"Just rent a Rocky movie instead"

First let me say I'd been really looking forward to this one since I'd heard about it. The last console to take on a Rocky game was the old Sega Master System (I'm about 90% sure anyways), and that one was excellent for it's time. So now we have Rocky for the PS2, and I'm sorry to say it's a bit of a failure. If you're into boxing games I'd say it's not quite as good as Knockout Kings 2002, but infinitely better than Mike Tyson's Boxing which is one of the worst games ever imho. Anyways on to the review.

GRAPHICS 9/10 - No complaints here. The graphics in the game are pretty spectacular. All of the fighters look very much like their movie counterparts and the cutscenes are absolutely amazing. The first time I saw the first Apollo movie scene I couldn't believe how near perfect it looked. I watched a couple more times after that just to see it again:)

SOUND 5/10 - The audio could've been so much better for this game. Trust me, after you keep hearing 'Gonna Fly Now' over and over and over again, you're going to be po'ed that they couldn't have at least put 'Eye of the Tiger' or 'No Easy Way Out' in. There were a lot of great Rocky songs, why include just one??? As for the ingame sounds, they were good I guess, but nothing spectacular.

GAMEPLAY 4/10 - Here's where the game falls apart to me. Great graphics mean nothing when the controls are sluggish and basically crappy. I'm talking about the player's ability to move around the ring here mostly. Even with your Movement stat at good levels your fighter just kinda gimps around the ring. They did a lot of things good in this game, but perhaps they should've taken a look at KK2002 to see what a fighters supposed to look like moving around the ring. On the good side, the punches look good and the combos are easy to pull off.(The one thing they did do better than KK2002, btw.)

STORY - If you've seen the movies you know the story, so there's really not much to say here except that Rocky starts off fighting bums and works his way up to the champ Apollo Creed, and from there defends the title thru various contenders including Clubber Lang(...''My prediction for the fight?'' Pain...'') Ivan Drago(''If he dies, he dies.'') and Tommy Gunn.

REPLAY - 1/10 - Absolutely none. After you've beaten all three difficulty modes there will be nothing left to do, unless you want to just fight exhibitions in 2P mode or maybe just beat the hell out of Clubber Lang or Ivan Drago when you feel the need. When I rented the game, the novice level took a couple of days, and I almost had it beat on the second level before I took the game back. I can't imagine that it would take longer than a month to completely defeat the movie mode on every level, and sadly that's all there is to this game.

BUY or RENT? - If you really must, rent it. But you'll probably just wish you'd rented a Rocky movie instead. No way is this game worth $49.99. Buy this thing at Greatest Hits price and you might be getting a fair deal. To be honest I think Ubi Soft released Rocky near to Christmas just to try and make some quick money off Rocky fans for the holidays, but that's just my own opinion, take it as you will.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10 | Originally Posted: 01/05/03, Updated 01/05/03

Liked this review? Click here to recommend this item to other users.