Don King Presents: Prizefighter

One of the most well-known (and controversial) figures in professional sports has to be Don King. A figure well-known amongst boxing fans as a shrewd and successful promoter (and everyone else for his trademark wild hair); Don King is one of the most recognizable people in the sport. Now, King is promoting a beast of a different kind - his first boxing game Don King Presents Prizefighter. Developed by Venom Games and published by 2K Sports, Prizefighter is a traditional boxing game meant to take on EA Sports’ juggernaut Fight Night franchise. The game features an impressive stable of licensed fighters (around 40) and venues and more traditional face-button controls, adding some incentive for boxing fans looking for an alternative to the Fight Night franchise.

In Prizefighter, you can play as famous boxers as well as classic fighters who have since retired, like Joe Louis and Larry Holmes. The roster is pretty impressive, and each fighter has a different set of stats and strengths and weaknesses as well as fighting styles.

There is a career mode where you can create your own boxer and take him through the process of learning the ropes and taking him up the ladder. This section is pretty fun, allowing you to take more difficult fights with better prizes. Also, you can train your fighter by completing a series of mini-games in the weeks leading up to a fight. The higher score you get during these training sequences, the better your stat boost is when you’re done.

The fighting is pretty easy to grasp, as it uses the face buttons almost exclusively. You perform jabs by pressing the Y and X buttons and hooks with the A and B buttons. Pushing both Y and B or A and X will perform uppercuts. You can also tweak your punches, pushing down the triggers to perform body hits and the bumpers for more powerful hooks. If your special meter fills up, you can perform signature moves by holding down both bumpers and pressing a face button. The controls are pretty easy to pick up and play, so most players shouldn’t have much of a learning curve going in.

Prizefighter presents an interesting alternative to Fight Night with its impressive roster of boxers, and the traditional controls should appeal to those turned off by Fight Night’s reliance on the right thumbstick. Look for it to ship on June 9th.