Hey where's Mike Tyson gone?

Although boxing is a fairly base display of aggression, it’s surprising that so few videogame adaptations of the sport have been worth playing. Punch Out!! is an exception, and to many it still hasn’t been beaten.

Assuming the role of Little Mac, you have to punch your way to ultimate victory by taking on such extravagant opponents as Soda Popinski, Super Macho Man and King Hippo. Those names should give you a fairly good indication about how serious this game is – those of you expecting an accurate and realistic representation of boxing might be disappointed. However, the character design is one of the high points of the game.

Boxing titles often stumble and fall when it comes to control; the reason that Punch Out!! is so successful is largely down to tight and responsive interface; considering the NES pad only has two fascia buttons it’s amazing how many different moves Little Mac has at his disposal. Moving around the ring is a joy and stringing together devastating combos soon becomes second nature – naturally, your opponents improve in skill as you progress and that’s when the fun really starts. Punch Out!! transforms from a mindless button-basher to a game of skill, timing and intuition; the more the you play the better you start to know your rivals, and eventually you will be able to predict their movements.

While the SNES version has better visuals many fans still maintain that this edition is the best of the two. It’s amazing that Nintendo hasn’t decided to update this brilliant series because modern boxing games simply don’t come close to this.

Note: This actually began life as “Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!” but was renamed “Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream”, after some legal niggles.Europe does have the Mr. Dream version of the game, the game is simply called "Punch-Out!!" and does not have the "Featuring Mr. Dream" subtitle.