Apple IPod Applications Reviews:Touch KO Packs A Wallop

Touch KO, a terrific new iPhone boxing sim from Chillingo, has finally been released in the app store after much anticipation from mobile gamers. With intuitive controls, beautiful graphics, and enjoyable gameplay, it’s the next best thing to opening up an actual can of whoop….. well, you know where we’re going with this.

Starting the game, you have the option to Quick Play or enter into Career Mode. While Quick Play is fun if you just want to try it out, the real meat and potatoes is in Career Mode. You choose a boxer body, name him, and customize his tattoos (or lack thereof), gloves, trunks, and shoes. As you win matches, you will earn money that allows you to purchase clothing upgrades, though there are several free options for each. Your boxer is ranked in terms of power, stamina, and agility, which can all be improved through training before matches, which is not nearly as fun as it sounds. Prior to each match, you choose which category you’d like to increase by 5% by tapping a button. There is no sparring with a heavy bag or practicing your footwork, which might have actually been cool. You can also improve these stat categories through the purchase of clothing items, as well. Gloves improve Power, trunks improve Stamina, and shoes improve Agility.

After completing your “training,” you can select your opponent. The game presents a decent comparison across certain stats so that you can tailor your match accordingly. This information screen also includes purse size and amount of popularity you stand to win if successful. After confirming your match opponent, it’s fight time. You need not worry about moving around the ring, as the game controls this for you. You simply concentrate on punching (all upperbody) and blocking. Each fighter has a status bar which indicates energy level (green) and permanent damage (red). As you throw and take punches, your energy level decreases. As you get hit, your permanent damage increases. Lose all of your energy and you’ll be eating mat. Hit the canvas three times in any round and you’re TKO’d. Take on too much permanent damage and you’ll be knocked out. We must admit that the boxers look a little goofy when being knocked down, resembling a crumpled ragdoll more than a stunned human. When a fighter gets floored, the game replays the devastating hit in slow-motion. While exciting the first few times, this began to get annoying and detracted from the overall gameplay enjoyment. We’d love to see a tap to skip option or an option to turn it off altogether.

You’ll begin in the amateur league, working your way up to a title fight, which should not take long. Amateur bouts are 3 rounds of 3 minutes each. Professional bouts go 5 rounds. Unfortunately, given the surprisingly weak AI, we never had a match go past the halfway point of the 1st round until our 11th match, long after we had taken the Amateur title. The 11th match was over after 2 minutes. Our boxer was knocked down only once on his way to the Professional title, and that was because we unleashed a flurry of punches that wore down our energy. From about the 14th match, we were going into the 2nd round simply because our opponent spent most of his time blocking. We sort of danced around the ring for a while, trading an occasional punch but not much else. To be honest, it started getting a bit boring.

The graphics are outstanding. It almost feels like you are watching video of last night’s match rather than playing a game. Everything looks crisp. Even the spit spewing from the boxer’s mouth as an uppercut drops him to the mat looks disgustingly realistic. Sounds are good, with decent sound effects, crowd noise, and a pretty cool rap track that fits the game well. The controls utilize both touch and accelerometer. The right side of the screen controls the right arm movements; the left side controls the left arm. Tap either side to jab, swipe inward to cross, and swipe up to uppercut. There are no body shots at this time, though Chillingo is working on this for a future update. If you touch-hold either side of the screen, your boxer blocks. Turning your device left or right triggers the accelerometer and your boxer dodges to either side, though we had little use for this feature.

Despite its initial shortcomings, we are holding out hope that Chillingo will tweak the necessary areas to make this game a bit more challenging. Chllingo is currently working on an update that should bring an Expert level to the game, so we’ll see if that improves the performance of the opponents. As it stands, it remains quite fun, even if it’s mostly a terrific looking way to beat the heck out of someone. No other iPhone boxing title can hold a candle to Touch KO, and the $2.99 price tag is lower than we anticipated. If you crave a boxing title, this is the one to get. Touch KO is a solid 4-Dimple slugfest that has the potential for a 5th Dimple in the near future.

Touch KO gets our AppSmile 4-Dimple rating:

For more AppSmile.com Reviews click Here: Download iPhone Apps
For other iPhone news visit: iTunes App store

Read valuable ideas for buy PlayStation 3 - your personal guide.

Similar Items