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The press releases accompanying this told us that our review copy was not the final version of the game, though presumably the review copy has most of the features planned for the final version, otherwise there's no point in reviewing it.

Anyway, after a (pretty feeble) couple of bars of the theme to one of the umpteen Rocky films, we are introduced to t Italian Stallion (yes, that's you) and his boxing opponent. The purpose, of course, is to knock the stuffing out of each other using a combination of fancy footwork and a flurry of haymakers.

Actually, the fancy footwork consists of moving left/right, and the punches can be either to the head or body. There is also a guard control, to cover yourself from your opponent's attacks, but it didn't seem to do much when I used it.

The animation of the boxers is good, and they are both large, well-drawn figures. Once I got the hang of it, I managed to land a few thumps on my opponent, but it seems that you can't move fast enough to avoid his blows once they're launched. After a while I got used to the pace of the game and then it seemed that we just took turns punching each other and the whole thing started to seem a bit mechanical and monotonous. Perhaps additional skill levels would add some variety.

I found Knockout enjoyable to play for a while, but the excitement faded fairly quickly.

C.J.