1998 · Press Start Inc. · Sports

Knockout Kings

Knockout Kings was EA's flagship boxing title prior to Fight Night.

Released: 31 December 1998
Platforms: Game Boy Color GameCube PlayStation PlayStation 2
Genres: Sports
Developers: Press Start Inc.
Publishers: EA Sports

About

Knockout Kings is a series of boxing video games produced by EA Sports for various platforms yearly between 1998 and 2003, and was replaced by the Fight Night series in 2004.

Before releasing the first Knockout Kings, Electronic Arts released its first 3D boxing game, Foes of Ali, for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer in 1995. While there are a few similarities between the two games, Foes of Ali was developed by a different team, Gray Matter, and as such, is not regarded as a precursor.

Keywords

boxing
box art - real photos
boxer
melee

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The duration of a round can be adjusted to either 90 seconds or 3 minutes. In the game's "slugfest" mode, fighters can knock each other out at any given moment of the fight, or suffer 6 or 7 knockdowns and still last for the whole fight. There are several differences between Knockout Kings, Knockout Kings 2000, and Knockout Kings 2001 in particular, the most notable being the graphics.

In Knockout Kings, the boxer sprites, although distinctive, are not facially representative of their real-life counterparts. Championship bouts can last only up to 10 rounds and not for 12 as in real life or 15 as in the past. In between rounds, all that is seen is a ring-card girl. In Career Mode, user created fighters fight all the way up the ladder, defeating the top contenders and eventually defeating the champion.