Previous Next

Naxat Soft (who produced the excellent Naxat Open golf game) are the company behind this simulation which puts you in the ring with such cosmopolitan as Signor Marciano from Italy, who hopes you have life insurance, Iranian "Mick" and Samson the Indian whose "piston punch makes a great sleeping pill".

You're literally given a behind-the-gloves view of the ring, a pair of disembodied fist sprites separating you from your weaving opponent. Above and below are stamina and energy gauges for both boxers, and you also get a punch power meter.

As well as being able to block blows with his gloves your boxer can perform jabs and hooks to head and body, but there are no uppercuts. Instead, holding down a joypad button winds up a more powerful punch which demolishes the other guy's stamina if it connects.

Computer boxing games have never been much to write home about, and the only ones I ever enjoyed were the ones which injected some humour into the subject by using big, cartoony boxer sprites with their own characteristic fighting style.

Digital Champ has the big sprites, and very nicely designed they are too, but the boxers only really differ in their punch strengths and none seem to have any interesting style to distinguish them. They just bob and weave about the ring unpredictably so the only way to be sure of smaching an opponent is to power-up a punch or jab rapidly until he wanders into range.

Of course, this soon becomes tedious, and because there isn't even an urge to see the next fighter I quickly grew border of the whole thing. Ardent fans of the sport may glean some enjoyment from Digital Champ, but I would wait and see if the forthcoming Bull Fight is any better before parting with my money.