Boxing Fight: Rocky Warrior

Fight against all of the memorable characters from the six Rocky Warrior.

There's plenty of source material to work with here, with plenty of clips and characters from the films. The problem is that all that great material hangs on a poorly designed fighting system, which makes the time spent in the ring much less engaging than the time spent out of it.

You can reenact several memorable fights from the movies. The closest thing the game has to a career mode is the historical fights mode, which lets you fight as Rocky in 20 fights spanning all six movies. Each of these fights is precluded by a short film clip to introduce the respective fight, but beyond that there's little context for each bout. Unless you've memorized the movies and know the setup and outcome of each fight beforehand, all of these matches will feel disconnected and meaningless.

In addition to the historical fights, you can engage in an exhibition match and play as any of the more than two dozen characters in the game. However, many of those characters are just different versions of the same person. There's also a fast lane mode, which is a series of timed challenges with specific objectives to be met. There are 90 of these in all, and the objectives range from knocking down an opponent in less than one minute to winning a full fight in less than 10 minutes.

You have to hold the analog stick in a certain direction and then hit a combination of buttons. These combos aren't always responsive, and often you'll try to throw a punch three or four times before your fighter actually takes the right swing.

The system isn't very responsive, and it's often difficult to tell if you're blocking at all. You can lean by holding the R button and moving the analog stick, which works fairly well but still results in you standing there with your feet planted just waiting for your opportunity to attack, making for a boring fight.