The ultimate boxing game has arrived and it doesn’t star any of the current top fighters. No, not at all. But it does star one of the most famous boxers of all time, Rocky Balboa. That’s right, Rocky’s back and so are all his biggest opponents. Rage and Rocky are ready to show a new generation why he’s the greatest.

    Rocky offers several different ways to play. This Rocky game is based on all five of the movies. So most of the fighters, some I’ve never heard of, are straight out of the movies. The game starts off with a little movie intro that shows actually clips from the movies. This movie shows the main five fighters, Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, Ivan Drago, Tommy Gunn, and of course Rocky Balboa. The game gives you several starting options: Movie Mode, Exhibition Match, Knockout Tournament Mode, Sparring Mode, Gallery, and Options. Movie Mode is what this game is all about. Every other fighting mode allows you to pick any of the 20 fighters, once they’re unlocked of course. Movie Mode places you in the role of Rocky and you need to battle your way through the five movies and their respective antagonist. You start out facing Spider Rico, everyone should remember him and fight progressively harder matches until you make it to Tommy Gunn. Found that some of the no names were harder then the main-eventers to defeat. After each fight, you get to train. These are little mini games that help to improve your in-ring abilities. Strength, speed, stamina, determination, and movement are the factors that get worked here. There’s also an “autotrain” button, but your abilities won’t increase as much as they could if you had done trained yourself. Also, the movement training is a great way to learn the combos. When you finally make it to a main-event, there’s a movie clip to greet you. Not an exact clip from the movies, but it uses the game models to recreate certain scenes. I won’t ruin which ones, so I’ll just say “important” ones. Going through the Movie Mode will unlock each fighter you defeat. After beating this mode you are able to unlock the Knockout Tournament Mode. This is just your typical 16-player tournament. Since you don’t have the ability to play in every fight, this mode will probably only come in handy when friends are over. Sparring Mode is the “Practice” or “Training” mode that comes with most fighters. But this has some original qualities about it. For one, three different sparring partners can be chosen. One is speed, Fast Hands, one is strong, Hard Hitter, and one is good overall, All Rounder. But what’s even nicer is that they’re three completely different people. Not just some clone. Another really great point of this mode is the command list. It shows you all the combos (no special moves though) and even allows you to view each move, ala Soul Calibur. This is something every fighting game should have. Once done pummeling a lifeless sparring partner (you can change him, but why), there’s the nifty Gallery to check out. This is where you can watch all those cool movie clips from Movie Mode. Even the intro movie can be found here. The game loves to load and it takes it’s time too. Saving can also be tedious since it asks you after every fight and training session. Saving should have been an option in the Start menu or something else that was out of the way.

    The game is remarkably easy to pick up and play. The control scheme is very simple, “A” and “B” buttons are for body jabs while “X” and “Y” are for head jabs. Hold up or down on either the joystick or D-pad and press any button to throw a hook. Hold the “R” trigger and press any button to throw an uppercut. Combos can be preformed by series of buttons in a certain order. The success of the combo doesn’t really depend on timing your punches, but rather pressing the correct series of buttons fast enough. This was a little confusing at first, but once you realize it, the combos become easy to execute. While in a fight you can use either the joystick or the D-pad to move your fighter. Since you’ll be moving in every which way, the joystick is a much better choice. Gamecube’s controller worked perfectly with this game. The button layout gave no problems at all.

    Punching really doesn’t go that in depth and the best strategy against another human tends to be button mashing. Mashing works because once those punches start flying and landing on an opponents face, they’re hard to stop. This is why the depth of the fighting is in the moving, blocking and dashing with the boxers. The tougher computer fighters will execute blocks and turn them into devastating combos. Also, without knowing how to block or dash, you won’t be able to get out of trouble. The game features real time battle damage. Meaning as you pound on your opponent, he’s going to look like it. There’s nothing like socking a guy in the face only to follow with one to the gut and when he’s bending over in pain, there’s blood pouring from his nose. This feature is truly a masterpiece. As are all of the animations the fighters do when falling to the mat or having made the opponent fall. A roll of the fist or rising of the arms in celebration and more all make Rocky more enjoyable. The camera is not a big factor in the game and shouldn’t be the cause for any complaints. It can either sit over the shoulder or off to the side. The side view is a better choice. The shoulder view doesn’t account for the change in camera and it doesn’t change the controls to move. So to go forward, you still need to press right on the joystick even though forward should now diagonally up right. The side view looks better anyway so it’s no big deal.

    This game is amazing graphically. The boxers are especially good looking. They look incredibly smooth and are textured extremely well. The battle damage the fighters take was also done very well. If a boxer’s bleeding and they get knocked down, then they’ll leave blood on the mat. It can become quite blood stained as the boxers’ tend to bleed a lot. Rocky also has one of, if not the best-looking crowds I’ve ever seen. Instead of just a mob of people most of whom are 2D, Rocky has several fully 3D people cloned over the whole audience. Each clone does something different. There are a nice variety of arenas to fight in. From a chapel to Moscow to an Irish pub, all of them are unique. Only graphical problem I found was when you are behind another fighter, that fighter can magically punch you without turning around to face you. Looks awkward.

    Sound is one of the games biggest problems. Sometimes it’s surprisingly good. The sound of the punches has a nice “thump” that makes them sound like they hurt. The ring announcers, referees, managers, and taunts V.A.’s are done very nicely. The intro music, well, the intros in generally are great. No-name opponents don’t have voiced taunts for some reason. The crowd fades in and out sometimes. Don’t know if it’s because the pace of the fight slowed or what, but it doesn’t sound good at all. The movie clips’ V.A.’s sound like they were taken right from a television that had those scenes playing. The quality might not be that bad, but it’s not up to par.

    Rocky is an extremely fun game to play. This game brought a smile to my face on many different occasions, including the entire first time I sat down with it. Wasn’t expecting much from Rage, but these guys have delivered here. Aside from the loading and sound problems this game is solid. Boxing fans and fans of the Rocky series will absolutely love this game. Casual gamers unfamiliar with Rocky (yes, highly unlikely to be unfamiliar with Rocky but still) might just want to rent this game.