4. Boxing

Boxing
Atari 2600
1980




As Bowling illustrated, the phrase “Atari sports game” rarely leads to a happy ending, but Activision’s Boxing is an awesome 2 player game, a fast and frenzied game of finesse and fancy footwork. Really. Kudos to Activision and to game designer, Bob Whitehead.

It is a very simple game: One player is the white guy, one guy is the black guy. You can punch with your left or right fist and who ever lands the most hits in one round wins. Sounds dull, but somehow it isn’t.   The single player game is worthless, but get a friend to play this game with you, and there’s an elegance to the game that endures decades of advances in boxing game technology. They say that boxing is a just like ballet, only with no music, no choreography and the dancers try to hit each other. This game captures that feel perfectly.

2 comments:

Stephanie said...

I never liked boxing games. Most of the time the guy never moved fast enough.

Isaac said...

This is a fast paced game. Might be worth a try.