Boxing games aren’t as popular as they once were. It’s been several years since we’ve had a game. fightnight, the famous simulation license, whose star was stolen by the UFC saga. However, it seems that a reboot of the boxing franchise is in the pipeline. In the meantime, the biggest expectation is on the side ofUndisputed due to appear in 2023 and which intends to become the new reference in terms of simulation.
If you want a less ambitious work and which does not put on the gloves, but rather a suit, know that World Championship Boxing Manager 2 hitting Steam today, and coming to console soon. Developed by Megga Cat Studios and published by Ziggurat, the software follows a first opus published in 1991. Strategy and simulation game, you play as a boxing trainer responsible for recruiting and training fighters in order to raise them to the top .
The harder the fall
World Championship Boxing Manager 2 is a small pixel-art game that will be divided into two distinct modes: Career and History. The first will be the heart of the proposal by allowing us to embark on an adventure in its image. All things considered. You will have to recruit fighters with predefined and variable statistics, but also make some visual changes to your foal, in the idea of giving him personality.
Unfortunately it’s woefully poor, making it difficult to properly customize its characters to give them identity and variety. Whether it’s your boxers, boxers or those of your opponents, repetitions are commonplace. You will also have to hire staff for training and care. Indeed, it is imperative to train your fighters in precise statistics, as much as to allocate time to rest. You will have to manage an energy bar and a stress gauge.
The title also offers a banal narrative context, but which has the merit of being there, and gives us the opportunity to choose between two choices of answers on certain dialogues, but also to congratulate or not his student after a fight. Decisions supposed to have an impact, even if it is relatively limited. The intention is there, it is already that. Attention all the same, there are some wanderings on the French translation.
Regarding the story mode, it will allow you to become familiar with the mechanics of the game, as well as play with sportsmen, famous sportswomen of the discipline. Sugar Ray Robinson, Sue “Tiger Lily” Fox or The Rock From Bockton, aka Rocky Marciano. An appreciable bias although quickly lacking in interest. Because World Championship Boxing Manager 2, despite his good intentions, struggles to make the experience exciting.
Rocco without his brothers
The major problem? The fights. The lack of diversity in character design, in the blows as well as the movements of the actors in the ring. All of this makes immersion and engagement non-existent. It only takes a handful of hours to realize the lack of diversity on all levels of the game. Add futile and endlessly repeating commentators, not to mention the general lack of atmosphere and the work loses all flavor.
Especially since the progress of the adventure, especially in career mode, is quite slow in its progression. Another disabling point, we have no reliable indication of the characteristics of the boxers we face, just as it is not possible to see in advance on the calendar against whom we will have to fight. Irrelevant shortcomings in a game of this kind, in addition to handicapping a minimum our progress where we must most often start blind. With the hope that our training will be sufficient for our student to do well. Because, basically, the strategic dimension is almost fictitious.
During fights, precisely between rounds, you can only choose between four strategic approaches, not very rewarding visually, as well as healing for health and stamina. Once the round has started and the boxers are hitting each other, you can only be a spectator. It’s a shame not to have changed the strategy in the middle of a confrontation to turn the tide.
Take care of your left
Given the duration of a match, delimited by rounds of 20 seconds, there is little time to maneuver. Enough to justify this passivity in combat for the trainer, however our role is considerably reduced. Impossible to really lay out a game plan or to upset a round in progress by any intervention.
All these negative points raised pose a problem for enjoying the game. Especially when the course of the adventures, whether in career mode or in story mode scenarios, are similar. Giving the impression of having the same game mode twice. Especially since Sugar Ray Robinson moves pretty much like Jean L’Anonyme in your career.
The difference remains in the management of your room and your staff, although this is devoid of depth. The proposal does not seem fully mastered and far too cautious. We were expecting something like a Weedcraft Inc, which managed to be complete, varied in these elements, but above all convincing in the transcription of its subject.
World Championship Boxing Manager 2 has good intentions, however in the state, it must be admitted that the software is not very relevant. Maybe there will be updates to improve the experience by its console release, hopefully, but there are a lot of things to review.