Rocky

"What's This? A Movie Based Game That's Actually Good!"

When I hear they're releasing a Rocky game I thought it would just be a not so surprising low quality game, but to my surprise it wasn't. I bought this game after playing a demo with my friends in a store so I decided this game is definitely worth my money.

Graphics: 7/10
I wasn't really expecting much from this game and to my surprise I was right. The graphics aren't the best out there, but they aren't the worst out there either. The bodies are too shiny. When boxers take enough punishment they end up bleeding. The blood is actually pretty poorly done because they're bodies and faces still stay shining even if they're soaked with their own blood. Sometimes punches also go right through the boxer's body which really doesn't bother me, but I thought it was important to inform everyone. One great thing is that they recreate scenes from the movies except in polygon form. I thought that was quite entertaining and the intro movie shows actual clips from the Rocky movies. One great thing about the graphics is that there isn't any slow down at all except when there's an instant replay that happens after a knockout. All in all the graphics are decent. They might have their bad sides, but they aren't enough to hinder any enjoyment from the game.

Sound: 8/10
The music in this game comes from the actual movie which is great. There's also different variations of the main theme song. Don't expect the most stellar sound effects, but at least they actually match up with the gameplay. The problem with sound effects is when you punch in either the face or body it makes the same punching noise. The voices for the characters are great. They sound like the actual ones, but then unknown boxers have a generic voice that seems to run through all of them which takes away from the effort put for voices.

Controls: 8/10
The controls are on target. There are four buttons used for attacks and one for blocking. The four buttons used are for low right punch, high right punch, low left punch, and high left punch. Using the joystick or direction pad you can make a combination of attacks such as uppercuts and hooks which is great. When you hold the block button you can also again move the joystick around and when you do that your character will start dodging rather than absorbing the punches. The controls might be simple, but the variety of attacks and defensive moves you can do is far beyond the amount you would expect and mastering the controls would make you a formidable opponent in this game.

Gameplay: 8/10
Don't expect any revolutionary boxing game because this definitely isn't one. It is a solid boxing title though. As I mentioned earlier the simplistic controls give you a wide variety of moves to pull off such as combos and defensive movement around the ring. When you aren't boxing you accumulate points after every match that allows you to train Rocky and improve stats such as his movement around the ring, the strength of his punches, how fast his punches launch, how fast it takes to get him up when he gets knocked down, and etc. They're great little mini-games that add about a couple minutes of fun before you begin your match. The storyline of the game follows all five movies so expect yourself going all over the world boxing off against different characters that have unique styles of boxing. There's a wide variety of levels to choose from, but it really doesn't make a difference since it's pretty much just the same ring painted over with a different theme, but the themes match the opponent you are facing off against which is also pretty cool.

Replayability: 8/10
There's a large amount of characters to unlock in this game and some of them are great surprises. There aren't that many multiplayer modes other than versus and tournament, but even with the lack of modes you can still have a huge amount of replay value simply because you're playing with someone else which adds for hours of matches because of the wide variety of characters available.

I didn't expect this game to be a chart topper, but I didn't expect it to be fun either which was really a nice surprise. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys boxing games and the Rocky movie series. As I said earlier, this might not be the best boxing game out there, but at least you know you won't go wrong with this game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/30/03