Power Punch II

A rather terrible Punch Out like game with the enemy having an advantage over the player by a massive degree.

Power Punch II is an ancient game from 1992. It's a whopping 31 years old at the time of this review. The game lacks support for any modern gaming display resolutions (or widescreen monitors), hasn't been modernised or updated to run smoothly on modern gaming PCs. Despite this lack of modernisation, it carries a pretty high price tag for such an ancient game. This seems to have been put on Steam as a nostalgia gouge, or just a cash grab to try profit from abandonware. I always research the games I review, and when I launched this I was amazed to see it's exactly the same game as Mike Tysons Punch Out on the NES. However, this turns out not to be, as I first suspected (the publisher of this game is somewhat famous for infringing/stealing the concepts of successful games), a ripoff, but is in fact a direct(ish) sequel to Punch Out. What happened in the very early 1990's is Mike Tyson got into a dispute with Nintendo over the use of his likeness in the Punch Out series, so Nintendo had to rapidly rebrand their sequel to Punch Out (Mike Tyson's Intergalactic Power Punch), which would have featured our lisping pugilist in his first outer space boxing adventure. So, Nintendo simply called the sequel "Power Punch", removed all references and likenesses to Mr Tyson from the game, and then made another one, which is how this got onto the NES in the shape it was in. It doesn't explain how Piko Interactive got their dirty, money grubbing paws on it to make this shocking and insulting abandonware nostalgia gouge, however. But make no mistake, that's what this is... an attempt to profit from someone elses game, a game they're never going to support or update. As always, buyer beware. Cutting to the chase, this is basically just Punch Out with a different skin and different fights and fight techniques. By todays standards this is incredibly shallow and primitive, which is why there's no bleeding edge Punch Out sequel alongside Mario on the Nintendo Switch. It's old, it's dead, it's gone, let it rest in peace, Piko. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. The game only displays in a bizarre 1:1 aspect ratio. Like... do they own a completely square monitor? Has the developer never seen a computer before? This isn't really acceptable, and it's unclear why the developer couldn't format the game correctly. Another reason to avoid this. Bewilderingly, the game doesn't include proper audio controls, so you can't turn off the annoying background music, you'll need to alt+tab out and stop the music using the Windows sound mixer. This is obviously not okay and it's unclear why the developers chose not to include this basic feature. Because this is designed for consoles, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the inferior console gaming appliances that the game was designed for. These are unfortunate compromises and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was a second thought for the console-centric developers. The game is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for consoles forces upon a game. Once more, console peasants have made gaming worse for everyone. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 2 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Power Punch II is relatively expensive for an abandonware nostalgia gouge, at $9 USD, and it's not worth it. The game is just too old, hasn't been modernised. And as the old saying goes, you can't go home again. Even when it was new, this was never a triple-A game. This is the kind of game that went almost directly from the warehouse into the cheap bargain bins at the front of the shop. Now, on Steam, without any modernisation? This is impossible to recommend. For comparison, the $9 asking price for this game could get you games like "Left 4 Dead 2", the "Tomb Raider" remake, or "Mass Effect 2". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. There's also thousands of free, superior quality games on Steam. [quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b] Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.[/quote]

Imagine if Punch Out was worse in every way and enemies take ten million hits to KO unless you perfectly play an annoying minigame at the start of each run. Conceptually very good but it is bogged down by bloated HP numbers and poorly designed boss patterns. Sprites are kinda decent though. I only got this to see how bad it was for myself because it was less than a dollar in a Fanatical bundle, please do not spend $8.99 on this.

По сравнению с другими играми про бокс здесь я увидел самое лёгкое и понятное управление в несколько кнопок. Разобраться 5 минут, а потом всё зависит только от тебя. Сюжет игры в том, что вы играете за самого сильного и крутого боксёра мира (по мнению жителей земли, так как они не скупились на пафосные речи и транслировали на весь мир, а как потом оказалось ещё и на всю вселенную). Трансляции его пафосных побед дошли до инопланетных рас и тебе ничего не остаются делать как отстаивать свой титул (а нефиг наводить пафоса на свою персону). Игра интересна тем, что тут ты сражаешься не с обычными людьми, но со всякими инопланетянами: гуманоидами, гоблинами, человеком на гусенице от танка и т. д. К каждому нужно отдельно найти подход, кто-то нападает часто и бьёт слабо, а кого ты стоишь бьёшь, думаешь что сейчас выиграешь и тут он отправляет тебя в нокаут за 3-4 удара. Из всех спортивных игр про бокс, пока что эта лучшая что я играл. И да кстати если игра понравится первую часть не ищите, её просто не существует. Вот такой вот прикол от разработчиков. И самое приятное, в игре реализована система сохранений и загрузок.

It's a "Punch Out!!"-style game, with some sci-fi in the mix! If you like boxe games, give it a try. É um jogo estilo "Punch Out!!" em um cenário de ficção científica! Se você gosta de jogos de boxe, vale a pena conhecer.

Power Punch è un gioco molto bellino che vuole ricordare i vecchi giochi anni 80-90 sui picchiaduro sul boxing... davvero carino e pieno di qualità soprattutto nella parte artistica che ne rappresenta il tutto.