Genesis

Toughman Contest

The designers knew that a great action game has to have loads of hidden stuff, so there are secret codes for things like turning your opponent into a midget, having double-speed punches all the time and even playing as a headless fighter! When combined with the great graphics, animation and gameplay technique that assures high replay value, EA's High Score team has produced a strategic boxing game that is an all-out blast to play. So now it's time get in the ring and find out how tough you really are!

The question is: are you tough enough? This game has some killer combos, but takes a little bit of patience to master. I'm in Toughman's corner. It's a solid game for die-hard boxing fanatics. There's even strategy and the artificial intelligence of the game is incredible. The characters don't telegraph their movements like they do in most boxing games. I'm sold.

Fans of Greatest Heavyweights and Legends of the Ring will miss the famous faces and the build-your-own-boxer feature, but when the bell rings in the final round, the unanimous decision goes to Toughman.

With all the possible combinations of punches, Toughman Contest packs in plenty of strategy. However --- the short fights, button-smashing controls and flat, fuzzy graphics leave the game a contender, not a champion.

This is one of the better boxing games for the Genesis. It's like a semi-realistic version of Nintendo's Punch-Out, and it has a great sense of humor. Your boxer is a green outline in front of your opponent, letting you get a good view of the action. A well-designed control scheme makes it easy to throw a wide variety of punches and even special moves like a "Popeye punch" or head-butt. Unfortunately, as in many boxing games, the boxers can never punch as fast as you press the buttons, and the lag makes the control feel unresponsive. The boxers are well drawn and look only slightly cartoonish. The backgrounds, taken from different parts of the world (like the Coliseum in Rome) are extremely amusing. Not only do funny things happen in the background during the fights (like a bungee jumper on the Coliseum wall), but sometimes incidents occur after the fight (in Rome, lions attack the loser). A nice-looking babe introduces each new round. Toughman may be more fun to watch than to play.