Super KO Boxing 2 (iPhone / iPod Touch; Glu Mobile $4.99)

I love beating people up.  It’s so fun.  Especially if it’s some big huge dude that you can chop down like an oak tree.  The bigger they are, the harder they fall.  Punch him in the belly a few times, punch him in the face, knock him down with a big uppercut, then watch him struggle to get back to his feet.  I love giving dudes concussions.  Knock the sucker out, then take his woman too.  I am the Alpha male and I will dominate you!  Oh what joy!

Well, I don’t really beat people up in real life but I slay ‘em dead in Super KO Boxing 2, the latest Punch Out knock-off.  I love Punch Out.  I love it in all its iterations, from the Arcade where you’re the green grid dude, to the NES version where you’re a little tiny dude that can beat up Mike Tyson (without him chewing off a piece of your ear), to the sweet Super Punch Out on the SNES.  It’s not real boxing, it’s arcade cartoon boxing.  It’s not so much a sweet science as it is just beating the living crap out of some big obnoxious ogre.  But I like it like that.  That’s how I roll.

In Super KO Boxing 2, you are again a little tiny dude, this time named the KO Kid.  Your goal is to take the little guy up through the ranks in a David vs. Goliath struggle to become world champ.  On your way to the top, there are 12 fighters to go through spread across 3 circuits: Weenieville, Blam Blam Town, and World Wide Clash.

Yes, Weenieville is filled with a bunch of weenies, punchy palookas that you can take out with simple button mashing.  Blam Blam Town and World Wide Clash offer much more significant challenges, requiring you to figure out strategies to penetrate increasingly difficult defenses.  The first fighter to offer any kind of challenge is 15 cent.  15 cent is a punk rapper wannabe with big bling and underwear hanging out.  He’s easy to hate and I love beating the crap out of him.  But I was stuck on him for a while as I got used to the controls, controls that I’m not crazy about.

The game has 4 control options: Touch Pad, Touch Regions, Touch Pad with Tilt, and Touch Regions with Tilt.  Normally, I like my iPod games to feature some kind of tilt as it offers some dynamic movement and coordination (like the Wii), not just control pad.  But the tilt options in this game didn’t work well for me.  Tilting the iPod left and right is supposed to function as dodging left and right, but I find the tilt’s not really that precise.  There would be some kind of delay on the tilt, not good for a game that requires split second timing to avoid those widow-makers.  Also, the tilting is extremely sensitive so it’s very easy to accidentally tilt, and that again throws off the necessary split second timing.  The tilting obstructs your view of the screen as well.  Alas, I had to settle on the virtual control pad as best for this game.  It’s all thumbs, and addiction to this game will result in major soreness and/or arthritis (plus the obligatory carpal tunnel syndrome).

The game is populated by a cast of well-designed and oft times hilarious characters.  I mentioned 15 Cent with his clinking bling and scrawny midriff, backwards baseball cap and conspicuous boxers.  I still hate him.  I wanna beat him up again.  But that kind of character detail is just the tip of the iceberg.  The backgrounds are custom tailored to the theme of each fighter as well as what spins around the character’s head when they get knocked down.  Normally, it would be just stars but that’s too boring for this game.  Big Gip, a hillbilly redneck fatso has little pigs spin around his head.  Dynamo, a guy with strange electrical powers, has batteries fly around his head.  Each character has numerous little touches and quirky jerky motions that never fail to elicit a chuckle.

Another nice touch is the way the KO Kid gets off the mat after a knockdown.  Normally this consists of mere button mashing.  Here, you’re required to time a tap to when the whirling stars of your minor concussion come together.  It’s a small touch, but I like it.  It emphasizes that this is not a button mashing game but a game of strategy and skill.  And you’re gonna need a lot of skill if you wanna be the champ.  The fighters get increasingly more difficult, and the ones in the World Wide Clash circuit are very challenging indeed.  I had to go to the in-game strategy guide (another nice touch) for many many tips, and still had a hard time battling my way to victory.  Getting stuck in a game sucks, but the developers do their best to keep that from happening with their in-game blog.  That’s a consideration I appreciate.

The game sports fantastic graphics and animation, cartoony and a whole lotta fun.  Movements fly at you fast and furious and super smooth.  Backgrounds are well done with all kinds of details in theme with the characters, adding to the richness and humor of the game.  For example, the Chief, a huge American Indian, has a casino in the background.  This may be offensive and stereotypical to some but I find it hilarious.  Offensive would be having a bunch of drunken Indians cheering him on.  Yeah, that would be wrong.

Besides battling through circuits, there’s also Versus mode where you can challenge individual boxers that you’ve already beaten.  Versus mode is good for going back and beating up 15 Cent again.  I just love beating him up.  Maybe because I wouldn’t dare challenge a dude like that in real life.  Probably would pull out a gloc and blow me away before it came to blows.  There’s also a Challenge mode where the game poses various challenges for you, such as knock a guy out without getting hit, stuff like that.  I don’t really play Challenge mode.  There’s also an Endurance mode that unlocks once you’ve finished the game.  That consists of getting as far in the game as you can with one health bar.  A challenge for masters of the game, no doubt, but I don’t play that mode much either.  I guess those modes are put in for the replayability factor, but they’re just not as fun as Circuit mode, the traditional form of the Punch Out series.

Fans of the Punch Out series will love this game.  It offers everything you loved about those games and more.  The graphics I believe are the best of any Punch Out game thus far.  It’s filled with tons of details that contribute to the overall quality of the game, which is very high.  I enjoyed this game very much, it’s incredible fun and I highly recommend it.

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