Andre Panza Kick-Boxing
Reviewed by Michael LoCascio
Kick boxing is one sport that has never really been given
much attention in the world of video games. It's too bad,
because kick boxing could easily provide the premise for
some exciting, outrageous video contests. Andre Panza Kick
Boxing is the best representative of the sport that I have
seen on any system.. which makes a sad situation even worse,
because this isn't a good game that we're talking about.
Not that there aren't some bright spots. The animation of
the fighters is incredibly fluid; NEC reportedly filmed
Panza himself to make the game look as realistic as
possible, and their efforts were not in vain. There also
dozens of moves at your disposal in the ring. Unfortunately,
this brings us to one of the game's biggest flaws.
Although there are so many moves available, the control is
so clunky that it's extremely difficult to pull them off an
a consistent basis. You press the button (or combination of
buttons) to perform a certain move.. and a second or two
later, your fighter acts accordingly. This delay is not only
frustrating, but it can make some of the more difficult
tournament fights almost impossible to win.
The tournament mode in Andre Panza Kick Boxing is similar to
the system used in the old NES title, Mike Tyson's
Punch-out! You defeat one guy after another until you reach
the champion (Panza himself). Then.. you lose - unless you
get lucky and happen to land a blow that completely drains
Panza of all his energy (such hits happen every once in a
while.. usually to your own fighter). You can't even make
use of the entire ring - the fighters can only move left and
right on a single horizontal plane. You'll almost certainly
be heading back to the training room many times before
you'll be ready to defeat Panza. The one interesting element
of progressing in the tournament is that empty arenas
eventually become jam-packed when you reach the high-stakes
matches.. but it's doubtful that today's gamers will be
impressed by such things.
You can also go head-to-head against a friend if you don't
enjoy the tournament mode.. good luck finding a friend
who'll have the tolerance level to play, though. Clunky
controls and repetitive play killed this game, but hey, the
animation is superb. Maybe NEC would have been better off
spending more time on the game play and less time filming
Andre Panza.
Overall: 4 out of 10
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