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Rocky: Simply the Best !

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: October 14, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Having played the Gamecube,Xbox and Playstation 2 versions of the game at ECTS 2002 trade show I can tell you that Rocky is quite simply the best movie licences ever produced and one of the best games you will have played for many a long year.
Fans of the movie are going to love it because the game has a visual flair and an immense depth that recreates the sweet science of boxing perfectly and even if you have no knowledge of the Rocky films you will not believe the enjoyment this game can induce.

The boxing itself is easily the best 3D interpretation of the sport to date and makes all other contenders, such as Knockout Kings 2002, Ready 2 Rumble and Mike Tyson's Boxing, look punch-drunk has-beens surviving on past glories.
The graphics are excellent, great lighting effects, fully 3D crowds, and the atmosphere and fantastic soundtrack all use the Xbox and Playstation 2 power to full effect.

The single player mode is superb, but get together with some friends for a session in Exhibition mode and you can expect whoops and hollers to rival the best multiplayer games.
In fact this game has the only multiplayer game to rival Halo.

This brilliant arcade boxing game is based on all five films, and a worthy accompaniment to them. The beauty is that gamers unfamiliar with the series will admire Rocky for its power and simplicity, while film buffs who know little about games will appreciate how true the spirit of the celluloid version it is.

It has captured the essence of Stallone's scripts, acting and OTT fight sequence with remarkable flair.
Fan of the movie? Get Rocky! Fan of boxing games? Get Rocky? Fan of the Gamecube/Xbox/Playstation2? GET ROCKY

Finally!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 19, 2002
Author: Amazon User

yes!!! for the first time since the days of the 8-bit sega master system, Rocky is available as a video game. Man, the graphics are simply fantastic, and you can now do a movie mode where you play through all 5 Rocky movies! You will be awe struck at how real the game looks and feels. The Gamecube version plays extremely well and is probably the best looking Gamecube Title currently on the market. For any fan of Rocky, you MUST get this game!

GREAT GAME ! ! !

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: December 31, 2003
Author: Amazon User

What a game! Rocky is one of the best Gamecube games there is. It is a total blast. It is one of the best rock 'em sock 'em games I've EVER played! I don't get these people saying, "Oh, it's okay but not that great." What's wrong it? I think this game is totally AWESOME!!!

Playing on Movie Mode is a lot of fun. It is cool to see scenes from the Rocky movies and hear audio clips. And in the gameplay, it is really fun to taunt your opponents with actual Sylvester Stallone audio clips. (I taunted Clubber Lang several times in the game on purpose, just so it would be like the movie :) It also has taunting audio clips for Apollo, Clubber Lang, Drago, and Tommy Gunn.

It feels like you are in the movie while you are working out with Mickey. Then later Apollo becomes your work out guy. It is a great game. Man, Ivan Drago was so hard to beat! "I will break you." Well, you didn't buddy!

You MUST master the training games if you want to be able to beat the tough guys later in the game. This can be really frustrating, and it is tempting to use Autotrain exclusively. But you are going to stink later on if you do that. Here are some tips for getting a "Champ" rating every time:

1. Strength - This one is easy. Just concentrate on hitting the right button combinations. Don't worry about your speed. You'll get a perfect score.

2. Speed - The small punch bag is tricky at first, but this one CAN be mastered, no sweat. Just start out tapping the button slowly, getting into a rhythm. Watch wear your gauge is, and slowly start speeding up your tapping (not too fast) to move it up. When you have to change hands or change to doubles, you will momentarily drop down in speed. The way to compensate for this is to speed up on the new button for a few moments, then as you see your gauge start to go up, then drop your speed back down, then work it back up slowly. Before long, you'll be getting +10 every time!

3. Determination - One way I found to get a really good score on this one is to use your left thumb for the B button and your right thumb for the A button. Just tap them alternately as quickly as you can to do the situps, and hold down X when the trainer chops you. +10 Determination, no problem.

4. Movement - The heavy bag is intimidating because it looks like you can never win, but there is a secret. Just do your super punch over and over. Forget doing combos, forget doing anything else. Unlike the real fight, in training you have unlimited super punches. So tap that R button then tap X. Do it over and over, and stay in the green zone. Every super punch earns you 320 points. Get over about 9750, and you've got a perfect score!

5. Stamina - Rope Skipping. This is tricky, but it CAN be done. Just watch the green light, and tap the A button in sequence with the flashing. Push down on the control pad to get a trick going. It will show you the sequence. To make it work, substitute the different buttons in the sequence in place of your regular rhythm with the A button. Be sure to keep the exact same rhythm, and you will complete the trick. At first I thought that you were supposed to hit all those buttons in between jumps. Not so. You hit those buttons in place of your jumps, and it works.

This is a fantastic game. The multiplayer exhibition fights are really good. You can choose to be any of the players you have unlocked. You can even play with up to 15 human players at once in the knockdown tournament! That part is really great if you can get a bunch of friends together.

When you beat the Movie Mode you unlock the Knockdown Tournament mode. You can unlock different tournament levels by beating the tournaments. Beating the Movie Mode on Contender and Champ Levels will unlock the Rocky Statue and Mickey. That scrawny old man still packs a punch!

Be sure to watch for Clubber Lang's intro where he punches the camera...

Pros:
1. Large selection of boxers to play with.
2. Smart AI that is very tricky.
3. Great graphics and sound effects.
4. Excellent and intuitive play control.
5. Good use of movie license.
6. Fun to see blood splatter on the screen when you hit the guy, and blood stains stay on the mat as well.
7. Good challenge.
8. Great boxer intros and music that is unique for each boxer.
9. Very replayable.

Cons:
1. The crowd cheers need a little more "oomph" behind them (sounds like not enough people cheering).
2. We don't get to hear "Eye of the Tiger" anywhere in the game.
3. We don't get to see Thunder Lips, a.k.a. Hulk Hogan.
4. While all boxers can taunt, only 5 of them have audio clips.

Eye of the Tiger - It's the ITALIAN STALLION!!!

You must play for an hour before judging

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

My advice to anyone buying the game is to go immediately to the sparing section and just play for an hour straight..this way you will get to have an intuitive feel for the controls and about 30 minutes into the exercise it will hit you that this is one great game. The use of combos is just amazing, with proper timing essential. With the great dissappointment that was KO Kings 2003, it is so nice to have this to wipe the bad taste away. I have not played the movie mode, but the game features over 30 boxers, and really captures the essence of the film. I very highly reccomend this game.

Greatest Boxing Game Ever!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Being a fan of all the "Rocky" movies, of course I bought this to further extend my Rocky collection from the movies to the video game. Without even renting the game first I bought this game and as soon as I played it, I loved it. It's AWSOME fighting as the Itallian Stallion. There are over 25 boxers in the game including the boxers from all 5 Rocky movies such as: Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, Ivan Drago, Tommy Gunn and even Rocky's trainer Mickey Goldmill. I will say the Mickey fights really well in the game.

The game has a few selections of different gameplay. Of course, you have Exhibition, Knockout which is the boxing version of wrestling's King of the Ring. Also there is Sparring which is training mode, and Movie mode.

The Movie mode is great. As Rocky Balboa you start out in the first movie on November 25, 1975 fighting Spider Rico just like the movie. After defeating three opponents, a movie plays which is the clip from the first Rocky movie when Apollo is searching for a contender to fight on New Year's Day. Apollo is hard to beat. HE IS FAST! He jumps around the ring and just pumps those jabs in your face just like the movie. After defeating Apollo, and after defeating another three opponents, the clip of Apollo demanding a rematch with Balboa on TV plays just like in Rocky II. Then after defeating Apollo again, the clip plays when Rocky says, "Yo Adrian! I did it!" Then three title defenses and then the fight with Clubber Lang. After that, the fight with Ivan Drago. The movie clips plays before fighting Ivan when Apollo is killed in the ring. Drago is tough to beat. His punches are tough! Watch out! The last part is the fight with Tommy Gunn in the STREET in street clothes outside the bar. The sounds of the punches are a lot better because you're punching with your bare hands.

The fighting is pretty good. As you punch your opponents face more and more, the face swells up and bleeds. The basic punches consist of: Belly jab with the right or the left, Side body jab with right or left, Head straight jab right or left, or side head straight right or left and left or right uppercuts. Every boxer had 2 special punches. Rocky has a huge body shot and a huge uppercut. The uppercut is awsome. Apollo has the wind-up punch, and Ivan Drago has the big 1850 PSI punch to the head which will really knock you out.

Overall, this game is great. The only things I that I do wish were in the game are "Create a Boxer" mode. It would be cool to create a boxer of your choice.

For those "Rocky" lovers, this should be the next piece of your Rocky collection.

Getting Strong now..

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game and Need For Speed Underground last weekend. I can't stop playing Rocky though. It was only $15 at BestBuy. I took a risk of buying it without renting or reading about it and it turned out to be my favorite Gamecube game yet! Really fun! Better than Punch-Out for Nintendo 8-bit. My only complaints about it, is that I'm going to wear my thumbs off from playing it. You'll get real sore. The training sessions in movie mode are possible and they get you more points if you do them instead of that autotrain. The movie parts of the game are comical to me. It's also a two player game, where you can box your friends or participate in a tournament with them. Etc.. etc.. Awesome game!

If you MUST have a boxing game . . .

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: December 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The first thing you will notice about the game is how ridiculously disproportionate the characters look. Wow, in a world of Dead or Alive Extreme Volley Ball, couldn't UBI Soft do better that this? Okay, but you get to beat up on Apollo Creed and all the other antagonists from the Rocky movies, so maybe there is something here. Not so. I was bored in minutes. With so many excellent fighting games out, how can one endure repeating a few simple moves? (Punch, punch, jab . . . jab, punch, punch.) It's pretty bad. And when you get hit hard, little blue start appear above your head. Once I got hit with a jab the stomach, and the character flipped up and around, and landed facing down on the mat. It was more like a move in professional wrestling. But hey, if you really want a boxing game, you might like it.

fun game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: July 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Okay, I've never played a boxing game before, so I don't know how this fares within that genre. Frankly, I don't play sports games at all; I just got this becuase it seemed cool that I could be a 3D fake Sylvester Stallone in a game. That said, I feel like the game was more than worth the $$$ I paid for it; in fact, had I paid the full $$$$ when it was first released, I think I would still have felt it was a sound investment. Thus far, I've only played the game on easy mode, and for the most part it is just that: easy. I have a feeling, though, that it gets a good deal harder as you increase the difficulty, which makes playing on easy mode probably more a training session that anything else.

The cut scenes are a bit bland and repetitive; that's my only real criticism. Otherwise, it's a blast. I got quite a thrill out of (finally; he was tough) whooping Ivan Drago's butt, for example.

Overall, if you're a huge sports games fan, you should probably check out some other reviews to get a sense of how the game works on that level. If, however, you are like me, don't give much of a hoot about boxing games and just want to play a game based on a great movie, then I highly recommend this title.

By the way, is this the only Best Picture Oscar winner to have a video game based on it?

I must break you!!!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Rocky as a game is a great idea but this game is just way too short. The tournament mode is too short and after playing movie mode a couple times it just gets too boring. I completed every mode the first night i had it. Also the self training in movie mode is practically impossible to do unless you have super fast fingers. There should have been an endless career mode where you can win and defend a heavy weight belt practically forever and a create a boxer mode. The graphics were okay. The only good points of Rocky are that you can fight all the opponents from the movies and there are about 30 or more boxers to play with in exhibition mode.I'm still disappointed with this game. Rocky is defintely a game to be rented first.

A little, uh, Rocky.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: September 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Rocky is actually a pretty decent boxing game. The characters look good, the controls are actually fairly tight and feature a wide variety of moves, and the storyline follows the Rocky films pretty well. The whole thing is pretty entertaining.

For a while. Then you start seeing the flaws.

First, the AI falls for simple combinations way too easily. You can actually go through pretty much the entire game doing the "jab,jab" combo over and over -- the CPU will either block it (90% chance, which slowly wears him down), try to punch you and take a jab in the face (5% chance), or actually hit you with a jab, from which you will probably recover fast enough to hit him with your next punch (5% chance). If you avoid the combos that the AI just can't deal with, it's actually challenging and fun -- but that's a pretty big hole to avoid falling into.

Second (and perhaps more fatally), the game doesn't make enough use of its movie licensing. The core gameplay is actually pretty good, but if you changed the characters' names and looks, it certainly wouldn't feel much like a Rocky game. They use a few short snippets of "Gonna Fly Now", but that's it! Where's the symphonic score? Where's "Eye Of The Tiger"? Where's that song from Rocky IV that Survivor sings while Rock's getting ready to fight the big Russian dude? Furthermore, the atmosphere of the game just doesn't seem to keep up with the storyline -- it always sounds (and often looks) like there are about 20 people actually cheering for you -- they could use some much better crowd audio and visual effects. Compare this with something like Def Jam Vendetta, where they manage to do this much more effectively. It's particularly noticeable in some of the larger arenas, where you can see that there are really about a dozen "people" that are just copied over and over (and move in perfect synchrony). For a movie series whose high point was always the dramatic conflict in the ring, the game just doesn't capture it.

Sadly, I can't recommend this one for more than a rental. If you really like it (and you might), you can probably get it cheap now. But hey, at least it's better than most movie translation efforts you see...

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