Punch-Out!! Review
Remember the good old days of the Nintendo game, Mike Tyson's Punch Out, where you took on the role of Mac, a boxer on a mission? Well you're going to get to do it all over again, with a couple of extra fighters in the way, and no Mike Tyson. In this updated version you'll get to see that some of the old favorites have some new tricks of their sleeves, but it all comes down to spotting their second of weakness, do that and you can once again rise to the top.
Graphically this game looks smooth. You get to be a bit behind Mac so you can see the true heights of your opponents. The character designs definitely stand out from fighter to fighter.
The music will bring fits of nastalgia as you will hear some of the old tunes, but most of the time its just the sounds of you, hopefully dealing out the punishment, and not the other way around.
The controls are the one thing that can get pretty confusing. There's really 3 sets of controls. The first one is to just use the Wii-mote as a controller, turning it sideways and utilizing the buttons that you have in front of you. The second is to add the nunchuck into the equation, and now you're going to have to start swinging to land punches and use the analog stick to dodge. The final setup incorporates the balance board, and now you'll be throwing punches with the nunchuck and wii-mote, and physically dodging with the help of the balance board.
Overall this game isn't a boxing game, its a puzzle game. You're going to have to learn the patterns of the fighters and know when you'll have an opening. The further you get into the game the more difficult its going to become to figure out the fighter, but once you've figured it out you're not going to see the fighter mysteriously change everything about themselves. The one exception is when you go back to challenge a defeated opponent and they have a couple new wrinkles for you for different scenarios.
This is really a game that those who grew up with Punch-Out will enjoy, but if you're a boxing enthusiast you're going to find this game lacking. I personally thought this game was alright, the multiplayer fell really short of what I thought could be done. This game gets a 7.2 out of 10.
