2K announces Don King game

By Tom Bramwell Published 10 December, 2007

Hrm, that sounds rude.

While most of the world was watching the Hitman's heroic near-victory over Floyd Mayweather this weekend, 2K Games was doing that thing where you hit the little swingy one that looks like a tonsil repeatedly very fast to herald the announcement of Don King Presents: Prizefighter.

Developed by Venom Games, it's due out on Xbox 360, Wii and DS (but sadly not PS3) in spring 2008, and will see players working through a career mode, training between bouts to help maintain audience appeal, and managing personal relationships away from the canvas thing with the ropes. Let's hope it's like a cross between Rocky and Fahrenheit.

"In all my years working in professional boxing, I have never seen anything come as close to recreating the thrill, the intensity, the courage, and the spectacle of the sport," said Don King himself, who is a famous boxing promoter according to Wikipedia and not just a character in that Simpsons episode where Homer beats up tramps. I know lots about boxing, me.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (16) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • skillian #1 4 years ago

    heroic near-victory

    hmm...

  • Triggerhappytel #2 4 years ago

    So, Venom Games are the ones who developed Rocky Legends, aren't they?

    I can't say I thought much of those games. Hoping for better from this.

  • afray #3 4 years ago

    Don Corleone >>> Don King

  • Vice.Destroyer #4 4 years ago

    Well, let's see if you are able to get indicted for racketeering and the like, only to be found not guilty of those offences. And also not guilty of influencing the jury, even after flying them all to one of your boxing fights in London. At the same time as short-changing your fighters and even billing them for their protective equipment.

    Let's see whether you can also arrange a prize fight in a third world country, where the cost of the fight (purse, venue, accommodation for fighters, media, etc) is picked up by the dictator of that country. The cost of which is approximately equal to 2 years worth of foreign aid. Let's see if you can get your fighters to sign contracts by putting their signature on blank pieces of paper and then produce the contract around that contract.

    Let's see if you can frighten your fighters because of your proven ties to the Gotti family. If the game is set in the golden age of boxing, I'd like to see a hypocrisy feature in the game, where you condemn apartheid, try to arrange a fight in South Africa by accepting donations from Pieter Willem Botha himself and then only pull out of the fight because you have trouble raising PPV numbers.

    And a decent mini-game would be to use the prize money from your fighters to pay the salaries and bonuses of your staff. Even extending to providing your immediate and extended familiy phantom jobs, like president of so-and-so boxers fan clubs, at inflated salaries.

    In case there are any people reading this under any illusions as to what a fraud Don King is, consider this. The only boxer who was involved in a fight with Don King, who got the money that they were promised for a bout, were the ones not managed by Don King. Tim Weatherspoon, who beat Frank Bruno for a vacant belt, got less than a twelfth of Bruno's purse. When Buster Douglas lost to Evander Holyfield, he got at the time, the highest purse in boxing ever $20m. Unheard of at the time.

  • viper_h #5 4 years ago

    Boxing is a joke. This will sell like shit.

    Also, PS3 lol

  • TheGrandChappo #6 4 years ago

    @ Vice.Destroyer - Very well said my man! Just what i was thinking!! King is a disgrace to boxing!

  • DB2k #7 4 years ago

    plus he's got stupid hair!

  • kangarootoo #8 4 years ago

    "the Hitman's heroic near-victory"

    Lol. And there was me thinking that not winnng a battle between only two contenders was called losing.

    Vice.Destroyer +1

  • WrongShui #9 4 years ago

    A cross between Fahrenheit and Rocky? So women have sex with dead mumbling Italian Americans and instead of BA Barakus as the final fight its the internet?

    Sounds good.

  • miiiguel #10 4 years ago

    PS3lol... again. Not so funny anymore..., too often.
    Edited by 1 at 10/12/07 @ 11:39

  • silver-jon #11 4 years ago

    Oooh, oooh, Vice.destroyer. You forgot being charged with Manslaughter.

    Maybe that's where Eurogamer's reference to "Fahrenheit" comes in ?

  • Diabeu #12 4 years ago

    lol

  • bdc #13 4 years ago

    If you had a semblance of a clue about boxing, you'd know that Don King is one of the worst things to happen to the sport.

  • Vice.Destroyer #14 4 years ago

    JSPOOLE, for the most part, I don't care who endorses what product, I will still buy it if it is quality. I mean, I really do think that Microsoft as a business is the devil incarnate, but I still love my Xbox.

    and I can't believe that I would actually be as offended as I am about the prospect of Don King having a game on the shelves with his face on it. Potentially airbrushing his evil past even more for people whose research extends only as far as Wikipedia. If you are a boxing fan, be aware that Don King swindled virtually every champion from the early 70's to the mid 90's.

    That's my take on it.

  • cobracotton #15 4 years ago

    Don King is a c...

    So is Floyd Mayweather

    also JSPOOLE

    Mwah!

    xxx

  • Kelduum #16 4 years ago

    That character in that Simpsons episode was Lucious Sweet, not Don King.

    Granted, he was exactly as rich and famous as Don King but not Don King.