James “Buster” Douglas Knockout Boxing Review





Developer: Sega Publisher: Sega
Release Date: 1990 Also On: None

One of the most difficult sports for programmers back in the 8-Bit era was, without a doubt, boxing. Out of all of them, only one has ever stood out and that’s Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!![sic]. Even the mighty NES had only but four such titles for it in its entire life including this, basically because there was no one format that seemed to work very well. The Master System, of course, was bound to include at least one boxing title, and in fact had four in all. However, all such games in the 8-Bit era except for Tyson totally failed because they just couldn’t capture what boxing was while staying within programming limits. Ring King, for example, was based on an arcade title but was too difficult due to a poorly programmed computer AI that devasted everything in its evil path. Tyson got around difficult, button-mashing gameplay by throwing in an element of strategy and almost puzzle-like qualities to create a truly unique title that made the sport feel playable. Unfortunately for us SMS fans, the last boxing title in the states was a total disappointment. I’m sorry to say it folks, but James “Buster” Douglas Knockout Boxing is worthless.

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Starting with the graphics, you’re first treated to a poor title screen. The game logo looks pathetically rushed and almost childish, while Buster’s head and upper torso fade into view using this “melting” kind of effect with the pixels. They picked a pretty bad profile to use, because he looks like a total idiot with his mouth hanging open. The actual graphics during play aren’t so hot either. The in-between round and fight screens have this awful, pinetree green color for the back that looks really off with the rest of the colors. Most of the detail is almost absent and the boxers have this ghostly, dead look to them; their eyes pits of nothingness and their bodies fudged together out of nothing better than loose parts. During the actual fights, you have an excellent crowd going on in the background. This would have been a nice touch, but the movements and details of the boxers is no more than average. The ring looks great, but they’ve used the same body for every boxer and merely changed the colors. Thanks. Punching and basic movements key to the game have been well animated, but unfortunately footwork has not. The boxers move around like they’re making these tiny little hops and kind of slide back and forth. Their legs don’t move at all. It’s like they can’t bend their knees; they’ve simply been programmed to bob up and down to suggest they’re doing something. I’ve never seen a boxer move like this, so the fast-paced feel of the sport has been stripped away entirely. Boxers, when they’re knocked down and you get this cut shot, look seriously like a pile of soft butter and the ending shot of Buster is just worthless, half of his legs are missing. Considering the time period, this should have been much better.

The music isn’t entirely worthless in this game. The opening theme sounds almost out of place, but some of the music during the game proper is actually pretty good. The rest, however, though programmed well, is nothing memorable or worth mention. I can’t even think of one that sticks on in my head. Thankfully, the sounds when you throw punches and get struck are very good, ten times better than the worthless pinball noises of the 16-Bit version, which was an entirely different game. At least they got that much right. It may be one of the only things that makes the next category even minutely bearable.

Now we get to the gameplay. James “Buster” Douglas Knockout Boxing does not provide the “real boxing challenge” as suggested by the box blurb. Do I need to explain the basics here? You control a boxer and must beat the other boxers to win. That’s it. Now, variations on this basic theme can turn out wonderful, as in Tyson. Here you can only move to the to the right from the left of the screen and have a variety of moves you can do using the Directional Pad. You can duck, sway, throw a right or throw a left or whatever. You also have a limited number of super punches that you can charge and then use to weaken your opponent. Each boxer gets progressively harder as you go along, and after you win a fight you can increase your stats, choosing what you want to make stronger. Throwing that out there it doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Well, let me explain.

First, though there are two modes of play for one-player, slow or fast, I have to say I noticed no difference between them whatsoever. Second, there may be a two-player mode, but it’s totally worthless. Player one is always Buster and player two can select any of the other opponents. Why didn’t you make it so that either player could select who they wanted? Oh, I get it, it’s because you would have had to program something, I see. Third, there are only five opponents in all to fight in the one player mode, and even the most infantile of gamers will level the first three, maybe have a bit of trouble with the fourth, and maybe, just maybe, might have to fight the final opponent a second time before winning. There is hardly any variety in the fighters, they all tend to just keep throwing the same punches over and over as they approach. Why do they punch at thin air when I’m freaking twenty feet away? Oh, I get it, you simply programmed it so they’d just keep punching, thus making it easy for you guys to create this game without really figuring out some sort of system for strategy. Pricks.

That’s pretty much the technical knockout right there, but let me keep going. Fourth, after you win a match, you get to increase your stats. Fine, except for the fact that when I upgraded attributes it seemed to have no noticeable effect on anything and if it did it was so minute that they might as well have said forget it. Fifth, as I hinted at above, you have a number of manuevers to try including uppercuts, ducks and so forth. The only problem is, because this game has been thrown together as far as I’m concerned, you won’t really try to use any of them in any sort of strategic way. This game’s major gameplay fault is that you end up button mashing to get anywhere because there really is no strategy at all. All the opponents essentially keep punching, even if you’re nowhere near close to them, and thus you end up doing the same thing over and over again. I’d be surprised if you had any trouble with anyone other than the final opponent really, who you have to attack at certain times, because you can simply keep using this one punch over and over and down everyone within three rounds. Speaking of which, why are there thirteen rounds? You’ll never get any further than five. Why do you even show a scene with boxers on the mat and then getting up since you don’t actually control this bit by pressing buttons or anything? You know, I could keep going, but let’s stop there because I’ve already elucidated on the most critical faults in James “Buster” Douglas Knockout Boxing. By this point I doubt you’re even interested in it.

But perhaps the biggest area of fault, in my opinion, is the creativity category. This game is totally devoid of it. What Sega did here was work with a format for boxing games that had been around since at least the Colecovision days. Problem is it never worked right because in all of them you ended up button mashing. Sega’s earlier boxing attempt, Rocky, was just like this. In addition, and here’s the big one, I can see only one reason they released this stupid game. I’ll tell you what it is right now, money. During this time, the Master System was pretty much dead in America and had no chance of getting anywhere and the Genesis was coming to the forefront. Nintendo had grabbed gold when they got Tyson’s name on their game, though they stripped this later because of his run-in with the law. So, what better way to try to make a quick buck and perhaps garner a bit more support than use the boxer who beat him? I’ll bet this is exactly what was done here because it makes no sense otherwise, read on in the conclusion.

James “Buster” Douglas Knockout Boxing has no replay value for me at all. I purchased it a long time ago because my brother is really into boxing and we sat down with it one day and completed it in about ten minutes. I have no reason to do it again and I doubt anyone else would. As for gamelength, please, this game can be completed in probably five minutes if you were good enough, not that you could become good enough anyway because there’s no strategy to begin with. Straight through the floor in this category.

In conclusion, all that really needs to be said is James “Buster” Douglas Knockout Boxing is a total failure that you’ll find no enjoyment in. The main issue here is that Sega didn’t really care about how god awful this piece of sludge was. Buster was pretty much a worthless boxer and the only reason he beat Tyson was the guy was admittedly high during their match and could have cared less if he won or not. So, if you look around a bit, during this short time period until about 1991 or so, Buster appeared on a few sub-par boxing titles, all of which were simply hoping to cash in on the name of the man who “beat” Tyson. Too bad all the games sucked, this version included. It’s not worth anyone’s time and is a great example of a company saying screw the fans, screw the console, screw the everything, but let’s try to make some money while we can by using a name. The Genesis was around the corner, so games like this were thankfully released in very small numbers for the SMS. So, the only real reason anyone gives a crap about this is that it’s arguably the rarest game released in the United States for the Master System. I’ve seen complete copies grab more than three hundred dollars on rare occasions, so that’s even more reason to stay away from it. Play it on an emulator if you really care to see how bad a game can be when the actual play is not the most important issue, but I do not recommend purchasing it unless you find it for cheap. If so, play it, then promptly sell it for some cash.

Graphics: 4.5
Sound: 6
Gameplay: 2
Creativity: 1.5
Replay Value/Game Length: 0
Final: 2.8
Written by Stan Review Guide

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