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Knockout Kings 2000 Review
Noel Brady
00/12/0000
Pit the worlds greatest boxers together for the first ever time.
Nothing is going to change the fact that the N64 is still severely lacking when it comes to the fighting games department. One only has to look at the wide array of beat-'em-ups released alongside the Dreamcast and we begin to see exactly where the N64 went wrong. They say that a console needs good driving and fighting games to conquer the east. Sadly, these are the two main areas that the N64 stil lacks a 'killer-app' in.
In recent years, the boxing genre has been even more barren than the fighting category of a Nintendo 64 selling retailer. In fact until Ready 2 Rumble arrived, boxing games weren't much cop at all, except for Super Punch-Out that is, so it's fair to say that many were surprised when we booted up Knockout Kings 2000 and were instantly hooked.
Knockout Kings contains 25 officially licensed boxers, including a mixture of current and past greats. Muhammad Ali is undoubtedly the most well-known, but boxers such as Lennox Lewis and Evander "The Real Deal" Holyfield should also be recognisable to even the most uninformed about boxing. If you are a boxing fan then you'll doubtless recognise all of the bruisers on display.
You have a choice between the Career Mode and the straight forward Slugfest Mode. Slugfest is just what it sounds like. You and an opponent, either human or computer controlled, going at it with whatever rules you set up for the fight and no referees. You can choose any of the fighters and match them against any of the other fighters regardless of weight class. Of course if you have a 130 pound feather weight boxer fighting against a 330 pounder, heavy weighter, then expect the smaller fighter to be faster but less powerful and the big lumbering oaf to pack one hell of a wallop whenever does land a solid punch.
The Career Mode is the single player mode of choice and works with either your created boxer or one of the legendary fighters in the game. You'll be assigned to the real-life fighter's weight class or the appropriate class for the weight of your created boxer. Sometimes you can gain a slight advantage by picking the heaviest possible lightweight or heavyweight weight for your created fighter.
When you begin your career the first thing you should do is train. Although training is optional, if you don't do it you won't get far! Basically, training consists of offensive or defensive workouts. Offensive training involves hitting a sparring partner a specific number of times in 30 seconds. Defensive involves not being hit by a sparring partner a specific number of times in 30 seconds. You're then awarded points depending on your performance, and these points can be used to increase your boxer's three stats - power, speed and stamina.
Training completed (you can only train once before each fight), you then take to the ring. At first your opponents are fairly weedy, but as you move up the league table they get harder and faster. As you'd expect from a sports game there are a number of different arenas to fight in, from the dingy meat packers' union ring to the famous one at Caesar's Palace. In Slugfest you get to choose the arena, but in Career mode the ring reflects your popularity and standing - the better you get, the more glamorous the venue.
The create-a-boxer feature and attention to detail are great simulation elements that make for an engaging boxing game. The confusion comes when you actually step into the ring, in any mode, and begin throwing punches. There are a wide variety of punches available to each fighter using combinations of the R Button, Z trigger and the A and B buttons. The A-button corresponds to the fighter's strong hand, the B-button controls the lead hand. This can get a little confusing if you start switching between right handed and southpaw fighters. The control itself is actually very well thought out and comprehensive in theory but in practice it makes hitting your opponent way to easy.
There's not enough strategy involved in protecting your boxer while still trying to attack your opponent. While it's not as fun, there's nothing to stop you from just standing there toe to toe with the opponent and just slugging it out with him punch for punch. If you're guy has a faster speed rating, you'll hit him more times than he'll hit you. If you have a stronger power rating, your punches will hurt him more. Either way there's little to motivate you to protect your boxer even when your opponent is tagging you with combinations. You know that eventually he'll be done and then you can continue to stand there and beat on him.
Knockout Kings sacrifices too much strategy for the sake of keeping the action hot. While we agree a good boxing game, especially the first on the N64, needs both strategy and action to make it fun, a lackluster attempt to provide both is extremely frustrating. The great variety of punches EA Sports incorporated so well is almost wasted because you only need to master a few to be successful. The accuracy of the different fighting styles only seems to matter in the most extreme cases.
The medium resolution graphics leave a little to be desired but they are bearable. Some of the fighters don't look as sharp and clear as we know them to be in real life, but EA Sports has done enough with the face mapping feature so that you can tell Larry Holmes from Joe Frazier. On guys like the notoriously ugly Leon Spinks, the rough looking graphics may actually be a blessing. The arenas actually look very good for what there is to see of them. The crowd seems to be the same flat complacent one from every other EA Sports videogame.
Even though the gameplay is pretty much the same every time - basically you walk into the ring and repeatedly punch your opponent - Knockout Kings is nevertheless addictive, even for non-boxing fans. That said, those expecting more simulation than arcade will be disappointed as, although Knockout Kings 2000 tries to be a simulation and markets itself as this, it's pure arcade. Definitely worth a look though.
