King by name...

Developed by the team behind the well-received Rocky games and boasting the name of the world's most renowned (as much for his hair as his media profile) boxing promoter, Don King Presents Prizefighter should, by rights, be a close contender for the Xbox 360 championship boxing belt currently held by Fight Night Round 3.

The more time spent with Don King's Prizefighter, however, the more you get the feeling that 2K Games couldn't quite nail down what they wanted it to be. Like their other recent sporting effort, Top spin 3, Don King Presents Prizefighter controls like a sim, with every button on the pad given a function, and a further set of shot modifiers on the triggers creating an initially baffling number of punches. Yet unlike the tennis title, Prizefighter's engine doesn't manage to balance realism and fun with the same sharpness.

Trying something new

That's not to say it's a bad game, though. Don King Presents Prizefighter tries a lot of new ideas, and though the end result doesn't feel as cohesive as we'd have hoped, there's a still fair amount of fun to be had here.

Most apparent is the documentary-style presentation. The main singleplayer Career mode of Don King Presents Prizefighter sees you taking on the mantle of a boxing named simply The Kid; developing his stats through various gym-based training exercises and partaking in fights from small time scuffles to the big leagues of main event boxing.

Unusually for a boxing videogame, Don King Presents Prizefighter has a pretty good stab at presenting an original story, with its rags-to-riches tale charted by interview-style footage with a host of boxing promoters and experts (including King himself), all of whom reflect upon The Kid's exploits in the past tense, as if recounting the career of an established legend of the sport.

Train to win

The training exercises in Don King Presents Prizefighter are an interesting take on five famed boxing drills (including punchbag, shuttle run and jump rope), in which you mostly end up pressing buttons in to on-screen prompts. It feels at times like a playing QTE-fuelled training montage, and is the only way to both improve your fighter's attributes and extend your in-fight Stamina bar, with fights themselves not contributing to stats at all.

You get two weeks between fights in which to either take up these training games, or alternatively take up the chance to improve your media profile with various PR stunts (which you sadly don't get to see). Doing the latter lengthens your in-fight Adrenaline bar, which lets you throw super-powered knockout blows – but for the most part you'll want to focus on the training to improve your fighter, with said swings feeling a bit superfluous.

And that's because, when you finally get into the ring, you'll find the boxing action in Don King Presents Prizefighter to be... somewhat hit and miss. Literally. Hit detection is erratic, with shots sometimes falling just right, and at others not connecting when they should – or vice versa. Frequently a tame-looking (and sounding) body or shoulder blow will have your opponent hitting the mat like you've knocked their head off.

And they will go down. A lot. So will you. Indeed, Don King Presents Prizefighter has an arcade feel to its bouts, with knockdowns coming thick and fast, that's completely at odds with the complicated sim-style controls. It's not lacking fun by any means, but the odd in-between of Don King Presents Prizefighter's gameplay will take some getting used to, particularly for Fight Night fans.

Between two stalls

It's really a game full of imagination, which feels like it could have done with more development time. The list of licensed fighters (including Joe Calzaghe and Chris Eubank) is impressive though, and the occasional sepia-tinted classic bout is a great novelty, as are occasions where you'll have to fight with a condition, like knocking an opponent in a certain round, or winning with a broken hand. And with same-screen multiplayer, tournaments and online play to be considered too, it's by no means a bad package.

The problem is that Don King Presents Prizefighter falls between two stalls. It's visually impressive (if a little shiny) and the attitude-laden soundtrack (including Eye of the Tiger!) fits the bill, but there isn't an amazing amount of depth on the whole. It's best suited to casual play and post-pub sessions then, though the unique story delivery, training games and roster of famous faces should see Prizefighter appeal to those looking for something different to its big name boxing competition.

GAME's Verdict

• Documentary-style presentation is something new for a boxing videogame.
• Classic fights and unique conditions add an element of diversity.
• Training minigames and a list of real-life fighters including Joe Calzaghe and Chris Eubank give this an authentic boxing feel.

• Hit detection can be literally hit-and-miss
• The complicated sim-style controls don't mesh well with the knockdown-happy arcade-type bouts.
• Media profile is an interesting idea that ultimately feels superfluous.

Review by: Mark 'Southpaw' Scott
Version Tested: Xbox 360
Review Published: 11.07.08