Review 2 - Punch-Out! (NES)

Difficulty - *** 1/2
Controls - ***1/2
Graphics - ***
Music - ***
Overall - 13 out of a possible 20

Lace up your boots, get your gloves on and head into the ring! This is Punch-Out for the NES. You play as the feisty Little Mac and step into the ring with ambitions of being world boxing champion.

But you've got some fierce competition as you square off with the likes of Piston Honda, Don Flemenco, King Hippo and the dreaded, Bald Bull! While this game is rather difficult at the beginning, it gets much easier when you've figured out the pattern for each boxer.

(TIP!) - When Great Tiger hunches over to unload an uppercut on you, stand your ground and give him a body blow. It'll fetch you a KO star.

The controls are responsive and tight. You bob, weave and duck to avoid the various blows via the left, right and down buttons on the key pad. (Note that you press down twice to duck.) The only problem I have with the control scheme is that you have to press the start button to use your uppercut. Why not just assign the A+B buttons? Also, ducking is a little of a pain as you will most likely block by accident and get hit by your opponent's punch. But oh well.

The graphics are very nicely detailed for a game that came out in '87. The sprites are nice and large (save for little mac). The facial expressions of the opposition as they taunt, take damage and so forth look silly but fun (the stars on Soda Popinski's face as you smash him still cracks me up!) Some small nitpicking but whenever you knock down your opponent your gloves turn another colour. Huh? What happened there?

Although there is not that much variety in the tunes for this game, so what? The music included is short and sweet (and most important, catchy). My favorite being the game over sequence. I don't know how many times I've heard that tune! Overall, one hell of a game. Too bad it didn't have another sequel on the NES. But this cart reigns as the undisputed boxing champ for the NES!