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Three boxing games have recently appeared on the Spectrum. This one is written by Spanish software house Dinamic, and has the most obvious title.

The game presents a three dimensional view of the ring, with surrounding crowd. Your opponent faces out of the screen, with your man seen from the back, in large, excellently shaded, black and white graphics. There is a choice of four moves: left and right attack and defence, and hits are always to the mouth, which is not very good sportsmanship. Strength bars underneath indicate who is winning, and when either bar reaches zero, a knockout is achieved. Three knockouts in a round allow you to progress further or the game to finish.

To become world champion you must fight four increasingly tough opponents of various nationalities. These are portrayed in small well-presented cards at the bottom of the screen - but although this graphic changes each round, your opponent stays the same throughout.

Animation is clever, paricularly the facial expressions, although sometimes it is unclear whose arms are guarding.

In general, playing this game is monotonous and the sound average. With only four moves, little skill is involved, so the player is reduced to Decathlon-style key bashing, but without the fun. It is also rather easy - pressing the same key, non-stop, will take the player through to the third round. I found it un-addictive, and once the world championship is gained, the lack of scoring means the game becomes boring. It's overpriced, and generally a disappointing game from Gremlin.

P.S.