The king of hype hypes his own game. Along with 2K Sports' Matthew Seymour, a 2K Sports telephone conference unveiled everything you could possibly want to know about 2K's first dive into the pool of the sweet science.
by nestlekwik
Deciding to step into the ring of video game boxing, 2K Games picked up the UK-based Rage team, now known as Venom Games, creators of the Rocky and Rocky Legends titles, to give gamers a taste of real boxing. From the humble beginnings of three straight days of talks with legendary fight promoter Mr. Don King, 2K Sports Executive Producer Matthew Seymour was able to weigh-in the Xbox 360 version of Don King Presents Prizefighter for us during a phone conference today.
According to Seymour, Prizefighter will be the boxing game with the pride in realism accredited to 2K Sports' name. Citing massive involvement from Mr. King, Prizefighter aims to not only nail down what happens inside the ring but also outside it. The title's biggest hook comes in form of the career mode's documentary approach - live-action footage details your characters rise from chump to champ (or chump to even bigger chump for losing boxers) as the game also weighs on the player's decisions with money and media fame.
"There's pretty big competition out there," noted Seymour. "We really wanted to differentiate ourselves. Prizefighter offers a huge, dramatic experience that focuses on your career and tells that story through live-action sports documentary. I'm surprised no one has ever tried this. You always see it during the Olympics, on ESPN and in [movies] and those are all cool and hip documentaries. But in video games, it has never been done."
Most of the touted realism of the career mode stems from stories and input as told by Mr. Don King and those who have worked with him. Seymour detailed how the team jotted notes from boxing history and took a look King's titanic boxing library to garner inspiration for Prizefighter. During the course of the career mode not only will players engage in the sweet science, but through those shared stories, players will also have to balance training with promotions and social temptations.
"People always read about athletes and what they do [outside of the sport]," said Seymour. "It's part of being an athlete and some of them fail. We also want to bring those stories to the table. Temptations are not always bad as the more you're seen with beautiful women, the higher your media profile is. When you're in the ring with a high profile, you have more crowd support and with that support the more adrenaline you have and more signature punches you can throw. It all feeds back into the ring."
As players start winning, specific examples of "temptations" that might start ringing your phone include 2007 Penthouse Pet of the Year Heather Vandeven along with video vixen Bria Myles, who also play full roles in the documentaries. With the mode looking to whittle away at least 15 hours of player's time, Seymour still wishes his team could cram even more into the experience.
"Don has been promoting for more than 30 years," he noted. "How do you possibly implement all these fantastic stories? Probably the hardest part was not having enough time and people to put in everything we wanted to."
Mr. Don King does more than put his face on a game cover in Prizefighter as he is the focused star of the title's documentaries and has worked with 2K to provide full voice-over work for his appearance. He has been shown the progression of the development cycle and also gave plenty of input on which licensed professional boxers to feature in the game. In the end, the result was very pleasing as Mr. Don King himself rang into the conference to lay claim that Prizefighter is "free of imitation; a game of reality," making 2K's initial effort "a peoples' game."
"The game exemplifies life," declared King. "The game is the truth and the truth will set you free ... I revolutionized the sport of boxing ... I brought in the attraction and made it the most important factor; money was not the primary factor, the atrraction was and that put it in the proper prospective ... [Prizefighter] is the emulation and imitation of life. That makes me game unique, rare and wonderful from other games. You have to go through the struggles, pain and sacrifice to get the gain. The delivery of the game is based on the real-life process of what happens. We're not making up wishful thinking; what you see is what you get in life; doing it when others are saying you can't. That attitude is in the game because it is the truth. The lessons of life are in the game - you are doing it as it is and always has been."
Rounding out the presentation will be television quality broadcasting with play-by-play commentary from Jim Lampley and color commentary - a first for any boxing game - by Emanuel Steward, fresh from the box at HBO.
"Jim is a fantastic commentator and you have to have a well-mannered color commentator so who is better than the top HBO boxing commentators?" he explained. "We gave them a call and Jim was already aware of the 2K titles and of the quality commentary found in World Series, NBA2K and NHL2K. [Emanuel Steward] got a kick out of the fact this is the first boxing game with a color commentator."
With the support of some of boxing's best and the deep career mode, Seymour is confident the title will appeal to those who don't follow the sport. With lots of unlockables and quick, fast, accessible mechanics and controls, he explained the game ties into what casual players already see in movies or on television.
"The career mode can definitely be played casually," he noted. "They love the boxing drama and movies and these people can take part of this experience by playing the career mode. The mode offers different experiences or ways to feel satisfied for different people."
While the career mode is definitely the heavy hitter for the title, 2K Sports is also adding in robust exhibition, local multiplayer and online modes. For online modes, players can keep a stable of five creations in differing weight classes and attempt to climb through the leaderboards where defeating higher ranked players catapults your status online. Each weight class has its own board in exhibition fights and real-time 8-man round robin and single elimination tournaments also have their own separate rankings. While no downloadable content or spectator modes are planned, Seymour noted while changes to the Xbox LIVE demo submission process, the demo has been delayed, a demo will be released to give players a taste of Prizefighter.
During game play, players can use their own creations or select from 40 licensed boxers, 10 being legends, and slug it out in 22 different fight gyms or arenas. Punches are mapped to the face buttons with the right stick used for defenses but step-around punches, "killzone" shots fueled by adrenaline and signature punches will really fire up the bouts. Players can be saved by the bell with the three knockdowns in a round rule in effect but there will be no stoppage from cuts, clearing up a rumor that 2K would not be featuring real-time damage in the game.
"Blood, bruising and deformations are included," assured Seymour. "We're not going to pull any punches, pun intended, on stuff like blood. The difference is we didn't get all focused on it like competitors. There's no slow-mo blood because we're no about it that; boxing is about what happens in the ring. We didn't get all hung up on it and hype it so that may be why the rumor started."
Speaking of competitors, Seymour is well aware 2K Sports is entering a domain dominated by EA Sports with its Fight Night franchise. Nonetheless, he weighed in with his thoughts on the competition and feels Prizefighter go will toe-to-toe with the long-running series.
"Fight Night Round 3 is a beautiful game and it is fantastic in a lot of areas but with a launch [window] title (on 360;PS3), you can't get everything right the first time," he stated. "It was a bit short in the career mode and we knew we could deliver that. The single-player career is very important. At the end of the day your friends go home so what are you going to do? You want to play and become the heavyweight champion of the world."
About the product placement in Fight Night Round 3: Seymour wasn't too big of a fan of the move.
"That was a little bit of an overkill," he noted in regard to The King making his way into the game. "The bottom line to me is it's about keeping it real and the integrity of the sport. There's more than Everlast and Burger King in the world. We got [nearly] all of the boxing licenses you'd normally see such as Lonesdale, Grant, Compubox ... it's all a part of Prize Fighter and 2K sports. We all got a chuckle out of [The King], but we're keeping it as real as possible."
Looking at EA's future endeavors, Seymour doesn't believe the company's upcoming Facebreaker falls in the same genre as Prizefighter or even Fight Night.
"Facebreaker isn't a boxing game," he put bluntly. "It's a hybrid. It's a crazy fighting game that has elements of boxing in it but it looks potentially a lot of fun. 2K is about integrity to the sport itself. We're all about bringing you the ultimate experience and part of that is having this career. We're going a little further where indisde and outside the ring are equally important."
How will Prizefighter fare when it enters the ring? Find out next week when the game releases in the U.S. and Europe.
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