Boxing games have been growing in popularity as the Fight Night franchise has been getting better and better. There have been many previous attempts at a mobile boxing game on the iPhone/iPod Touch, but none were actually… Well, good. They were gimmicky, or just plain bad (in my opinion, anyway). Well, Chillingo is hoping to change all that with a quality boxing title …
I’d been hyped for Touch KO since I first saw the “SOON” image on Chillingo’s website, which was quite a while ago. So, as you can imagine, when I saw that it was in the app store, I shrieked like a little girl. (Yes, really.)
I bought it as fast as I could, and booted into it. Well, first it crashed, so I restarted, then booted into it. Anyway, I jumped right into the game.
I was greeted with the same kind of crappy rap on the menu screen that I expected, being common in this genre of games (for whatever freaking reason). I cringed, tapped through, and discovered a menu button that says “Playlist.” Sweet.
I built my own playlist, and was off. I went to “Quick Play” first, not wanting to risk my first few matches in Career.
I was greeted with a nice tutorial. The tutorial teaches you the basics; what all the elements are in the UI, as well as how to throw punches. I really like the control scheme in this game. Basically, the left side of the screen controls your left hand, and the right side of the screen controls your right hand. Tap to jab, swipe horizontally to hook, swipe upward for an uppercut. Simple, easy to remember, and pretty responsive. Blocking is as simple as touching both sides of the screen.
Upon entering the first match, I found a few disturbing things. For one, although the controls are quite responsive throughout the match, they seem to be completely unresponsive for the first five or ten seconds. This held true for most of the matches that I have played, and it gives your opponent plenty of time to take advantage of your state.
Something else I discovered is that, upon knocking your opponent down, they always get up after seven seconds. I’ve punched out opponents at least 100 times by now, and this has always been the case. I have come to call this the “seven second rule.” Now, when you get knocked down, you don’t get to stand up on your own. The game does it for you, so I was a bit disappointed there. And this also means that the seven second rule applies to you as well.
Basically, what it comes down to is that the only way to win or lose a match is by TKO; three knock-downs. No match has exceeded the first round for me, and the seven second rule has always come through. All of this was a huge disappointment to me. And I doubt that they’ll make it so that you can stand up on your own, but it would be nice if the developers fixed the seven second rule, especially if it’s a widespread problem.
And I noticed all of these things during my first quick match. They couldn’t be confirmed until a few matches later, but they were all pretty obvious from the get-go.
After that, I jumped into Career Mode. First things first, you’ve gotta make your own boxer. Unfortunately, there is no customization with the character himself; you must choose between ten presets. The default name for your boxer is “CONTENDER,” so… You’ll want to change that. One thing that I liked is that you could choose your boxer’s stance (orthodox, or southpaw). This made the character creation feel a bit polished. You can also deck our your fighter with tattoos, but I skipped right over that.
Now, you can change all this later, so don’t stress too much over it. Pick one, and go. Similarly to Fight Night, Touch KO allows you to choose between a few opposing contenders before heading to the ring. You can also train before each match (there are three different training routines, which are all automated; Heavy Bag, which trains your strength, Cardio, which helps you recover faster, and Speed Back, which helps you attack faster).
After each fight, you will gain some popularity and some cash. Cash can be spent on equipment that will help give you an upper hand, contributing to the same attributes as training does. On the career mode’s main screen, you are presented with your statistics, which is nice. This includes your record, your class, how many knockouts you’ve dished out, etc…
Now, back to the gameplay. The gameplay is simple, as I previously mentioned. Controls are easy to get the hang of, and it all goes from there. There were a few things that I discovered after a good while of playing that I disliked, however. For one, there are no body punches. Body punches are used to bring down the stamina of a fighter, and this cannot be done in Touch KO. All punches thrown go for the face.
Also, you cannot break their blocks. If your opponent is blocking, you’ve gotta wait it out. As a matter of fact, throwing punches against blocks somehow hurts you. Other than that, the only complaint I really have is that the AI isn’t great. Something I’ve found is that they won’t throw punches while you block, so here’s what I do… Block for a while, then come out of it, and they are your punching bag for a few seconds. That makes it incredibly simple to win matches against almost any opponent.
That could easily be fixed with multiplayer. And, hey, this is a boxing game… Multiplayer is an obviously important feature, right? Well, maybe to us, but apparently the devs didn’t think it mattered, because there is a total lack of multiplayer.
Now, I feel like this review has been really negative. Don’t get me wrong – this is a great, fun game. It’s just got so many flaws and is in vital need of an update. Definitely a lot of fun, but needs fixing.
Current Status: Worth a Look
Reviewed at: v1.0
Reviewed on Firmware: 3.0
Download size: 25.8MB
Released on: 25th June 2009
Retails for: £1.79 / $2.99
Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1 & 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G / iPhone 3G S
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