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Boxing Kings by TheGreekTeam
Review
by Neil Brown
Some PDA games are good. Some PDA games are excellent.
Unfortunately, some games just do not seem to make the grade- and in my
opinion, Boxing Kings is one such application. The basic premise of the
game is that you select a fighter, and have to beat your opponents to
progress- as such, the concept seems to be sound,
a formula tried and tested on many gaming consoles- Double Dragon, Street
Fighter to name only two. Unfortunately, Boxing Kings does not even live up
to standards of the retro games I used to play on my Amstrad, which is a
major problem when compared with the standards of other PDA games. I should note at this point that I wrote this review
in two stages- the old text is left in black, and the comments I added
after receiving a second version from the developer are in purple.
The game has two main screens- the fighter selection
screen, and the boxing ring itself. Unfortunately, the fighter screen does
not actually fit onto the screen of my T3- the difficulty selection slider
is over the top edge, although it is still usable. The
new version I was sent does make the slider fit on the screen, but there is
a colouration problem, in that there is a weird blue line, as can been seen
from the right screenshot below- overall, however, this is a minor
criticism.
 
Once you have selected your fighter, the game moves
into the boxing ring. Movement is controlled by either the
“joystick,” which is actually the navigation pad, or by
onscreen taps. Movement is linear, in that you can only move your boxer to
the left or to the right, so the poor controls are not a problem in the
overall scope of the game. If the movement were more advanced, however,
they would be inadequate. You can punch either high or low, although,
during all the time I tested the game, I am not sure that I actually
managed to make contact with the opposing player (imaginatively named
“CPU”)- certainly, I never won a game, even when set on the
easiest mode. There are two “moves” available other than
movement from side to side- these are an uppercut, and a body punch, for
the looks of things- they are controlled either by the central select
button (on the Tungsten D-pad), or by two buttons on the screen. I should also point out here that there are two
additional moves, which allow blocking on incoming attacks. According to
the developer, the game relies upon defending as a tactic, and thus these
buttons will be very useful. It does not worry me at all that I was not
able to win a game- especially if it is just as a result of a strong AI in
the CPU player. I spoke with the developer about the “joystick”
causing problems on my T3- apparently, it works fine on his T/E, and that
perhaps it would be better if I did not enable the joystick option. Whilst
this is a very pragmatic answer, it is unfortunately not something I can
accept- if it does not work, it should not be there- especially when
enabling it causes soft resets. More beneficial would be a version without
joystick support- this would make the size of the .prc
file actually smaller, which I think would be a sensible idea. However, as
the developer is unable to verify this, I am not sure that a solution is
going to be forthcoming- I would suggest you certainly have data backed up
before trying “joystick” mode for the first time.
Unfortunately, the graphics of the actual game do
nothing to make it any easier- it is not particularly easy to see what is
actually happening. If the “audience” was not in place, the
ring would be more foregrounded, and the game
would be easier. Alternatively, if the actual characters where sharper in themselves, this too would be advantageous. (Unusually
for me, I have kept the screenshots at actual size, so you can see for
yourself how the game would appear on your PDA screen.) The developer has commented that this is something he
is working on, so expect to see some changes in future versions, which
should make the game much easier to play.
 
If you can overcome the poor graphics and the rather
limited game play, I am afraid that you will find this game is full of
bugs, which make it more reminiscent of an early beta release. After
installation, the game reset my T3 twice consecutively, before booting into
the actual application itself. Once installed, the game enjoyed a rather
troubled existence, often crashing in the middle of games, especially when
using “joystick” mode- if I had not had “Crash”
installed, I would have been reaching for the reset pin regularly. I have been assured that the game runs perfectly on
the developer’s PDA, and that he has not heard reports of any crashes
from users. Unfortunately, I am unable to attest to this- I installed the
new version, and this caused the same crashing problems. Additionally,
however, if leave my PDA in the middle of a game so that it turns off, or I
turn it off manually, it causes a soft reset on the device- which “Crash”
rescues. I should add, for the sake of completeness, that it may be an
issue with my device, and it may run perfectly well on your PDA. However,
the absence of a demo version does make this hard to check. Additionally, I
have forgotten to mention elsewhere that even when I play the game and
manage to exit successfully, it resets my system sound preferences to
medium, which is irritating, as I normally have my T3 running on silent,
apart from alarm and game sounds. I think that it is little things like this
which annoy me.
I do not like writing reviews which are so negative in
their nature, but, there is very little I can find to say that is actually
positive. The games is expensive for what it is at
$15, and takes up a huge amount of memory- it used 1.06mb on my T3, rather
than the suggested 800kb. Also, I could not get the game to run in fullscreen 320*480 or 480*320, as suggested on PalmGear. My personal feeling is that game would
benefit from returning to beta, and being tested on a wider range of
device- I had considerable problems on my T3, and wonder whether I am alone
in this... I note that the 420*320 claim is no
longer on PalmGear- it looks as if the game will
not support the resolution at present. I have to come to the same
conclusion as before, however- the game will not be remaining on my PDA in
its present state. I am not able to run the game from my memory stick, and I
can not use all the functions. The concept, however, should make for an
addictive game, and, as the scoring algorithms and computer AI are quite
advanced, could make for a worthy opponent- I can see no reason why, with
more development and some more beta testing, that this game should not be a
success.
I have not pulled any punches with this
review (pun intended), as I think people should be
informed before putting down their money. My experiences have not been good
so far, but, as the developer has been e-mailing me several times, I think
it is fair to say that the game could well progress into something better.
An application to keep your eye on for the future, perhaps…
Boxing Kings can be downloaded from here.
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