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 I had the opportunity last week to get my ass handed to me while playing Fight Night Round Three. I spent most of match trying to dodge the powerful blows being delivered to my noggin with little success. After three rounds the fight resulted in a knockout and left me dazed on the mat with plenty of time to think. So while I laid there surrounded in a pool of my own slobber I thought that a boxing game just might make a good Throwback Thursday article. I mean come on who doesn't like a good clean fight between two warriors of the ring.

 So here we are again, another Thursday, another throwback. Today I am going to take a little time to talk about one of the best sports games ever made for the PS one. In its day Knockout Kings took the belt for realistic fighting games of its time.

 Knockout Kings was developed by EA Sports in 1998 for the first Playstation system. As the player you are given the opportunity to create your own boxer. This feature was one of the key aspects of the game giving the player total control over what his individual character would look like. You wanted to be a big fat ugly guy with a bad hair cut, you could do that. Or if you wanted to be more of a pretty boy fighter you could also make that happen. Tall, short, skinny, fat, tattooed, or not, it was all up to you all the way down to the color of your shorts. This simple but elaborate process made gamers feel like they were actually in the ring battling their favorite boxers, and made us all feel a little more connected to the actual game. I personally made my boxer a middleweight with short hair a chin strap and even added in a few well placed tattoos to make him look tough. So I started my journey through the ladder of boxers just me, and my virtual self bent on world domination.

 Knockout Kings game play was fast paced and allowed very little time for second guessing your moves. This wasn't some 2D fighter were you simply moved back and forth into and away from your opponents oncoming attacks. Instead Knockout Kings had you ducking and dodging punches in a 3D environment. The saying "stick and move" sums up this game nicely. Basically this is exactly what you wanted to do. Throw a punch, move around your opponent to dodge his counter and hit him again. There is little use for the fancy analog sticks in this title. Knockout Kings is more of a button smashing slugfest, than a game that requires precise control sequences to be executed. The controls in essence are pretty simple. The triangle, square, x, and circle buttons all controlled the types of blows you would throw at your opponent. Bumper buttons were used to block and executed power moves when coincidentally smashed with the punch button. You could even get cheap and smack your opponent in the family jewels so to speak with the old low blow. But be wary too many of these will get you thrown out of the fight and even booed on the way out.

 Graphics were a huge plus for this game giving it an even more realistic feel. The character definitions and shading made the players seem more believable. The boxers felt like you were controlling actual people and not pixelated renderings of a model. This was most noticeable when your character was taking a beating. You could really see the agony in your boxers facial expressions when he was hit with a powerful blow. In some ways this is a double edged sword, and left you feeling more concerned with your boxers well being than winning the fight. The backgrounds in the game were simply amazing for their time. The rings always looked realistic and added to the real life boxing feel that EA was shooting for. Even the faces in the crowd reacted realistically to your boxing showmanship, booing when you were performing terribly and cheering when you were doing well. From your boxing shoes, to the ring, to the crowd in the stands, Knockout kings delivered a visual knockout that would leave us all seeing stars for years to come.

 Knockout Kings was made for the boxing lover in all of us. EA Sports was shooting for a realistic fighter and they sure delivered in a big way. If you are a fan of boxing in anyway I suggest you play this title if you can get your hands on a copy. Where else could we stand in the ring with Muhammad Ali and stand a chance? Only in Knockout Kings. 

  sorry everyone, Google Images didnt have a wide variety of screen shots for the first version of Knockout Kings so I had to take what I could get image wise.

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