Don King Presents: Prizefighter

"If you want a shot at the title, you have to bring your best"

So here we are, at the next venue where EA and 2K hop in the ring to have at one another for a shot at the best game in a given sport - ironic, that it actually happens to be boxing.

To start, the fact is that EA has been the pound-for-pound champ in the sport for over a decade since the release of Knockout Kings, which has since become Fight Night. There has not been another game in the sport that has even come close - like watch Bernard Hopkins at the top of his game in the middleweight division.

So entering the ring, now, comes 2K's shot at the title for best boxing sim. Unfortunately, this game ends up being nothing more than a cream-puff tune up match against the champ. This game, all cheesy analogies/metaphors aside, is a case of style over substance, and as such is not on the same page as even the earliest efforts by EA with Knockout Kings, let alone a match for any of the Fight Night games.

To begin with, it should be noted what the game does succeed at - this game has one of the best scripted storylines for its career mode that I have seen. It is very basic, yet extremely engaging as the career open just before you take the ring in a title fight - and what you are doing from that point on is playing a flashback of your career to that point. During this you experience everything from the training to hanging out with girls to booking your own fights and promotions thereof.

The career mode in Prizefighter is certainly well crafted and EA could better itself using this method versus what was in Round 3.

Oh, and the game has one of the most comprehensive list of boxers to choose from out of the games that are currently on the market. The idea of boxing with Kelly Pavlik is cool when you consider that EA barely takes the time to place lesser known boxers into its games...

That said, we come to the part where a new hole has to be ripped for Prizefighter, as the above is about all there is to say positive about the game.

The fight mechanics in the game are flat out broken - simple as that.

To start with, the button mapping makes little to no sense. Even if you can't use the analogs for punches, EA has fundamentally standardized the control set for a boxing game - yet 2K/Venom Games saw fit to mess with this formula. The result is an absolute catastrophe.

Apparently they were looking to create a more robust boxing experience, however, it would seem that the endeavor was fruitless. They implement far too many controls into a game that would otherwise not need them if they had not implemented the controls. As contorted as that sounds is how the game plays, which leaves you asking yourself why they didn't just leave the controls as they were in the EA games (sans the total punch control, which I imagine they couldn't rip off).

To clarify, a series of moves have now been button mapped that had not been button mapped prior. The problem in this is that now that something is button mapped, it becomes something that MUST be utilized in the game. So now, you have a single button that is specific to body punches, another for leans, another that you have to hold to throw a power shot, and another button to side-step while punching. Each round you fight, it becomes a battle with the controller more than with your on-screen opponent.

Which adds insult to injury, as even if all this button mashing worked, the game itself breaks down to a video rendition of Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots as the AI is not tactical at all, and movement in the game is like watching 80-year-old women play rugby in a pit of quicksand. What this means is that YOU are put in a position whereby you can do nothing but lean and attempt to counter-punch, OR walk right in front of the opponent and spam your jab whilst sprinkling in a few hooks.

Making this worse is that most boxers require a severe beating before you get a win. While not common, it is certainly far from rare where you could ring someone's bell for five rounds straight before either a stoppage or a penultimate knockout. This amounts to yet another insult to injury scenario, as the game then spams YOU with what seems to be inordinately strong shots for a short period of time - and if you don't find that block button or figure out your leans, you are certainly going to be on the canvas not more than 20 seconds after your opponent was.

Pro Tip to 2K: Except in the case of what are called "flash knockdowns", you don't see boxers get knocked to the canvas and get up looking to kill an opponent. Usually a knockdown is an accumulation of punches taking their toll, and nine times in ten a boxer that gets knocked down is looking to avoid interaction for the rest of the round, or limited action.

Such a dynamic was acceptable in Mike Tyson's Punchout! as the game was clearly not a simulator of boxing - and it was made 20 years ago to an arcade crowd. Not acceptable in today's games.

Then there is the presentation of the game. Minus cut-scene footage (which is a great deal of real video, VH1style) this game is littered with nearly every graphical annoyance possible which is far from acceptable when the graphics are not that sharp. The game could pass off as a PS2 title - it is not visually next generation, even in the Nintendo Wii sense of the term.

Add to that the fact that the sound of the game also suffers from often not being in synchronization with the on-screen action, and the A/V is batting a 1.000...

Overall, the game makes too many unforgivable mistakes to even consider the story of the career mode as a boon - all it amounts to is a reason to give it an even lower score. If you have a friend that has this unfortunate title, borrow it - do NOT rent it, and do NOT purchase it.

With all of the crap Don King has promoted over his career, this should disappoint him most.

Going back to the fight metaphor - Fight Night wins this one in a Mike Tyson fashion scoring a KO in the first round. Prizefighter is not even in the top ten list of contenders at any weight class...

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/23/08

Game Release: Don King Presents: Prizefighter (US, 06/10/08)