PS2 - Victorious Boxers 2: Fighting Spirit. A game review by LeonMcS

Early last week, one of the most tragic, frightening events occured in the history of the planet.

I was without internet access for nearly four whole days.

The power transformer on my laptop melted, fused & died and no amount of pleading or threats was going to deter the store I bought it from from sending it back to Sydney for a full forensic inspection before replacing it.

Faced with the prospect of actually doing something for the rest of the week, the sudden cold sweat this idea brought on forced me to retreat to my bedroom in fear where I stumbled upon what I thought could be my saviour.

There, gathering dust on a shelf where its sat since being purchased **** knows when was a Play Station 2 game, Victorious Boxers 2: Fighting Spirit. (must be good if its #2, they don't make lame sequels to games do they?). Could this be the game to save me from hours of tedium, a valid reason to put off cleaning for yet another week?

Could it ****.

Theres the usual options, exhibition, tournament but because I'm commited (or should be) I decided to undertake the 'massive story mode'.

What followed will haunt me for ever...

*

You start the story as Ippo someone, a green unconfident manga inspired wide eyed quivering wreck about to spar the gym legend. Bracing myself for battle I thought I'd flick out a few jabs and see how I fared before swinging for home. 37 seconds later, I'm the new gym legend and a worrying unease sets in as surely the game isn't this easy. I'm no gun believe me on these things but this must come back to the story so fine, no worry.

Then its off to a cut scene and believe me, this won't be the last. Theres some traditional Japanese bull**** of fighting for acceptance and honour and blah ****ing blah justgetmetothenext****ingfightalready. I **** you not, you can fast forward through these bits and I did but even then it was another 10 minutes before I was back in the ring. For 45 seconds. hey just call me TysonMcS Ippo whatsonaki, apparantly my right hooks have the effect of bazookas.

Cut scene time again, pointless, pointless blathering on betwen the characters. 2 fights in and I'm already sick of 'my' supposed lack of confidence. Dawn arrives and we're ready for bout 3 and this time I pace myself, ko'ing my opponent in 53 seconds.

And on. And on.

Scenes in the gym of the trainer telling me about some super new secret punch that I'll never even bother throwing cos my opponents have the same punch resistance of wet tissue paper. Of course some bully appears, his girlfriend breaks up with him (which affects me how?) and I get to beat him up in 80 seconds.

So we work our way through the rankings towards the prestigous Japanese Bantamweight title, I must say these guys are the biggest bantams you'll ever see, thank god Fenech wasn't fighting these guys.

About 7 fights in suddenly I'm not me anymore, I'm now some rookie from the gym fighting someone else. Ok, why not, maybe this...no, 68 seconds later its all over, another KO1 for me.

They do this a few more times and once I even make it to the second round, though I did knock the other guy down 5 times doing this.

Cue more cut scenes, some kid leaves the gym in a (supposedly) tear jerking moment, at one stage I've become my first opponent sparring someone in the Phillipines (must be some timewarp space continuim thing the Japs have down) and finally I'm 'Ippo' again, challenging for the Japanese Bantam title. Maybe this will be a chall...sigh...30 seconds in hes down, the poor champ gets smashed all over the ring and makes it to the 45 second mark of the second with 5 kds. Yay, I'm the champ, 13 fights (9 as 'me') 11 1st rd Kos, and about 26 hours of storytelling interspersed in there. Credits roll, and I think well, I got through a game at least...but no, onto part 2.

Rapidly losing interest more of the same follows but I'm a masochist, I'll see this through to the bitter end...and then it happens.

Surprisingly we have a cut scene and the whole gym goes up to the woods for a training camp. Unfortunately its not Crystal Lake but anyway one of the boxers decides to go for a jog in the woods (I know cos they spent 5 minutes explaining he was about to go for a jog in the woods) when it happens.

There standing in front of the path is a bear.

Whoever I am has a deep meaningful internal conversation for 10 minutes and decides that the only thing for it is to FIGHT THE BEAR.

And up on the screen the following graphic appears. 'You" vs ''Bear".

WHAT. THE. ****?

The bell rings. No really. Grizzly comes out swinging and horror, I'm cut, who would have thought? But after a frenzied 2 second response of button mashing the bear manages to last less time than any of my previous opponents and its another KO1 win to me.

I'd like to say that from here on in, the game improved and got harder and its a worthwhile buy but I'll never know. ****, maybe the next cut scene was a trip to the zoo to practic uppercuts on giraffes, I'll never know.

All I know that this game is no longer on my shelf, its buried deep in my closet, waiting, lurking like some twisted version of 'The Ring' videotape to claim its next victim.

The things I put myself through for this place...