Don King Presents: Prize Fighter Review with video

by Silly Reviewer, Ryan. on June 10, 2008

Conclusion:
I somewhat enjoyed the career mode but once it was over, it was over. I didn’t get to use my fighter anymore once I beat the last opponent. I can still use him online but that’s it. I turned to trying to play online against other people but this has proven to disappointing and frustrating. I started making 10 round fights with three minute rounds in hopes to have a somewhat “sim” fight. While I did have a few fun, “sim” style fights that went to the scorecards, any fight that I came out dominating would result in my opponent pulling the plug. This game had potential for greatness but in the end will be counted out. I’m retiring my copy of this game.

I’m putting issues that really concern me, as I go along playing and learning this game, here in bold. The rest of the updates are still at the bottom.
* I’m winning my fights in career mode with one punch: Right Uppercut to the head. I can land as many as 8 in a row. Fuck!
**I hate how I have to double hit my left thumbstick to move around the ring when I’m in trouble. It is annoying to do and it looks ridiculous and unrealistic. How about make a boxing game where you can break stance and start moving freely around the ring? If your health is fine, you can move around swiftly and maybe even annoy your opponent and the fans. IF you’re weak and running for your life, you can run around but it will leave you basically defenseless and when you try to get back in boxing stance to guard yourself, it should be really hard to do.
I finally had a cpu opponent not get up before he was counted out. I had to knock him down 6 times for this to happen. I have put together some amazing and devastating combos on cpu opponents and every one of them gets up over and over again. I wish there was some randomness to the chances of the player getting up before being counted out, especially when I can string together 10+ hard hitting punches.
*** Prizefighter Glitch Video Posted Below. Guy was running in place.

I love a good boxing game. When I learned that 2k Sports, my most favorite game makers (think NFL 2k5), wer coming out with a boxing game, I got realy excited. That was many months ago. Today, the game came out. I started calling game stores around 1 PM this afternoon to see who had it in stock. Calls to GameStop, Babbages, and Best Buy led to replies like “what game?” and “that game didn’t come out yet.” What the hell. I’ve been watching the official Prizefighter message boards all night and morning waiting for people to start saying they got the game. This was weird. I decided to say forget the phone calls and instead I got in my car and started stopping by these places in person.

My first stop was to a GameTrader. There was a guy who knew of the game but said it would probably get to their store later in the week. I stopped by WalMart and a guy and a lady asked me to check back tomorrow. At this point I was beginning to feel a little let down. My next stop was Blockbuster Video. Two guys there didn’t know what I was talking about and said maybe they would get the game on Friday. My last stop was Worst Buy…I mean Best Buy. I found it. There it was, 2 copies left, right on the shelves and not in alphabetical order. Now I had Prizefighter and was ready to speed home, I mean drive home anxiously.

What’s following is going to be my thoughts of the game as I play it. I will update this review many times over the next few days, several times each day, to let you know what I think about 2k Sports Prizefighter for Xbox 360.

I took a quick bathroom break and read the instruction manual while I pushed out my butt sewage. The controls on this game seem like it’s going to make it awkward for me to block effectively. I know I;m going to have problems in the beginning because the punching and blocking is different than what I am used to with Fight Night Round 3. I know I’ll need to be patient because I’m sure after a little time, these controls will feel like second nature.

I loaded up the game and it went right to the menu. Man, I want to just hop online and fight someone but I don’t want to start losing because I have no experience. I’m going to fight the urge to box online and instead, will start up a career.

Wow. The features and options available for creating a boxer are amazing. I’m going to make my guy look just like me. This is why I love a boxing game so much. I like to get wrapped up in the career mode and it makes it much more fun when I can make my boxer look like me. I really like how you can’t make giant muscles on these created boxers. I made my guy buff but he doesn’t look fake. Kinda like me

There are options for chest hair but none of the options include no chest hair. I would have liked to picked shaved body hair with razor burn. That would be super realistic. I opted for the most minimal and lightest chest hair setting possible. I don’t like setting the colors for this created boxer/Ryan look-a-like. I’m color blind and there are no color names. I guess I’ll play it safe and just outfit my guy with black everything….that’s how I dress anyways.

The beginning of career mode is pretty cool. There are a bunch of video clips playing with people talking abotu this up and coming boxer (me) who they refer to as “The Kid”. I can see how this is going to be a really cool career mode that will really get me wrapped up into this game.

My trainer guy let me learn a few moves. I had to move, throw different punches, weave, clinch, etc. before I could advance. I’m glad this intro training is in place but I’m disappointed that it’s so short. Now my trainer wants me to box a guy. I’m worried because I don’t really know how to do much more than jab, move, and clinch. I wish I could have had more time to practice.

I went into the 8th round of this first little fight. I knocked the guy out for the win. I allowed my opponent to land 100% of his jabs and 64% of his punches overall. Blocking didn’t feel natural and I know I’m going to need to work on this before I can have a chance to win future, more difficult fights.

I just set up my next fight and then did two sessions of training. The heavybag was my first choice and it was easy. The next training was the speed bag. I failed miserably. It was like a dance dance revolution with the a, b, x, y buttons that was way too hard and fast. I’ll definitely need to practice that much more.

I’m about to fight my first contract fight. I don’t have much confidence in m defense. I hope this guy isn’t too good so I can win this fight and become more comfortable with the controls at the same time.

More updates to come.

I had a fight were I received some inside info that my opponent had a broken rib on his right side and that I should aim for it. I threw a ton of left hooks, left uppercuts, and left jabs to hid body. This ended up being my shortest fight. I knocked the dude down and out in the second round. I had to fight this person with the bad ribs twice because during the first fight, i accidentally unplugged the giant power brick thing with my foot.

I just beat the shit out of a guy for 9 rounds. I landed over 100 uppercuts. His eyes looked completely closed. That looked pretty cool but what bugged me was I just realized no one gets cut in this game. Sure, blood flies during some punches and there’s lots of bruising and swelling but there are no cuts. I must say that really disappoints me.

I can’t remember if I knocked this last bum out more than three time sin one round but I really don’t think I did. I believe I was beating my last opponent so badly the ref stopped the fight. That’s kind of cool.

I’m getting a little annoyed with the amount of times my opponents will get up. I don’t ever see myself winning a fight in the first round unless I come across another opponent with an injury. I can knock the computer out twice a round for 4 rounds and the comp will still get up if it has some reserve energy left. wtf?

I just had a fight where I had a broken hand. I was notified before the fight. It was my right hand. When I landed punches with that hand, I lost a lot of energy. I just won a fight with almost nothing but punches with my left. Again, I landed a ton of punches to the right side of the cpu’s face for 8 rounds and there was no cut or bleeding from anywhere on the cpu’s face. That kind of entertaining detail being left out is tragic.

More Coming….

I just won a fight and my media profile went down (-1). I can only speculate as to why this rating would have gone down. I won by TKO in the 9th round. On the score cards, I was down by a point (all three). Maybe even though I won by tko, me trailing on the score cards didn’t make me look good technically. I wonder if this is in the code for this game. I think that kind of makes sense but then again I dropped this guy like 5 times this fight. I think people would want to see that so maybe my media profile should have gone up. I dunno.

I’m really getting pissed about the lack of blood. No blood from at least the nose. Damn it.

There doesn’t appear to be any corner stoppages in this game. I’ve closed both eyes on a few computer opponents and the fight went on.

This was my 11th win in a row and I am still enjoying the game. I am getting sper tempted to go online. I think I will see what’s up with that right now.

More Coming……

I just played two online games. Both Ranked Quick Matches. I lost both. In both rights I injured my opponent way more than I got hurt. In fact, My energy/health almost never moved. I landed power shots and fought strategically. That doesn’t amount to shit. The rounds were 90 seconds long and the fights were only 4 rounds long. The worst part, your health returns to full each round. I lost because I didn’t land as many hits. I was fighting with a power style and counter punched beautifully. That didn’t seem to matter much in either fight. I noticed this after the first fight where I was Golota against a person using Shannon Briggs. I creamed him using my fighting style I mentioned above but my opponent got the win because of punches. There’s no room for strategy like I was using because of the short rounds and short number of rounds and the fact that both fighters get full health each round. In the second fight I used the fastest guy available. Again, my opponent used Shannon Briggs. I was able to win only one round of this fight thus losing the fight. I don’t want to button mash. I’m a counter puncher in boxing games. I either need to start mashing buttons or just never win an online matchup playing Don King’s Prizefighter online. More Disappointment. I’m going back to my career mode.

More to come.

What exactly am I earning money for in career mode? I would really like to know.

I’m starting to think, while I play, how much this will suck if people stop playing online. Then, more than half the reason why I spent $60 on this game (which is what it costs to fill my car). With the way online is set up, I just think whoever is playing today won’t be playing next week or next month.

I can time my uppercuts to land as many as 8 times consecutively. This is really disappointing. Sure, I can just not do that and try to make the game more realistic but when I start getting hurt, I can’t help but to do it. The fucking computer walks right into it. Uppercut – 1 mississippi – Uppercut – 1 mississippi – REPEAT.

I have focused my traiing on speed and stamina. Lots of shuttle runs. My last fight was a close one. While I can time out a bunch of clean uppercuts, I do need to work on my defense.

Here’s a video of one of the best looking knockouts I’ve had yet. That’s a killer overhand right!

Here’s a Prizefighter Glitch Video. Watch the CPU run in place.

I’m still playing my career. I’m enjoying this game and am determined to get my money’s worth.

I wonder if 2k is going to path Prizefighter. I haven’t returned to online play since I tried those first two online fights because I just don’t like how I can kick someone’s ass but if they land just one more punch, likely a jab, I will lose the round. I have read in other forums that people ar emaking custom matches with longer round times and more total rounds which sounds appealing because I think in a 10 round fight I would enjoy online fighting more and the fights would both be more realistic and provide me the chance to win with my style of fighting. For now I will just try to finish my career.

Now that my boxer has high (700) dexterity and stamina, I have been able to put together some awesome combos. When I can put together a jab, jab, cross, hook, uppercut combo together in this game, there really is no comparing how sweet it looks and feels.

I just won a belt in career mode! I beat the champ in 3 rounds. The fights are becoming less and less challenging. Every fight is feeling the same. I block punches until the opponent gets tied then I unleash combos until I have to start blocking again. None of the opponents in this game fight like they have their own style or identity.