January 27, 2003 - Ever since Sega's Jet Grind Radio first wowed gamers with its revolutionary "cel-shaded" graphics back in 2000, the videogame industry has been charmed. Like all new fads, development studios quickly went to the drawing board and attempted to construct similar technologies in their own games. Even the trend-setting Nintendo of Japan finally jumped onto the cel-shading bandwagon with its highly anticipated Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. You know a trend is worthwhile if Nintendo of all companies implements it.

So, we're now seeing cel-shaded racers, cel-shaded shooters, and -- thanks to publisher Majesco -- cel-shaded boxers. The name of the game is Black & Bruised, and it's officially arrived for the GameCube and PlayStation 2. IGN regularly checked-in on the title's progress during the past year, each time being impressed by its flashy cartoon appeal and fast-paced fighting action. We did have a few fundamental gameplay concerns at the time, and so we cracked open this latest shipment of reviewable code with high hopes. Read on to see if developer Digital Fiction was able to hook us with its flurry of cel-shaded jabs.

The Facts:

• 14 immediately selectable boxers and five unlockable characters, each with its own ringside location and theme music
• Boxers rated in four categories: strength, speed, reach, and movement
• Five different gameplay modes, including 1/2P Fight, Tournament, Boxer's Life, Survival, and Training
• Cheat menu for unlocking even more wacky secrets
• For one or two players

It's not hard to visualize the concept art that must have been adoringly sketched and later rubber-stamped by the production team in designing the game. Each character practically leaps from the canvas and comes to life with distinctive names, personalities, costumes, fighting styles, background music, and voiceovers. Take, for instance, our man known as "El Luchador." This masked Spanish fly appears to be the lovechild of a tiger and a melon. With his lime green pointy stripes, he taunts his opponents via witty quips of burritos and ass-whippings. Or you've got "Micky McFist," the scrappy Irish brawler with the cloverleaf tattoo on his chest -- something of an orange-haired version of Brad Pitt from Snatch. Others such as "Jumping Janet" or "Tiny," the obviously largest boxer in the game, leave more to be desired. Still, it's a motley crew that players should have no problems finding a favorite fighter among for whooping the tar out of the rest.

As the rest of the package goes, the menus are all clean, bright, and full of life and sound. Digital Fiction even added a few subtle touches that most wouldn't notice; for instance, every time you select a player, his or her facial expression randomly changes. Perhaps one of the best presentation touches is the good use of voiceovers in the menus, cutscenes, and even the practice tutorial. It's nothing big, sure, but such little touches go a long way to keeping things subliminally stimulating, and such little touches work nicely here in Black & Bruised.

Gameplay
As we've experienced in the past with this title, slipping on the gloves and tossing around our cel-shaded dukes in Black & Bruised is a bout of mixed results. The action is fast, the variety of punches and animations are all well done, but the fundamental arcade boxing engine itself is still nothing close to the excellence achieved by even Punch-Out! so many years before.

Basic moves still function much the same as we've experienced in the past. The button configuration is still fairly similar, with B and A buttons hucking your left and right punches respectively. The R button can be used as an uppercut modifier, and L will put up your defenses. One thing that we're thrilled to see is the new combo system that's been seriously tweaked since our last go around in July of 2002. Instead of simply mashing two buttons simultaneously, a string of buttons must now be entered in succession. For example, a double right hook, left jab, and right uppercut chain combo could be done with X, X, R+Y, R+A. These combos do require some practice and memorization, as they're intuitive yet cryptic to discover. Thankfully, the combo practice mode is well done and should have you tossing flurries of fists in a wildly exaggerated manner in no time.

As for how effective these combos are, that's another matter entirely. Some connect on the early punches only to miss in the latter blows; this is especially true during the longer chains. Sadly, combos are still your best strategy for victory, as each match typically results in frantic punching through intense button mashing. Most characters are so agile and quick that you'll instantly feel an urgency to land more punches than your opponent and faster. There's really little way to react to the oncoming attacks in any fashion that encourages player finesse. Typical strategy involves blocking a flurry and then retaliating with a flurry of your own. But often the player with the quickest thumb wins out in the end. Thus, the action is frantic to be sure, but it lacks the depth a true boxing game needs to grant you precise control of your fighter and allow you to shuck and jive, read your opponent, and land precision blows.

In keeping with this frenetic arcade/cartoon angle, Digital Fiction included another key gameplay element to help spruce up the gameplay: the power meter. As players pummel their opponents, a meter of stars builds for every successful punch. Once it's complete, you can click the Z button to snag the randomized power-up item floating in the lower-center of the screen. These items rang from simple damage power-ups to speed boosts, extra health, and wacky inverse items that hurt your foes as you build health. Players can also choose to keep building their meter three times over for an even more powerful item. As noted by our own Douglass C. Perry, these items add a definite Mario Kart feel to the game, which is a good concept. But unlike Mario Kart, there's no real skill involved in the timing or usage of such abilities, as you're likely to pump your fists as fast as possible regardless.

This is the single biggest, crippling flaw to the gameplay engine itself: despite the addition of chain combos and power-ups, the entire experience still plays far too shallow and lends itself to the simple mash of the controller. The frenzied pace seems like a great trait on the surface, but ultimately becomes the biggest drawback to any boxing fun to be found in the title.

If you're looking to extend this meager gameplay fun outside of the standard 1P fight mode, then Digital Fiction has gone to great lengths at add plenty of extra goodies. For starters, the inclusion of the neat "Boxer's Life" mode is a wonderful thing. Players can select any of the 19 total fighters and venture through a story mode of sorts. Before each round, an FMV story unfolds that depicts a scenario for the fight. Players must fight through each match in goofy ways or complete various objectives to proceed. There are at least six different battles for each character to complete, thus close to 100 specially crafted rounds, complete with FMV story intros and objectives. This mode should please fans of the game considerably, presuming that one enjoys the boxing action enough to fight through them all.