(NES) Power Punch II:
I'm sure as hell everyone has no idea what this video game is. However, some I hope can assume it's a Boxing Video Game, with the word "Punch" in it. Believe it or not, this really was the sequel to a previous boxing game released on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Released in 1992, the game ended up bombing... want me to fill in everything I have been avoiding?
In 1987, a game titled "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!" was released around the world, and to this day is still one of the more popular boxing video games of all time. With obvious racism and/or stereotypes (like a pussy French man, a drunk Russian, a Japanese guy...) the game included some very colorful characters, representing the world of Boxing. You played as Little Mac, a midget fighter trained by former-coke head WVBA Champion Doc Louis. The ultimate fight? A head-to-head bought with Kid Dynamite, Mike Tyson.
Tyson, still at the height of his popularity, was signed on for a sequel to the game, where this time you were allowed to fight AS Mike Tyson. However, legal problems got in the way (cough:JAIL!:cough), and thus Tyson was taken out... actually, he wasn't. They modified his hair style slightly (taking out the shaved line in the front of his hair) and changed his tights from his traditional black to PINK, and renamed him Mark Tyler.
Also, instead of fighting wussy French boxers, you travel around the GALAXY to fight a bunch of Aliens that look like rejects from your favorite movie that featured a bunch of Aliens. Some characters include regular looking aliens (a.k.a stupid human forms except an extra eye or something) and a Chicken man... yes, a CHICKEN MAN.
The game ended up being about 1/1000000 of how Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! was, with very bland graphics, horrible animations, crappy controls, and the most important thing, an almost impossible game to beat. Unless you can see into the future for 5 minutes, you'll have no chance in hell of beating this game.
Before you actually begin your fighting, you go through a simple training session against robot "Mark Tyler", where you better boost your stats as high as humanly possible, because even maxed out, the game is too fucking hard. If you think that it's bad enough Mike Tysons character was turned into such a fucking pussy, let's check out the names of the people he has to go through to become the Galaxies Champion of Boxing...
List of Enemies:
Solar Championship Division:
9763 Borg
Derec Nodden (chicken man!)
Alpha Bonehead
Galactic Championship Division:
Helmet Skull
Lex Lumpblocker
Grathnox 4
Eric Nodden (chicken man #2!)
Whatever You Want To Call It Division:
Pugly Positronic
Super Borg DLX
Grathnox 4B
Hammerhand
Lex Lumpblocker
FLY-MO
Yes, just like in Punch-Out, the developers got lazy and decided to recycle several of the fighters from the previous ranks, and decided to make them extra tougher (which is impossible, since they are already maxed out in difficulty already). This game is just a bitch, mainly because of the handicap in everything.
For example, the hit detection is horrible, as well as the dodging. Sloppy and uncontrolable. Also, you better make sure you have more energy and knockdowns than your opponent, because when the fight goes to a Decision, the opponent will win if the match is even (or if they kicked your ass, of Course).
Overall, a waste of time for fans of MTPO, because everything that made Punch-Out great was taken out of this piece of shit. Fun characters? Check. Good background music? Check. Believable difficulty? Check. Fun? Check. Responding Controls? Check. I can go on and on, but I can safely say I'm glad Punch-Out was never ruined with a "real" sequel (a.k.a not adding a II to Punch-Out and passing this junk off as Punch-Out!!".
The ROM for this game can be downloaded in the NES section of ROMNation.net, as well as the emulator for an NES under the "Emulators" section. I would recommend playing this for 5 minutes to see how horrible they made this when it was originally to be titled as a Punch-Out game.