Andy Sheets
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2000
- Messages
- 2,377
I picked up Rocky for the Xbox last night and ended up getting sucked into it for a few hours. No Survivor on the soundtrack! That's just wrong for a Rocky game. But that's actually the only major gripe I have about it so far as just about everything else is very well done. The graphics are nice, character models seem a bit misproportioned in that they all seem to have big heads but you get over that pretty quick. I love that the crowds are fully animated. It just makes the backgrounds of the game that much richer. And the facial damage is great. If the match goes the right way, by the end you'll see the boxers' faces get totally distorted under all the gore, just like in the movies, and the blood stains the mat all the way through the match. Animation's pretty nice, gets kind of stiff in a couple of places but nothing that throws you out of the game.
The fighting system is among the best I've ever played in a boxing game (admittedly, I haven't played a boxing game since Ready to Rumble
). It's obviously not a sim - there's no clinching, for instance - but it's fast paced while also encouraging the player to think about how he approaches the match. You can't just go in button-mashing because you'll throw away your stamina and lose all your punching power. Sometimes it might be a good idea to slug away but there are plenty of times where you'll be advised to back off, recover from a bad stretch, and stick and move (but if you play keepaway too long, the seedier crowds will be disgusted and start hurling garbage into the ring). It really does reward you for fighting smart, and the controls are pretty easy to get the hang of as the combos are more intuitive than your average fighting game, IMO. You basically have left/right body and head punches, and the direction you push in, along with the right trigger, allows you to create new punches like uppercuts. Left trigger is block/dodge, and by tapping right trigger and the appropriate punch button you can unleash a "super punch" that can do very heavy damage if you connect. If you don't, you're wide open for punishment and lose a ton of stamina anyway. Simple. This is all fun enough in single player, but two players will have a ball going at each other.
I also found the training modes amusing. You can auto-train to just build up your stats 5 points, or you can do the training yourself and get from 1-10 points depending on well you do. I totally suck at all of them except the strength exercise, although hitting the slab of meat during the Rocky I portion of the game is pretty fun anyway.
Sound effects are straight out of the movies, with really exaggerated punching noises and lots of grunts from the boxers. I love that stuff. The crowd sounds nice although it's kind of weird when you get to the larger arenas and the thousands of fans in attendance still sound like the same 4-5 guys from the pool hall chanting your name.
I'm stopping now so hopefully I haven't been too sketchy. One of those very good games that will probably get a bit lost among all the more high profile releases these days
The fighting system is among the best I've ever played in a boxing game (admittedly, I haven't played a boxing game since Ready to Rumble
). It's obviously not a sim - there's no clinching, for instance - but it's fast paced while also encouraging the player to think about how he approaches the match. You can't just go in button-mashing because you'll throw away your stamina and lose all your punching power. Sometimes it might be a good idea to slug away but there are plenty of times where you'll be advised to back off, recover from a bad stretch, and stick and move (but if you play keepaway too long, the seedier crowds will be disgusted and start hurling garbage into the ring). It really does reward you for fighting smart, and the controls are pretty easy to get the hang of as the combos are more intuitive than your average fighting game, IMO. You basically have left/right body and head punches, and the direction you push in, along with the right trigger, allows you to create new punches like uppercuts. Left trigger is block/dodge, and by tapping right trigger and the appropriate punch button you can unleash a "super punch" that can do very heavy damage if you connect. If you don't, you're wide open for punishment and lose a ton of stamina anyway. Simple. This is all fun enough in single player, but two players will have a ball going at each other. I also found the training modes amusing. You can auto-train to just build up your stats 5 points, or you can do the training yourself and get from 1-10 points depending on well you do. I totally suck at all of them except the strength exercise, although hitting the slab of meat during the Rocky I portion of the game is pretty fun anyway.
Sound effects are straight out of the movies, with really exaggerated punching noises and lots of grunts from the boxers. I love that stuff. The crowd sounds nice although it's kind of weird when you get to the larger arenas and the thousands of fans in attendance still sound like the same 4-5 guys from the pool hall chanting your name.
I'm stopping now so hopefully I haven't been too sketchy. One of those very good games that will probably get a bit lost among all the more high profile releases these days
