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What a wonderful
holiday it is for Xbox owners. Gamer42 and I made our weekly
pilgrimage to the local mall, which has both an EBX and a
GameStop to see what came out this week. The Xbox assault on
the Christmas season is on. Fresh on the rack was MechAssault,
Unreal Tournament, Xbox Live, BMX XXX, and the game I walked
away with: Rocky.
I paid the $49.99 without hesitation as I was finally
resolving all the issues from my childhood that revolved
around my staring longingly at the Rocky game that came out
for Sega like 50 years ago which was far beyond the Atari 2600
I was playing.
Now with this review keep in mind that I am a huge Rocky fan,
as I have said in the forums I consider Rocky III to be one of
the best movies ever.
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It’s also coming
out for GameCube and GBA in the next week, and PS2 sometime
after that. I did not hear whether that was because the Xbox
development cycle was faster or if they decide to get the Xbox
version out first since that was a sweeter demographic than
other systems.
In keeping with my compare and contrast style I also rented
Mike Tyson Heavyweight Boxing and Knockout Kings 2002.
Once again, I'm a huge fan of Rocky. Having said this you would think that
this would increase my opinion of the game but surprisingly
the opposite happened.
Let me give you the bottom line first: Rocky is about dead
even with Knockout Kings as the best boxing game for the Xbox.
There are differences between the two that add to the fun
factors for both (and some of them are surprising) but you
would have fun with both games. Mike Tyson for the Xbox is
terrible and given it’s heritage as a descendant of Mike
Tyson’s Punch Out it goes from being just bad to something
like a member of a well known and respected family becoming a
convicted criminal.
Since you should not even rent Mike Tyson I will talk features
of Rocky versus Knockout Kings (KK). The most surprising one
to me is that Rocky is more realistic in terms of pace. The
boxers throw about 100 punches a round unlike KK which runs at
a more breakneck pace. Rocky gets around this slowing the game
down too much by having the clock run faster than real time.
The AI in Rocky is not as good as KK where fighters get
smarter from round to round. I would also have to give the
controller layout to KK as defense is a little easier with
their layout but it is mostly a draw. Collision detection only
a problem in replays for both games, as you are fighting
everything looks great, about 1 in 20 punches in a replay look
messed up.
Rocky also has the training mini-games and I can’t really give
them a thumbs up or down. They are kind of interesting, one
for each of your attributes (strength – mash buttons as called
out to hit the mits, speed – mash buttons on the speedbag,
stamina – mash buttons to jump rope, determination – mash
buttons to do situps and movement – mash buttons to hit the
side of meat or heavy bag). You get the idea – sore fingers
and impossible button combinations. Your attributes are on a 1
to 100 scale, starting in the 30s and 40s. Your score on the
mini-games can increase your score from 1 to 10. There is one
saving grace to the frustration factor, you can choose
autotrain to skip the game and get 5 points. This is good b/c
with the exception of the speedbag which I always score 10 on
since it is exactly like arm wrestling in Dead to Rights, I
usually score a 1 or 2. Note here, use the D-pad instead of
the analog stick to have a fighting chance against the heavy
bag. Like all boxing games it comes down to pacing…
So, if you are not a Rocky fan the choice is something like
this: If you want machine gun pace and more boxers go with KK.
If you want a more realistic pace and a better chance at
working on complex combos, go with Rocky.
But if you are a Rocky fan…
This of course is what it is all about. For me the game was
worth every cent just to take on my brother as Ivan Drago with
me as Mr. T. And this is where the game shines brightest, in
the ring it looks like you are watching the movie. The
fighters are not perfect as far as polygon count but even if
they had the skins peeled off you could tell the fighters
apart from the way they fight. Rocky looks perfect throwing
hooks to the body and Clubber Lang bends just the right way
when taking that hook. Clubber even hits the mat the same way
when you knock him out.
As perfect as it is in the ring for true blooded fans, there
are some noticeable gaps outside the ring. Largest is the lack
of Carl Weather’s voice. Apollo sounds similar but it is not
him. A close second is that the music is great but “Eye of the
Tiger” is missing. If both of these were there this would
easily be a 5 planet game, without them there’s a lingering
disappointment. Are Carl Weathers and Survior too busy with
their fan clubs and holding out for better deals? Or did MGM
go cheap to make some extra cash?
The cutscenes are CGI and are fantastically accurate but again
I wonder if that’s a licensing thing. Why wouldn’t they have
just used the movie clips unless they didn’t want to pay
somebody?
Both Rocky and KK are great and if you have an Xbox you should
get one of them, and it will probably come down to getting KK
to see and play Ali vs. Rocky for that Pantheon. If Rocky
toughed it out in the 12th and had Apollo and Eye of the Tiger
we would have a clear winner. Otherwise it’s a draw. 4.5
Planets each.
Spigs Rating:
4.5 out of 5 Planets
Talk about
Rocky>> |
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Buy It @
amazon.com |
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