exhibition, career, and sparring modes, and it has a surprisingly deep create-a-boxer mode. Not only can you tweak your custom fighter's appearance and ability, but you can also choose his different punches and taunts.

The controls and graphics of the game have been tightened up a bit since the last version. The graphics look much better thanks to smoother animations and improved collision detection. The punches of the fighters still look too similar and unrealistic, but at least the fighters actually look as though the gloves of their opponent are striking them.

The audio and opening FMV are still the best things about HBO Boxing. The comments of Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant, and Harold Letterman are fairly insightful and accurate to the situations in the ring.

So, while we'll have to wait a couple of weeks to see how the final version of the game turns out, judging by this near final version of the game, it's pretty safe to say that it doesn't look like HBO Boxing will be raising any boxing video game standards.