We have to go back to 2011 to find what was the last great professional boxing video game. It was the time of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and Fight Night Champion was the undisputed champion of boxing games. A title that, so far, and years after the disappearance of the Fight Night saga, no one has been able to claim, not even VR games like Creed: Rise to Glory or The Thrill of the Fight.
But that could be about to change. Undisputed, a boxing game developed by the Steel City Interactive studio, could be the one everyone was waiting for. The IGN portal has had the opportunity to test the skirmish mode of Undisputed, which is still in Early Access for PC, and explains what are the benefits of a game that comes to revolutionize the genre.
To begin with, and how could it be otherwise, the player is asked to practice against an opponent in order to become familiar with the controls. A tutorial that should not be skipped, as there are many combinations of attacks to remember, which try to imitate the movements of real professional boxers.
The movements of the attacks are very fluid, but the controls, according to the media, are not entirely intuitive, although it becomes easier to predict them as you get into the rhythm and practice over and over again. After defeating our first major opponent, former flyweight champion Charlie Edwards, players will have access to a roster of more than 50 real-world boxers, including boxing greats like Muhammed Ali.
As in the real world, players will only be able to fight boxers in their own weight class. For example, welterweight boxers can only fight other welterweight boxers. In addition, the 17 categories of professional boxing have been reduced to 10 in total: 8 for men and 2 for women.
The attributes of the fighters vary depending on the category they are in, so we will have to fight with one strategy or another depending on the type of fighter we have chosen. For example, the lighter weight fighters will have greater agility of movement, and the heavier ones will have more life and slower and stronger punches.
When you fight against an opponent, you must take into account the player’s attributes. The vitality conditions the hits you can receive, the heart rate affects the time you can keep your arms up (the lower the beats per minute, the longer you can keep your arms up) and the stamina conditions the amount of hits you can throw at your opponent.
The game allows you to play against the machine and also against another player locally or online. In the future it will include the option to create your own fighter, as well as a career mode.
