AbstractWhat do fighters like Ali, Frazier, Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar De La Hoya, Fernando Vargas, Lennox Lewis, and Bernard Hopkins have in common? They're just a smattering of the fighters who appear in the highly realistic KNOCKOUT KINGS 2002. Ten real-life arenas appear in the game, as do professional referees like Mills Lane and Richard Steel. Motion-capture animation and 3D face mapping keep the brawlers looking mighty realistic, and there's a hip-hop soundtrack to pump things up even further.
ESRB rating
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Blood, Mild Lyrics, Violence |
Full descriptionKnockout Kings makes its second PlayStation 2 appearance with a lineup of 45 boxers divided among three weight classes: lightweight, middleweight, and heavyweight. While the majority of boxers are fictional, the 15 pros include Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Robinson, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, and cover star Muhammad Ali. Eight venues are available to fight in one of three modes of play: Exhibition, Tournament, and Career. Players can also create their own boxer using a selection of nine different face types and ratings in the areas of power, speed, stamina, chin, cuts, and heart.
Exhibition has one or two players choosing a class, the fighters, and the arena before the introductions. Tournament allows players to set up a field of four or eight boxers and fight it out in a single-elimination format. Career involves a character facing off against a pyramid of 15 boxers until he reaches the top. Players must also stave off up to five challengers before being allowed to retire as a champion. Lose three bouts at any time during the Career and the boxer must hang up his gloves and call it quits.
At the end of each Career fight, players will earn a specific number of points used to bolster a created boxer's stats, although players are free to use one of the established fighters in the game as well. Players can also select one of four difficulty levels, set the rounds from one to 15, set the clock speed to either double time or real, and choose whether or not tapping the button is required in order to pick a boxer off the mat. Other rule variants include a saved by the bell option and a three knockdown rule.
Players fight inside a 3D ring seen from one of eight camera angles, including a first-person view for close encounters. As the fight wears on, each boxer's face shows real-time damage in the form of puffy eyes, cuts, and bruises. The corner man offers tips in between rounds as a ring girl struts her stuff on the canvas. Two horizontal meters (optionally displayed at the top of the screen) represent health and stamina. As a boxer receives each blow, health gradually depletes. If health falls below 50 percent, the controller will vibrate in a heartbeat pattern to warn of an impending knockdown.
Knockout Kings is back and ready for another 12 rounds. Whip out the boxing gloves, slap in the mouthpiece and get ready because Knockout Kings 2002 is ready to knock you out of your shoes. Play as some of the greatest such as Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, plus current stars such as Lennox Lewis and see if you have the guts to take on the greats.
Editorial reviewSource:
AmazonFans of past installments in the Knockout Kings series will be surprised by several changes to the 2002 version. Previously, you had to fight your way up a list of 20 challengers and fine-tune your skills by training between bouts before getting your shot at the champ. But
Knockout Kings 2002 scraps all this in favor of a four-tiered pyramid system in which you need to beat just 11 out of 14 challengers before fighting for the title. While it doesn't feel as hard-earned, it's still satisfying to advance your boxer out of dingy gyms and into major venues such as Caesar's Palace. Career mode still offers the opportunity to create your own boxer or choose from the 45 available (21 past and present, 24 fictional). Inexplicably absent, however, are such greats as Rocky Marciano, Jake LaMotta, Larry Holmes, and Marvin Hagler, all of whom appeared on past versions of the game.
Also surprisingly absent this time around is the ability to throw body punches. While some boxers have this punch in their repertoires as a body combination, the best you can do with others is slug away at your opponent's head with a multitude of hooks, jabs, straight punches, low blows, or illegal backhands. And slug away you must if you expect to hold your own against stiffer competition, as finesse options are limited.
Where Knockout Kings 2002 truly shines is in its graphics, thanks to the combination of boxers' well-sculpted physiques and EA Sports's face-mapping technology. The eye-catching detail of the various arenas and rings further enhances the realism, right down to the excitable fans in the seats and the blood flying from fighters' mouths. Satisfying smacks of gloves to the face and thuds of bodies hitting the deck can also be heard in abundance. --Larry White
Pros:
- Best graphics yet in the series
- Lots of boxers and venues from which to choose
Cons: - New career mode eliminates past enhancements
- Few opportunities to throw body punches
- Fewer real boxers to select
- Frenetic pace turns most bouts into slugfests
Real fighters; 10 real arenas; high AI; awesome graphics; multiplayer action
- Portions of content provided by Rovi Data Solutions, Inc. and IGN Entertainment, Inc.