Victorious Boxers: Ippo's Road to Glory

"Pound 4 Pound the best boxing game around is Victorious Boxers"

Hello reader,

I am a huge fan of pro boxing, however I have yet to find the perfect boxing game. I had hopes when I read all the capabilities that the Playstation 2 had. The perfect game still does not exist, but Victorious Boxers is undoubtedly the best boxing game out there as of December 10th, 2002. Let's get to it.

The Good stuff:
The gameplay is excellent, the best gameplay out there. For me, how well the game plays (or how good the boxing actually is) is what makes or breaks the game the most for me. You can have lots of pretty graphics, but if you can't operate those graphics in a good and useful manner, it is nothing but eye candy.
In Victorious Boxers, you have 43 boxers with 43 different styles of boxing. Some guys are overly cautious guys who back up, others are big brawlers with heavy hands, while others are cutie boxers with enough speed and style to make Prince Naseem Hamed grin.
I cannot stress how good the gameplay is enough. It is hard to explain, but the game has GREAT flow, not a lot of collision problems and the boxers aren't super stiff.

EA Sports tried, and failed miserably, to rip off the Victorious Boxers game engine with Knockout Kings 2002. I know what you may be thinking...KO Kings 2002 was a TERRIBLE debacle of a game. Yes, that is because the EA creators threw the game together very quickly and made EVERY boxer have Muhammad Ali's style of fighting. Sorry, but seeing Butterbean shuffle around and throw fast punches just disturbs me. Also, KO Kings 2002 had a somehow stiffer control for the game engine.

The Replay Value of Victorious Boxers is simply uncanny. I bought the game in December of 2001 and here it is a year later and I still play the game weekly. I have never played a game so frequently. Usually I'm tired of a game after a couple months.

Story Mode...it is interesting enough to hold your attention. Nothing wonderful, but its okay. I still prefer focusing only on a boxing career in the boxing video games though. If I play an NBA game, I don't care to see Kobe Bryant or AI having relationships with girls off the court or see Shaq taking ballet (although that might be amusing). I want Shaq to run over guys, dunk over them, make Yao Ming look like a fool, and still miss half his free throws (yes, I know he is better than he used to be). Okay, moving on.

The Bad Stuff:
Like I said, Victorious Boxers is not perfect.
The game does not have real boxers, but you learn to accept this once you see how good the gameplay is.

The initial learning curve of the controls of this game seems very difficult. I absolutely hated the control scheme the very first time I picked up the controller. However, after an hour, I learned how to work it correctly and loved the control scheme. Get beyond that first hour and its not bad anymore.

There is no Create-a-Boxer. Every sports game should allow you to create people with lots of options and it should let you give them perfect ratings if that is what you want. After all, its your game, you should get to do whatever you want.

Few game modes. There is only Story Mode and Vs. Game mode. They're basic and all ya need for a decent game I guess, but some other modes would've been nice.

No clinching. Clinching is something boxers do when they're hurt. They can sometimes survive a round if they're hurt, then come back the next round and win. The game should have clinching.

Scoring. The scoring of the rounds is a bit funny. Unless you land about 100 punches more than your opponent, you can expect the round to be scored 10-10 if there are no knockdowns. Then only one point taken away for a knockdown (10-9). Not a big problem for me since I knock out the vast majority of my opponents anyhow. I haven't found a game yet that scores properly anyhow. Most games either go by higher percentage landed or higher punches landed, not differentiating between power punches and jabs. So you could jab a guy all day and get say 80 percent landed, he gets half the number of power punches. Even though he did more damage you win the round because you landed more. I'm rambling again.

In conclusion, Victorious Boxers is not a perfect game, it lacks in some areas, but it makes up for it with the excellent gameplay. Here is my Pound 4 Pound top 5 boxing video games:
1. Victorious Boxers (PS2)
2. Knockout Kings 2001 (PS2)
3. Mike Tyson Heavyweight Boxing (PS2)
4. Knockout Kings 2000 (PS1 or N64)
5. Rocky

Overall, Victorious Boxers gets a 9 out of 10. The wait for the perfect boxing game continues.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/10/02, Updated 12/10/02