I feel like...beating the cr*p out of someone!!!!!!
If you didnt know it, this is a boxing game. Yep a good -hit him on the eye!- game. What makes this game so good? Well...
This game is released in freaking 2006 and it graphics are HOT! The characters all look GREAT and you WILL enjoy smahing the cr*p out of their head over and over again.
You have many things you can do with this game: there is a first person view, and a other camera views which enable you to see you and your enemy.
The first person view is something remarkable but something that will be overlooked at way to much.
When you play in this mode you will experience the fight true the eyes of your boxer. This is a very cool extra that you should put some time in to learn. It is nice to block a headshot from your opponent by ducking, give him a fast jab to the gut, get back up and finish with a combo of iron gloves against his head.
You can see your opponent always right in front of you which gives it a creepy feel, you can see the expressions on his head and the graphics are so nice that if you hit him on the same spot, like the right eye, multiple times true the rounds you will see the damage. Cuts will appear and blood will flow. You can target and break his nose, it will start bleeding. You can clearly see the difference in the face of your opponent and sometimes yoursef if you would look at them in the beginning of the fight and the end. If not, you need to set the difficulty option a bit higher. When you are hit several times on your eye you will start to see less...
Its nice for a few times to conquer over your enemies like that and after playing a while you will stop playing like that. The graphics are really nice in this game and after a time you will simply want to see your own character while he punshes your opponent k.o
You can play against eachother in first person view and also in the normal view.
The boxers are catogirazed by weight going from feather weight to heavy weight. Names like Ali and many other boxing legends are ready to be played with but you can also creat your own boxer.
This is where, for me, the fun starts.
You can make a really fat boxer which has punshes that could knock a building all over but less good in quickness and stamina, or you can make an normal character that is light on its feet with fast punshes. You name it, you creat it.
You can change the style of your boxing in many ways. Do you want to be elusive and wave with your hands like you are going to hit inside the ring or dare him by running upto him with your hands in the ear, then that is possible, do you want him to hit fast, that is possible. This gives the game its replay value.
The creation tool is nice but its a game from 2006, in those times it was hightech.
Still its not that bad, you can make very cool faces that can be destroyed nicely because of the high graphics situation. Its really a nice looking game.
You can control your boxer with the buttons but it is way better if you learn yourself to box with the right joystick. Only with the stick you can put power after your punch. You can actually control how hard and fast you are going to hit the opponent. You can by clicking one button go in defense stand, which will make you lean and another button to make you block. You can even control if you block a incoming left punsh or right punsh, or just to decide to block with both arms togheter. You can also duck which enables you to do the same for your body. Yes the controls can be complicated at first but learn, and a really fun game will await you.
After every round of fighting the bell goes and you go to your corner. You can patch your boxer up yourself or let the computer do it (but its never really good if the computer does it)
Patching him up yourself is easy. You will see your boxing sitting in the corner and you will be his coach. With the two hands you see you can patch him up and if he has cuts clean those cuts to a lower damage level.
This all happens with the use of your joystick, it could have been better...
The story mode is the one which I mostly play again and again.
After you created your character you start the maingame
At the beginning the game will be very easy but when you play on it will become very hard. Button smashing will get you NOWHERE anymore and things get really intence. Sometimes you will encounter someone again you have won against in the past, and now he beats you. You will eagerly wait for the next time arrives when you see him again ;)
If you are not fighting then you probably are looking for a contract or training.
Before you can fight you need to find a contract. You can choose between various contracts which may be different in rewards. After choosing one you will need to train for the match. The training section can be done by computer but the outcome is maybe much worser then if you do it yourself.
These trainigsessions or mini games where you need to lift weights or punch against a bag or against a dummy. You can only choose one of this to train each time you take on a contract. There is also a sparring mode which is "free" to use in the name of: you can still choose one from the other training sessions. The sparring mode is good to learn how you should use the fighting system. Depending on which area of training you had choosen and depending on how good you did the mini game, your stamina, power, agility, heart, cut, body, head... will be rewared with points which increase for instance your stamina, agility, heart and cuts. But there is a downside, all the other parts like power, body... will drop a point...
This is tactical but frustrating, surely if you know that much later in the game the points you get for succesfully completing a training are reduced to 2 points and less... I never really saw an end in this game, its like the makers make you quit it yourself by doing this. But that will be much later and you will still be able to play on, but it doesnt seem to be for any use if you cant improve your character anymore, you will sometimes even damage your character since the training games need to be done in order to go to your fight.
Thats a downer but well, you have played a good amount of time when you reach that point and I am sure you will creat a new boxer and play it again. Maybe not right after you 'finished " it, but I can assure you that you will pick it up after not playing it for a few weeks/months and play it again.
You can always creat another person, and thats why this is possible.
There isnt really a real story, but you will see nice little things like when you are facing an old enemy again. The whole match is a rivalry, the commentators talk like its a rivalry and that may look like nothing to mention but it does a lot
This way the match is experienced in another way then to have the feeling you are fighting just another boxer you have fought before. Its those things that make you keep playing for hours. But a real story, nope, just matches.
But those matches are really fun, believe me.
Then I need to mention why this game is so cool:
you can really knock someone out!
When you are fighting and your opponent has suffered enough damage from your hits you can punch him into knockout mode. When he goes into that mode the very next shot/combo of clear punches will knock him out. When your opponent is in this mode he will constantly block so it is really hard to hit him. But if you do, you can knock him out.
Whats so special about a knock out? You will get a replay in slow motion (!!!) of the finishing blow and when your hand hits the opponents body or head you will see at the moment of inpact the skin starts to wrinckle cause of the power of the hit. This is really nice and surely is very fun in multiplayer against a friend!!!
Then the count starts and if he gets up the fight continues. if not, you win.
Like I said, the graphics are very good for such an old game. If you can find it at a good price I would suggest you buy it. I have had many hours of fun with this game and I surely will have more of them in the future.
9/10