Don King is a legend in the sport of boxing.  In truth, to some, he is almost an American icon, with his trademark lexicon and passion for the country that afforded him a chance to succeed as a promoter.  With all of this charisma and boxing knowledge, you would expect Don King Presents: Prize Fighter to be a shoe in for boxing game of the year.  However, you would be sadly mistaken for that assumption.

Don King Presents: Prize Fighter takes an interesting route in presenting its career mode.  The game is set up as a documentary that we are watching as your boxer ascends into the ring for the fight of his career.  The footage of Don King, Andrew Golata and others start to reminisce back to the beginning of your career, which is where you create your fighter.  It is a premise that has never been used in a boxing game that I can think of off the top of my head.  Lots of video footage from a plethora of boxing promoters, fighters and others are here, giving the game a very authentic feel.

Each fight that you take up will set aside some time for training before the fight, but other lifestyle issues can get in the way as well.  You may get a call to skip a week of training, so you can go to a major gambling event in Atlantic City.  It will hurt your stats, but will garner you a lot of media attention.  In one fight, I had a broken hand that was discovered right before a fight.  My trainer wanted to call the fight, but the promoter told me to fight anyways, as the hand would numb up after awhile.  It was great to know that I would have no power in my right hand until I threw enough blows to make it numb enough to stop the pain.  You will come across a lot of these scenarios as you play and they add a ton of realism to the game. 

But a boxing game will ultimately live or die by its boxing engine, and here is where the gloves start to unravel.  The game eschews a stick based fighting system, a la Fight Night 3, in favor of a button based system, where each button represents a type of punch.  One button each for a left or right hook, and two more buttons represent the left and right jab.  Two button combos make for a left or right uppercut.  Using the right stick will block, and there is an adrenaline button that will supercharge your punches for as long as the adrenaline bar is lit.  It seems easy enough until you realize that the controls don’t matter, as the punches never seem to connect properly.  Too many times, it looked as if I had totally whiffed, only to knock a guy out.  Or punches will look like they are hitting in the throat or the crotch.  There is no correlation to a thrown punch and where it lands.  Then there is the issue of the fighting just being so sluggish.  In the Fight Night series, you have quick, snapping punches, whereas in Prize Fighter, you get a slow moving Mac Truck of a punch.

Another problem lies in the look of the game.  While the aforementioned videos are sharp and give a great feel of realism to the game, the in-game engine looks very last generation.  There is no real definition in the bodies or faces of your boxers.  They always have a look like they are in space.  Sweat looks horrible, and when fierce punches finally connect, there is no instance of sweat bouncing off, or even a spray of saliva or blood.  As a matter of fact, I rarely saw any blood or cuts in the game.  Swelling effects are there, but they don’t look all that defining, except when they are in the ring corner.  The game also has a bland brown color to everything.  While I appreciate the idea of making the game have a gritty feel, it just seemed to mute everything in the game, to looking like a shade of brown. 

Sound is a whole different matter as all the people that put voice work into this game really had a lot of passion for it, and you can hear it.  Every agent, trainer, promoter and friend that calls you, or shows up in a video sounds fantastic.  At one point, Andrew Golata starts to curse out a promoter they ask him about, and I had to think that his anger was real towards the guy.  It really gave the game some edge and sounded great.  Jim Lampley gives the ring play by play as you start to move up the ranks, and while it sounds fluid, it never seems to feel like there is much enthusiasm in his voice.  Emmanuel Stewart provides color commentary and fares a bit better, with more life in his voice, but as with most of the in-boxing segments, the dialog loops a lot.  By the time you get to round eight, and your trainer is spouting off the same advice again, you just want to mute the game, which is unfortunate, because it does sound good, even while being repetitive.

Multiplayer was a big component of Prize Fighter, and here, it becomes a mixed bag.  Quick fights are easy to get into, and are fairly lag free.  The boxing still suffers the same way, but the bigger issue is that people all seem to pick Muhammad Ali to fight with, because he is like the Superman of Prize Fighter’s online ring.  I went up against a guy online, and while being proficient in the game, I could never break down the Stamina meter of the great Ali.  I understand that Ali is a living legend, but if he is going to be so powerful, why even bother putting any of the other fighters in the online modes.  It is a penalty to use any of them.  The other mode is the tournament modes, which seem to never have anyone in them.  This might be attributed to the fact that Venom Games is in the process of being shut down, which is unfortunate, as this mode seemed to have so much promise.  If you are looking for the tournament mode to be your solace in this game, you should pass, as I have yet to see it up and running as of the writing of this review.

Legendary fighters are unlocked in the game by placing you in scenarios that the legends battled in real life.  One of these scenarios includes having you fight as James Braddock, the Cinderella Man, in a comeback round against the champion at the time, Max Baer.  These segments are a lot of fun to play, and give the player a little history on these career defining moments in boxing.  It would have been nice to see more legends used in this manner, as it made for a nice break from the monotony of the normal game.

The lineup of fighters is a who’s-who of today’s champs.  The problem with that is that unless you are a hardcore boxing fan, you will be hard pressed to know who any of these guys are.  There are no big names that I was knowledgeable of, although I do not follow boxing as well as I use to.  Some of the names that are in the game included Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. (no Sr. though), Ricardo Mayorga, Steve Cunningham, and Andrew Golata just to name a few.  Some bigger names, but missing big names like Bernard Hopkins, Shane Mosley, or even a Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

As it stands, Don King Presents: Prize Fighter offers an immersive outside the ring experience, that you cannot find in another boxing game right now.  The problem is that the inside the ring action is about as broken as it can be, and has no signs of being fixed by the developers.   As it stands, Don King’s Prize Fighter gets a 2 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.