• Punch-Out!!
    Posted by Eddie Nygma


    You're quite a trooper. Figured you'd have given up by now. I've just been reviewing games I've played on the PS3 and Xbox 360 so far so let me jump to another system. The Wii...

    Riddle me This:
    When is a Beauty like a Boxing Match?

    Answer: When she's a Knock Out!
    ... or a Punch-Out I suppose but I would hate to make an illusion towards domestic violence.


    What I Expected:
    Allow me to tell you the Story of "The Wii." Well, no you know the Story of the Nintendo Wii. Nintendo's new generation system which was originally called the Revolution because it was supposed to cause a revolution in gaming which later was changed to the Wii. The name was ridiculed with p***s jokes for the first month and went for thousands of dollars on ebay.com after it's first launch and then everyone realized the system isn't worth a damn and it dropped to $200. Simple story and we've all followed it from E3 to E3 over the years but it's not my personal story of "the Wii." No, my story of "the Wii" begins in Redmond, Washington, across the highway from Nintendo of America. I was living in an apartment with 2 room mates, Adam and Jordan, and we were all going to school for video game design at Digipen Institute of Technology.
    The Wii launch took place a few weeks before and we all pretended like we didn't want one simply because they were impossible to attain (or at least to attain at market price.) Then we get the inside tip. a friend of mine on the inside circuit let's me know that Gamestops kept reserve PS3s and Wiis for Black Friday. The plan went into motion. We stayed up the entire night before. at 4am Jordan took the bicycle out to the Gamestop about a mile away from the apartment. Adam and I set out on foot. Around 4:45 we arrived at the Gamestop, Jordan already waiting with the bike now broken. I don't know what happened to it... but he had made it. Alive. We waited. We had made it there before anyone else and we waited. 5:15am parents were lining up behind us. They spoke of the circuit city on the other side of the building having lines that reached around its entirety. We became nervous. We questioned if we had made the correct decision. Perhaps we used a flawed tactic. 1 of us should have waited at the circuit city. we felt stupid but what else could we do? We continued to wait. 6:30am the line is starting to get pretty long and the store will open in 30 minutes. A Gamestop worker walks to the door and comes back letting us know that there are 2 Wiis left in stock. We are 3 people at the front of the line each able to purchase one. Adam, Jordan and I rejoice. We had planned it out and we had won! Then we turned to the line... Fear.... We fought for our Wii, a prize that was not won easily, so from the beginning we expected great things. Disappointment after disappointment was to follow as the rest of you know that own Wiis. Two ideas kept me going for the Wii, however. Sword fighting games and Boxing games seem to be what the Wii was made for. This being displayed very well in Wii Boxing. My God if they could just add some features to Wii Boxing and turn it into a full game that would be so much fun! Oh wait, Punch-Out!! is a Boxing Game for the Wii? This should be oodles of fun!

    What We Got:
    Hey can you do me a favor real quick and scroll up and take a look at that picture up there? Good good. You see it? That's Punch Out for the Nintendo Entertainment System, the same one you prob ably had when you were a kid. Now I want you to look at that Picture and Squint. Squint really hard. So hard that the picture is in 3D. You done? Good now put your eyeballs back into your head and read on. Notice that if that picture becomes 3D (which it probably didn't but for the sake of argument let's say that it did) that doesn't change what it is. It's still Punch Out for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It'll still play with the same control scheme. It will still have the same Characters. Your trainer will still be a slightly racist Al Roker look alike. That's Punch-Out for the Wii.
    Let's make a list of things that make a fighting game fun shall we? Many Unique and interesting characters. A list of tactically and visually different attacks. Challenging AI that can read and counter your attacks and attack patterns. Fast Paced action that is almost as interesting for the player and it is for on-lookers. This is not Punch-Out for the Wii.
    In Punch-Out!! you play as 1 character. Mac. The same little boxer that you play as in the NES video game. You fight through 13 other boxers that you can only fight once. Don't tell me that you can rematch them in exhibition matches because it's a lie. Rematches are purely you beating on a hologram that can't hurt you. I guess if you're really mad at that one last boxer then sure it's a nice little feature but otherwise it's a waste. The actual Boxing in the Boxing game is so unrealistic and boring that a monkey can be trained to do it. It's watch the character to blinking red then dodge left, right down or block. Each match is a game of trial and error then move to the next Boxer and start the learning process over again, and after it's all said and done, (about 3 - 4 hours of game play later) you're finished. You're world champion because you've beaten 13 people. congratulations you can now throw yourself a parade in the Mii channel.
    You could argue that Punch-Out!! for the Wii is simply an addition to the WiiFit craze that's been sweeping the middle-class, obese housewife populous, but the entire scheme of this game is more encouraging for you not to be active. While playing I discovered that the punches are quick and more responsive to the single controller set up. The exact same setup that's used for the NES Virtual Console. that's when I put the connection together. There's no difference. I'm playing the same game that came out year ago. I cannot stress this enough when I say that Retro gaming is purely that. Retro. It carries the feeling that used to come with play the system for the first time. it feeds off nostalgia. Retro gaming is NOT always good gaming. Certain games, yes, can stand the test of time. They do carry on to be considered good in the future. Punch Out for the NES is not one of them, and Punch-Out!! for the Wii is living proof.


    Multiplayer:
    You know what? No. No No No. nonononnonononnonono. I beat this damn game in 3 hours and I'm shipping it back to Gamefly. Screw subjecting my friends to this.


    Conclusion:
    This is truly golden potential traded for monetary gain based around retro gamers. Why? Nostalgia is great but why not just package the original punch on the the virtual console and sell it there for $50? My final conclusion, it's not fun. I ended up feeling let down when I realized what the game actually was and cheated when I realized I'd completed the game after a sad play time for 4 hours. Forget It.

    Overall Rating:

    Just forget it. Unless you really like the original just that much and think to yourself what would this be like if it looked different then rent it but really if you have half a brain in your head, just forget it.