King of the Ring

Since gaming began, sports games have been in demand. From the arcades to consoles, they have tried to emulate football, tennis, ice hockey, basketball and racing amongst many others. These types of games range from the gamer taking the role of football team manager to becoming the player themselves and challenging friends to matches. One of the most popular sports franchises in the world of gaming, is boxing.



One of first boxing games to come out on a console was Punch Out on the Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1987. The gamer took the role of wannabe boxer Little Mac and was mentored by boxing legend, Doc Louis.



Boxing games have developed since then and have become more and more interactive for the gamer. The Wii had Wii Sports as one of its launch titles. The package included boxing as one of its options as well as golf, tennis and bowling. This allowed the player to hold a controller in each hand and box with their rival on the screen. By moving their fists, the player was able to dodge an attack and to make an attack themselves.

Another popular boxing franchise on the consoles is the Fight Night franchise. It had previously been known to gamers as Knockout Kings on the original PlayStation. Many sequels were developed, which appeared on many different consoles at the same time. By not being exclusive to one particular console, it was exposed to more gamers and increased its popularity.



The latest Fight Night game to be released in March 2011 is Fight Night Champion. It will be released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 console. It follows on from Fight Night Round 4 which was released back in June 2009.



The original series Knockout Kings was produced by gaming company EA Sports. They produced the games for many different consoles including the original Playstation, Nintendo 64, Gameboy Colour and Gamecube. These games were produced between 1998 and 2003 making the franchise over a decade old. Before Knockout Kings and the Fight Night series, EA had produced another boxing game in 1995 called Foes of Ali. The characters of the original series include famous names like Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, Butterbean and Muhammed Ali.



The new Fight Night Champion game from EA will be the first time that the franchise will have earned itself an M rating from censors.