HBO Boxing: Information from Answers.com

Release Date: November 15, 2000
Genre: Sports
Style: Boxing
Similar Games: Mike Tyson Boxing (PlayStation), Knockout Kings 2001 (PlayStation), Contender 2 (PlayStation)

Game Description

Time to step into the ring and slug it out with more than 35 real life boxers. Some of the fighters featured in the game are George Foreman, Roy Jones Jr., Rocky Marciano, Hector Camacho, and Jack Dempsey. Modes of play include Career, Exhibition, Tournament, and Quickbout. Players can create their own boxer and tweak his abilities in style, power, stamina, foot speed, and invincibility. Providing the commentary for the matches are Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant, and Harold Lederman.

~ All Game Guide

Review: Overall

Generally when a person thinks of HBO, blockbuster movies or shows like The Sopranos usually come to mind. But believe it or not, HBO has featured more championship boxing matches than any other channel in history. Champions such as Lennox Lewis, George Foreman, Roy Jones Jr., and even Mike Tyson have had some of their biggest fights aired on HBO. For this reason, it comes as no surprise to see that a game company picked up the rights to publish a game with HBO's name. Even more surprising, however, is that Acclaim's HBO Boxing is a pretty decent game for fighting fans.

Easily the most exciting element of HBO Boxing is the game's career mode. Using RPG elements, this mode allows gamers to bring a boxer from the bottom of the barrel to top of the hill in the boxing world. The mode is extremely time consuming, as gamers carefully distribute earned points to modify boxing attributes, hire new training crews, and challenge other up-and-coming opponents. Nevertheless, gamers who make the right decisions in bringing up their boxer will be rewarded with a talented fighter who can take on the best in the world.

Speaking of the best, HBO Boxing's list of fighters definitely rivals that of EA Sports' boxing franchise, Knockout Kings. On top of boxing greats found in Knockout Kings, such as Marvin Hagler and Joe Louis, among the game's 35 fighters are exclusives such as George "Grill Master" Foreman and the highly entertaining Roy Jones Jr. To make things interesting with these fighters, the game features a Pay-Per-View tournament mode where gamers can take 16 boxers and have them slug it out to see who is truly king of the ring.

To give the game an extra sense of atmosphere, Acclaim has done a good job capturing the look and feel of HBO's boxing telecasts. The game's different boxing venues recapture the look of HBO Boxing prime time events such as HBO Boxing After Dark and HBO World Championship Boxing. Additionally, stat graphics and intros are recreated to perfection. On a down note, while the game uses the HBO Boxing theme music and official commentators (Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant, and Harold Lederman), the sounds in the game are disappointing. Commentary is brief, the theme music sounds electronically generated, and the in-game fighting effects are rather bland.

Although the overall feel of HBO Boxing is true to the sport and the premium channel that covers it so well, the gameplay is hit and miss. Highlighted by an effective control scheme, each of the face buttons on the Dual Shock provide a different form of punch, while holding R1 will make punches go to the body, and tapping L1 will switch the hand the fighter uses to throw. As for blocking, this is achieved simply by pressing L2 to protect the head and pressing R2 to protect body. To make things more interesting, using various button combinations will provide onscreen punch combinations. As a result, the gameplay will bring a smile to the face of gamers who love the button mashing style of fighting games such as Tekken.

Unfortunately, poor collision detection and damage control systems take away much of the fun that could have been a result of the intuitive control scheme. While punches are easy to pull off, the game's collision detection never lets gamers really know if punches land cleanly or are blocked. To make matters worse, damage on the faces of boxers is almost nonexistent. As a result, gamer's only indication of how they are doing in the fight is represented through a boring damage bar that simply shows a number of hits points.

These problems, as small as they sound, really hurt the overall feel of the game. With boxing being a contact sport, one of the attractions is to see fighters pummel each other. Unfortunately, with HBO Boxing, the fighting does not capture this intensity. As a result, the game is merely average, where improved gameplay could have made it champion of PlayStation boxing titles.