By Momin Qureshi

When I first heard that Nintendo was putting out a new version of the classic game “Punch Out” I was stoked.  For you see, I spent a great deal of time back in the late 80’s and early 90’s as Little Mac trying to make my way to the title bout against Mike Tyson. 

Now granted Tyson is not a part of the new game, but all your old favorites like Glass Joe, King Hippo and Don Flamenco and others are back, along with the new face of Kid Disco.  Playing this game will give rise to nostalgic moments of your childhood from when you played the game on the NES and SNES. But it also has enough for those who were too young at the time, or never played the game (shame on you for that) to enjoy the new version.   

The game gives the player the choice to use either the Wii mote and nun chucks or revert to classic Nintendo game pad controls.  If you choose to play with the motion controls, it’s similar to that of Wii Boxing, giving the player the choice to throw upper cuts or jabs, dodge left and right as well as block punches, and of course what would a game of punch out be without the star punch? Not much of a game, that’s what. So they brought that back as well.   

Now I’ve played the game a fair bit over the past few days and I can say this, if you loved the old game, you will probably love the new one.  But that may have more to do with nostalgia than actual game play. Not to say this game isn’t good or fun, because it’s definitely both, but in true Wii fashion, it’s fairly basic and simple.

The game play itself can get simple and repetitive, but I had a chance to speak to Matt Ryan of Nintendo who put it best: this game is more of a puzzle than a boxing game.  Each fighter has a different sequence of punches and dodges that will allow you to beat him.  So if you treat this game more as a puzzle and less as a fighting game, like say fight night round 4, than you may enjoy it more. 

The career mode of the game is straight forward.  You have to fight and beat 4 people to win a belt, with each guy you fight becoming progressively difficult.  After you beat those four, you move up a level and take on the next four guys. I’ve been able to move up a couple levels, and the puzzle does become a little more complex with each fighter.  

 
As with many Wii games, if you play this one for a while you will work up a sweat, so be aware of that. A neat feature this game offers is the ability to play with the Wii balance board, which is most commonly seen in conjunction with the Wii Fit.  I have not had an opportunity to incorporate the board into the game, but would love to try that at some point.

Over all I’d say this is a good game, packed full of nostalgia and throw backs that will make you feel like you are a little kid again, but with enough updates to make it 2009 appropriate.  I just wish it had a little more in terms of new features and add ons. I give this game a 7/10 over all, but if you loved the old one and are up for some nostalgic throw backs, I bump it up to an 8/10.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 1:06 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.