THE KICK BOXING REVIEW - November 1993
| Blimey, this takes me back a bit. The Kick Boxing (or
as it's known in its Manga anime incarnation, Surely Amusing Translation Mishap Incident
Episode 911) must be one of the most differingly-named games in the history of gaming - it
started out as Panzer Kick Boxing on the Amiga in about 1754, moved onto the SNES as Best
Of The Best a while ago (the name it's apparently going to have on its official Mega Drive
release in this country shortly), I distinctly recall a version with the word 'Thai' in
the title somewhere, and I'm sure (although my memory could be playing tricks on me at
this point) it's been attached to some kind of licence at one point as well, like
Jean-Claude Van Damme's Amazing Kick Boxing or something. You'd think, in all this time,
someone might have taken a few minutes out to make it halfway good, wouldn't you? I'm constantly bemused on my travels through the wonderful and frightening world of video games, but never more than by two-player beat-'em-ups. Surely never in time and space can a game have so dominated a genre as Street Fighter 2 does, so what's the point of a game like this? Why do they bother? The obvious argument, I suppose, is that there's a niche market for all you 'specialists' out there. This is, as far as I know, the only kick boxing game currently available. But hold on a minute - play it for a while and what you discover are blocks, uppercuts, roundhouse kicks, low sweeps... yep, it's Street Fighter 2, but without fireballs or special moves. Even if you really insist that this is in some intangible way different from any other
beat-'em-up, though, it's still crap. It's slow, the animation's dire, the sound's
phenomenally irritating the moves are all but impossible to pull off, and it seems to be
totally random as to which of the fighters takes a hit at any given time. The only vaguely
entertaining feature is the impressively comprehensive action replay, which lets you
rewind, fast-forward, pause or stop-frame your way through the whole of the round you've
just fought, in the unlikely event of you wanting to relive the results of 60 seconds of
unhappy and random joypad jabbing. It's a very nice action replay feature, it's just a
shame that it's in such a useless game. That's all. |
END ZONE Amazingly bad beat-'em-up that's years old and showing it.
Haven't you heard of Street Fighter 2, or something? Don't waste your money. 8 PERCENT |
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