Knockout Kings 2000

"Wow. That was easy."

Knockout Kings 2000 is the best boxing game on the N64. Which is kind of like being the only person in the room and declaring yourself the best looking person in the room – a meaningless gesture. This is one of those games I found to be all sizzle and no steak in that it looks great but is so unbelievably easy I can’t imagine anyone taking more than a week at most to destroy this game. The concept is very simple, and a good one. Take control of one of the legends in boxing (or use a created fighter) and beat all the other legends, as well as a few made up weaklings there for your punching amusement. As a multiplayer game is has strong merit, but as a single player game it’s simply not very tough.

Graphics: 8
The graphics are a very strong element to the game. The characters look very good (and do look like their real life counterparts), and the animation is very fluid and extremely well done. The other elements – the ring, the crowd, the menus – all look quite decent as well. As always the crowd looks fake, and the referee looks a little stiff (for the whole 10 seconds you’ll see him), but otherwise no real complaints. Certainly it’s a game that’s easy on your eyes overall.

Sound: 7
Some of it’s really good. Some of it is not. First off the “commentary” is so completely minimal that I’m not sure why they bothered to include it at all. I mean really, they say at most two or three things a round. It’s a total waste and it adds nothing. I did like how the crowd really gets into it the more punches you’re throwing, and if there’s no action they will boo you. The music is not to my tastes for the most part and I felt it could have been done better. The ring announcer is done fine. The sound effects of punches landing get it done. Overall the sound is good, but not great.

Play Control: 9
The play control is very well done. I despise the one button combos, and I’ll get to why (and deduct marks for it) under game design though. The play control is all very sharp and I found it easy to use pretty much every move in the arsenal. Blocking/generally defending yourself is also not difficult to do. Easy to learn, allowing you to concentrate on the game. Overall the play control along with the excellent graphics are the best parts.

Game Design: 5
Here’s where the problems become apparent, and there are several. First off I know for a fact that the Playstation version of the game has more fighters. Why? Considering N64 players didn’t even get to play the original Knockout Kings, why were we forced into taking an inferior edition of the second game?

Secondly, the one button combos (which are your C buttons). I hate them, because they make this game so ridiculously easy that it is simply impossible to lose if you chose not to against the computer. All you have to do (especially with the heavyweight fighters who have high KO power) is find one of your four combos that is connecting well, and repeatedly press that button until you win the game. Once you get to probably the last two fights, you alternate between that one C button, and blocking, and you’ll win the game. Whoopee. All they had to do was make a system where you actually had to EARN using the big combos instead of simply letting you annihilate the game at the push of a single button, and this game could have been a classic.

Another big beef I have. In the original Knockout Kings for Playstation, if you used illegal moves (low blows, head butts, elbow smashes, or kidney punches) you would be warned by the referee, and if you continues fouling you’d eventually get DQ’d, just like a real fight. For some reason that escapes me totally they’ve taken that out. Oh, you can still use the illegal moves if you have them (they’d be one of your C button moves), but now the referee does nothing to stop you, ever. The low blow is particularly effective I found, and you can kill people in a big hurry with it. Taking out DQ’s makes absolutely no sense to me at all, and it was a stupid thing to do. Between all that, they’ve turned this into a better looking, but inferior game overall to the original Knockout Kings.

Challenge: 2
Challenge? There is none. Press the C buttons, you win the game. That’s especially true with the heavyweights and middleweights, and with the lightweights it’s true against everyone except Shane Mosley, who is the only fighter in the whole game that I can promise will push you at all. If it weren’t for Mosley and Ali (who’s also pretty decent), the challenge would be totally nonexistent. So since there are all of 2 fighters with any chance of beating you, the game gets a 2.

Overall (Straight average of the above scores): 6.2 out of 10
The only thing in the end that keeps it from being a classic is how insanely easy this game is. Pretty much everything else is well done or better. I could overlook the other flaws (less fighters than the Playstation version, removal of punishment for cheating) if the game was challenging, but it’s just too easy. It’s still fun for a bit, but it gets old quick due to lack of challenge. It’s still a fun multiplayer game though. Overall it was one of those games that was close to great, but fell short.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/01/04