Screens(7)

Knockout Kings was one of the most highly anticipated PlayStation games of 1998. Boxing was one of the few sports genres that had been ignored on the PSX consoles. For many gamers, however, Knockout Kings was entertaining, but not the truly complete game they had hoped for. Knockout Kings provided fun gameplay and challenging boxing, but the game had a very rough and unfinished feel. For an EA Sports title, Knockout Kings seemed short on features and options.

Knockout Kings 2000 looks to deliver what last year's edition didn't. A preview beta of the upcoming title looks extremely promising. In almost every area — interface, graphics, audio, gameplay, and features — Knockout Kings is noticeably improved.

The most obvious improvement is in the graphics. Fighters, arenas, and rings look much more detailed this year. The boxers look much more defined and complex. Their faces are more accurate and show more animation — expressions change, eyes blink, and swelling becomes noticeable during fights. The arenas aren't dark, blurry smears like last year — various rows of fans are visible in a variety of different boxing arenas, ranging from Caesar's Palace to the Roman Coliseum. Boxers enter the ring to music, and have different entrances, depending on their style and personality. I can't describe all of the new touches in the game's presentation, but overall, everything is more polished and has more personality than last year's version.

The fighting itself looks a lot better as well. Last year, it was hard to distinguish punches that connected from those that missed, but now, you can really see the difference. Between rounds there are cool animations of fighters in their corners, breathing heavy, wincing, or looking exhausted. After some rounds, as your fighters catch their breath, the game shows instant-replay highlights from that round. And yes, the round-card bikini girls are back this year, only this time, they actually look good!

The gameplay is improved as well. The controls feel tighter and more responsive. There's no sluggishness in the game. More importantly, the game offers a very welcome addition —a difficulty level setting, which should add a lot of replay value.

Another obvious improvement is a much deeper set of features and options. The career mode has been expanded to include a more elaborate create-a-boxer feature, training mode, and career ladder system. Player attributes are more complex this year. In last year's game, there were only three attributes for boxers: speed, power, and stamina. This year, boxers also have attributes for "chin," "heart," and "cuts." In the career mode, your fights affect not only your ranking, but also your attributes. For example, after a big loss, the game may tell you that your fighter "lost some confidence in that big loss," and as a result, your fighter may lose 3 points from his "heart" attribute and a point from his "chin."

Some other nice new features are a "Classics Fights" mode (want to replay the "Thrilla in Manila"? How about Sugar Ray Leonard's classic 1980 bout with Roberto Duran?) and a cool "Boxer Bio" section where you can view the attributes of all the fighters in the game and read about their careers.

Overall, Knockout Kings 2000 looks like the polished, feature-rich boxing game gamers were hoping for last year. It will naturally be compared to the entertaining, but cartoonish, "Ready 2 Rumble Boxing," but Knockout Kings looks ready for the challenge with excellent graphics, improved gameplay and control, and a rich set of features.