Boxing Manager
Preview
Do you want to be the next Don King?
by William Thompson
previewed on PC
Let’s get ready to rumble
Once the boxer is ready, it is then time to arrange a fight. A stadium and opponent must be chosen as well as a date for the fight. The game works in one-month periods, so it may take a couple of months before the fight to come around. In that time it is up to you to promote the fight. To do so, there are a number of alternatives to choose from, each with a cost involved with it. Posters are cheap, but won’t reach much of an audience. Newspaper coverage is more expensive, but gets more attention. Other alternatives include radio, internet and local and international television. Of course, television promotion of the upcoming event can get expensive, so it would need to be a higher quality fight to justify the expense.
Boxing Day
The fights themselves show your boxer up against his opponent. You can watch the fight or decide to skip it and concentrate on the management side of things. Watching the fight is a bit of fun though. Indeed, it is the only real action in the game. You can’t control any aspect of the fight, but it is fun to watch your boxer get a good couple of hits to his opponent before knocking him to the canvas. Unfortunately for me, in most cases in the version we played, it was my boxer on the end of the string of punches.
From what we’ve seen so far of Boxing Manager, the graphics aren’t spectacular. But hey, it’s a management game and graphics aren’t its main focus. Having said that though, they aren’t awful either. The information screens are all well laid out and easy to read. The locations such as the gymnasium and boxing arenas are detailed enough without being ultra realistic, whilst the boxers themselves, as mentioned earlier, come with enough variations to make them interesting.
A win by knockout
With much in the way of sporting management games, it is good to see one that is headed in a different direction. With most being football related (soccer, NFL, etc) it is a refreshing change to see something out of the ordinary. Boxing Manager has enough managerial decisions and options to keep the game appealing for a decent length of time. Getting your first prize-fighter to the top of the ranks will definitely be something to enjoy. Boxing might not appeal to everyone, but for those that know the difference between the Queensberry rules and the Queen’s Berries; this game might be worth a look. Boxing Manager is due for release towards the end of October.
