Since Nintendo's mega-hit Mike Tyson's Punch Out!, the Electronic Arts (EA) Sports brand has had a stronghold on the boxing video game industry with it's popular Fight Night series. I had been hearing rumors about a game to be released by EA's competitor, 2K Sports, that would challenge the champ for the title of number one boxing game. I almost forgot about the production of the game until during one of my various internet expeditions at work, I found a video of a semi-embalmed crack pimp yelling at me about his new boxing game. Don King, the most corrupt, obnoxious, infamous and loud figure in boxing for as long as I can remember was rambling about the release of his new video game entitled, Don King Presents: Prizefighter. My eyes slowly crept to the bottom right hand corner of the page, praying (i'm not normally religious) that only one logo was not present. It was. 2K Sports.
Somewhere between the time I had first read about the idea of the game and its actual conception, some idiot at 2K Sports thought it would be a good idea to get the life-sized, fully pose-able troll doll involved. The only thought I could manage to conjure was that this game was doomed for failure (unless of-course the goal was to create a game simulating fixing boxing events, signing fighter to bogus contracts, embezzling money, scoring prostis, free-basing, straight pimpin', slappin' hoes or any other criminal activity that comes to mind)
I took into consideration my negative outlook surrounding the game, watched the trailer (see here), did a little research, and I came to the realization that the game actually looks pretty good. For starters, one of the screen shots (above) perfectly depicts King as the Devil reincarnate. The next logical step was to see which fighters will appear in the game. The site says, and I quote "...current champs like Joe Calzaghe, Kelly Pavlik and Andrew Golata" (the
two were the names I was looking for, but Andrew Golota? may be digging a little to deep into the bottom of the barrel and how come only white guys?). The site also lists all-time greats like Joe Louis, Ken Norton, and The Cinderella Man James Bradick. (the trailer also includes, but does not name Vic Darchynian, Andre Berto, Chris Eubank, Shannon Briggs, Miguel Cotto and a few others that I couldn't make out). There is seemingly a wide array of fighters and thankfully Don King didn't use the game as platform to market only the fighters in his stable (from what I see at the current moment).
The graphics are very similar to that of EA's boxing series, the only difference to me (without playing it) seems to be in the new and improved training stages. I can't delve too deep into the game-play without actually..uh.. playing the game, so I will report back after the release date on June 10th. The insider gaming magazines have given the game high praises so far, so we shall see soon enough.
