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PreviousDon King Boxing Review
Wii Review by Christian Donlan
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In 1966, according to Wikipedia - which I've certainly never known to be wrong about anything - Don King stomped an employee to death over a debt of 600 dollars. I mention this only because it makes Don King's Prizefighter the first videogame series I can think of that's endorsed by somebody who's actually killed a man - well, at least since Lesley Grantham's Super-Trick Snowboarding gave us so many hours of fun on the SEGA Megadrive. Still, it feels a little churlish bringing it up, really: King's served his sentence and deserves a second chance. He's done his time, and now, with Don King Boxing, we're doing ours.
When it appeared on the 360 last year, Prizefighter was widely lauded for lacklustre graphics, unwelcome difficulty spikes, and collision detection so bad that you almost felt you were playing a boxing simulation on the Holodeck of the Starship Enterprise. If you're the kind of person who suspects that all this wonky game really needed to snap it into shape was the addition of Wii controls, I should very like to meet you - presumably once you get back from New York City, where you've been optimistically waiting for the Titanic to finally arrive.
Clear your mind and hope for the best, though. Oh dear: things start in a distinctly unpromising manner. After an unconvincing intro sequence with an astonishingly juddery frame rate, you're dumped into an unskippable tutorial, which attempts to introduce you to the game's controls. They're pretty simple really: holding the remote and nunchuk upright, a push forward handles jabs and straights, hooks are activated by a swing to each side, and uppercuts come via a gentle flick. Pushing either B or Z directs blows to the body rather the head, and, with movement handled by the stick, there are further options for guarding, dodging, and accessing the pleasantly unshowy special moves - more powerful variations of each punch, which leave a brief trail of red light lingering behind them.
Historic matches interrupt the campaign mode. That generally means it's time to reach for the scratchy film filter.
As move-sets go, it's actually rather elegant - an entirely instinctive range of controls which are easy to memorise and full of punchy promise. Sadly, what the tutorial is really teaching you is that none of this matters much.
Don King Boxing, it turns out, is woefully imprecise. And not just, "I pressed the wrong button in the elevator and now I'm on the wrong floor" imprecise, but, "I set off to drive to the laundrette and somehow ended up in Ukraine" imprecise. While the game can just about distinguish your inputs while it's teaching you each separate attacks one at a time, as soon as you reach the combo stage of the tutorial the frustration jolts into overdrive, with every shake of the remote or nunchuk offering you an entirely unexpected outcome, while the too-subtle variations in the punch animations leave you with little to distinguish between jabs and uppercuts anyway.
That the tutorial asks you to fill in chains of specific moves in order to proceed is bad enough, but throw on top of that a focus on timing, which the game leaves you to discover for yourself - and which the remote can rarely handle anyway - and it becomes clear that the game has managed the impossible: it's found a magical plateau of annoyance where precision and imprecision become inextricably knotted - the game demanding a level of strict control over your inputs while offering you tools which mean you can only achieve them through a mixture of luck and sheer bloody-mindedness.
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Comments: 1-41 of 41 in total
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sadakos_fury
27/04/09 @ 06:49
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What we really want is a game where you box against King himself. Each level is in a different setting with the Kingster in a different outfit. The final fight has him in an orange jumpsuit, locked up in pokey and hopped up on pruno http://www.blacktable.com/gillin030901.htm
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most recently on 27/04/09 @ 07:50
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Pah, we all knew this was going to be cack, right? After all the 360 version was pretty mediocre so the same game with worst controls was never going to be better unless you think standing up punching like a boxer with the controller is the thing that makes the game more fun.
And therein lies the problem with the Wii, that not every game works with its imprecise controller, particularly as the motion-sensors on the Nunchuk are a lot more primitive that the ones on the main Wii Remote. Far too many third-party games squander any potential it might have and it seems like only Nintendo know how to use it effectively. Trouble is Nintendo's games come once in a blue moon and they're not always good. Some are truly dire like Wii Music for example. Thankfully, not all games on the Wii are cack (although it seems like 99% are!). Little King's Story and Excitebots look great, especially the latter, and I've added them to my Wanted list to pick up at some point once I've tired of the PC for games. That said, I still think the Wii is absolutely the worst console I've ever owned, simply because there's so few decent games on the platform compared with the other formats. |
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HuggyAtHome
27/04/09 @ 08:49
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@Nikanoru
How can it be gathering dust if you've sold it? Back under your bridge, idiot. /hits ignore |
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StringBeanJean
27/04/09 @ 09:32
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Can I just congratumulate Mr Donlan on an excellent review. Well written and very amusing, and actually describes the game's shortcomings sensibly.
Sorry for boring post. |
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Wasn't John Mullen, a star of the original Soldier of Fortune series an actual person who, you know, being a merc and all pretty much made his daily occupation killing people?
Other than that, a fun review of what looks like an atrocious game. Also: my Wii is getting much more playtime than my 360 these days due to Blast Works and Gradius ReBirth and if stuff like Pikmin 2, FF Crystal Chronicles Echoes of Time and Little King Story is not enough to convince you otherwise then, yes, you should sell your Wii on eBay and get yourself a proper man's console. |
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Pac-man ate my wife
27/04/09 @ 12:08
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Good work EG, another excellent tard-magnet that allows me to add to my ever expanding ignore list.
Seriously guys, all the 'Wii is shite' comments are just pointless now. Not only are they boring, they are just wrong. EG has given 7 games on the Wii 8/10 or higher since the start of the year for chrissakes! |
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Seriously guys, all the 'Wii is shite' comments are just pointless now. Not only are they boring, they are just wrong. EG has given 7 games on the Wii 8/10 or higher since the start of the year for chrissakes!
doesn't change the fact that the console is bad. and if i remember correctly, wasn't one of these games Little King's Story? i can't think of the other 6 (was house of the dead overkill out this year?) EDIT: i just checked that list. Let's Tap? Pikmin? might get high review scores, but - as with Little King's Story - unless your less than 10 years old, it's still useless
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 27/04/09 @ 13:28
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Pac-man ate my wife
27/04/09 @ 12:30
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@ JahB
What are you talking about? What do you mean by 'bad' because if you mean 'doesn't have any quality games' then you are wrong as there patently are. And what's wrong with Little Kings Story? Not manly enough for you? EDIT: i just checked that list. Let's Tap? Pikmin? might get high review scores, but - as with Little King's Story - unless your less than 10 years old, it's still useless Your are obviously somepme who thinks that all games must be fit into your narrow definition of what is 'acceptable' therefore there's no point talking to you, but (likewise) there's really no point you posting in these threads.
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most recently on 27/04/09 @ 13:35
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@Pac-Man
i never said they weren't acceptable as games, just useless unless you're a kid. let me put it this way: i know quite a few gamers in my age bracket (25-30), a number of which own a wii, but none of them would ever purchase something like Pikmin or Let's Tap, simply because it's not made for them. It's designed, made and marketed for children. but you have a valid point, so let me rephrase my original statement. the wii is a bad console for adults. there seem to be plenty of good games around if you're a kid.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 27/04/09 @ 13:49
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Pac-man ate my wife
27/04/09 @ 13:05
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Have you ever played Pikmin? It's one of the best, most original games of all time.
Oh but you define games solely on their appearance rather than whether they are good games, am I right? How do you feel about games like Katamari? World Of Goo? LocoRoco? |
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"i never said they weren't acceptable as games, just useless unless you're a kid. let me put it this way: i know quite a few gamers in my age bracket (25-30), a number of which own a wii, but none of them would ever purchase something like Pikmin or Let's Tap, simply because it's not made for them. It's designed, made and marketed for children."
I know quite a lot of adults who don't hang about with black people, but their kids do at school. Therefore black people are for children. No, wait a second, that's what we invented the concept of 'prejudice' for. |
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I love reading the comments in low-scoring Wii games. Sometime you look up someone's history, and find that every post they've ever made has been to slag off the Wii. Never say anything about another console, or any game they actually like, just five or so cynical words, then move on.
You think it's one of those mystical creatures who are employed by Sony or MS to spread a bit of FUD about the console? Hell, I don't think they're necessary around here. Anyway, another "ignore". |
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"i know quite a few gamers in my age bracket (25-30), a number of which own a wii, but none of them would ever purchase something like Pikmin or Let's Tap, simply because it's not made for them. It's designed, made and marketed for children. "
LMFAO!!! You're not 25.. With a comment like that - I'd guess you werent even a teenage yet.. Because you still think a game needs to be grey and brown with lots of blood to be good. |
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Emilia'sHorse
27/04/09 @ 22:46
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The problem is not the Wii, the problem is the game (Don King) is arse. On the 360 buyers mostly shunned it because it was mediocre at best, if the Wii buying public snap this up then more fool them. The Wii and DS charts are full of shovelware toss, even though both consoles have many superb titles. When games like Madworld fail to shift even average numbers, is it any wonder few companies bother to make quality Nintendo product?
Thank god however for the few that do. |
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gudnikristinn
27/04/09 @ 23:30
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Don King on the 360 was the worst boxing game in the history of boxing games so this is an improvement on the name.
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"but you have a valid point, so let me rephrase my original statement. the wii is a bad console for adults. there seem to be plenty of good games around if you're a kid. "
When I was a kid I'd amuse myself for hours with an empty box or some old radio parts picked up from the local tip. Kids are stupid. |
Comments: 1-41 of 41 in total
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