Genesis ~ Greatest Heavyweights Review

Overview

Greatest Heavyweights is one of the Sega Sports series of serious sport simulations. Somehow this game turned out to be alot better than I thought when I first started playing it, because of its such humorous sound effects. This game also looks nearly identical to Evander Holyfield's Real Boxing, so I'm guessing that Greatest Heavyweights is the sequel.

Gameplay and Realism

You try to knock the daylights out of your opponent with punches to the head or body. And if that doesn't work out after the maximum number of rounds allowed, then the judges will decide the winner based on the amount of punches.

The gameplay itself is quite fun if you ask me. You're most likely to find yourself treating the fights like brainless brawls rather than boxing as a sport. Mainly because you're all free to dig in, to punch all you want. In a way this makes the game less realistic and less rewarding, because rather than using your head to constructively box, you mainly bash your punch buttons on the gamepad.

7.75 out of 10

Graphics

The graphics are in 2D with some 3D effects. The boxers move left and right on the screen and you can tell which direction you're moving around judging from the angle of the ropes in the background, which I think is pretty smart. The boxers look very good with the skin shading and well-detailed heads. I really liked the newspaper articles after you've finished a career match.

Take a look at the crowd, cause its just shocking! The people's faces are plain ugly along with terrible animation.

3 out of 5

Sound and Music

This is what I love about this game! All the ingame sound effects while you're boxing make it sound like a Rocky movie! The impact blows are unrealistic, making the matches both funny and exciting. But what puts the cherry on top are the voice effects! You have a ring announcer who sounds alot like Michael Buffer (probably is) and those very funny taunts, such as "Pansy!" and "Momma's Boy!". Each of the greatest heavyweights have their own set of speech. Such as Muhammad Ali saying "Oh I'm so pretty!" and Joe Frazier saying "You ain't got nothin' sucker!".

Even though they probably aren't the real voices, it doesn't matter, because they're so darn funny! On the down side, there aren't that many crowd sound effects during the matches making it kind of lonely.

Oh yeah! The menu music rocks!

4.5 out of 5

Playability and Versatility

The controls are quite simple. You have jab, hook and uppercut for both left and right arms, block, and taunt. This appears to be quite limited, because there are no special moves and you can't dodge or side step. If a wee bit more was added, this game could have had so much more depth. You can move sideways though, but only after holding down all 3 buttons and you can only go downwards to whichever side of the screen you're on. This seems inaccessible, making a pointless move really.

In this game, size does count. Basically there are 3 types of boxers. Big, medium and small. It is actually easier to fight a boxer smaller than you because of the height and reach advantage giving this game a boost in realism. However, I found that there was a real glitch. When fighting a small boxer, you can keep jabbing at their head as long as they stay down. This is what makes the career mode a bit easy, because you can just pick to fight the little guys and the heavyweight champ is a little guy!

2.75 out of 5

Options

For the boxers, you have the choice of 8 of the greatest heavyweight champs of all time. Such as Evander Holyfield, Joe Louis and of course, Muhammad Ali.

And also 30 other boxers, but I don't think they're real.

There is a tournament mode where pick one of the greatest heavyweights in a greatest heavyweights knockout competition, an exhibition mode with 2 player and the best of all, career mode. In career mode, you create your own boxer and try to become heavyweight champion of the world. During your career, you train your boxer in the 3 attributes: speed, power and stamina. As mentioned in the Playability and Versatility, it is made a bit easier for you to become the heavyweight champ by just fighting the little men only. After you do become the world heavyweight champ, you have to fight all of the greatest heavyweights starting from Jack Dempsey up to Evander Holyfield, so really there is no decent reward after becoming the champ; just more pointless bouts. To make things worse, you can't save.

3.5 out of 5

For: lots of fun trying to beat your opponent up, got 8 of the greatest heavyweights to use, excellent sound effects, very funny taunts, good looking boxers, good newspaper front pages, pretty good career mode, like Rocky.

Against: more button bashing than thinking, disgusting crowd graphics, not much crowd noise, no special moves, no decent reward after becoming world champ, bug on the little men, can't save.

Conclusion

An above average boxing game being let down by bad crowd graphics, a big bug and a slightly limited career mode. Greatest Heavyweights certainly deserves to be up there amongst one of the best boxing games of the 16-bit consoles, even though it is more like a Rocky movie than an actual boxing simulation.