ROCKY LEGENDS, Ubisoft
This is the second Rocky video game in two years -- even though it's been 14 years since the last "Rocky" flick. Then again, Stallone is still talking up a sixth film. This arcade boxing game is for fans of the films, and fans of fighting games in general, rather than boxing enthusiasts. This button-combo brawler requires more offense than defense, with little variety in this action outside the eight training contests (including that scene from the second film where Rocky catches chickens).
You play as any of the first four movies' main characters -- Rocky Balboa, Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang or Ivan Drago. The game's career mode shows you how Creed, Lang and Drago got their start before taking on Rocky; if you beat him as any of these fighters, an alternate movie ending plays. Voice acting is done by sound-alikes, not the original actors, and not all of them sound anything close to what you remember. But the game does throw in 25 boxing venues, plus the movies' music -- including the theme song that's probably already pounding away in your head.
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The graphics can stand up on their own, with faces that get bloodied and bodies that get bruised, but they don't match the realism of Electronic Arts' Fight Night 2004. And with no online gameplay, the two-player arcade action gets old pretty fast. This game could have been a contender, but it's just a decent rental.
-- John Gaudiosi
Xbox, PlayStation 2, $40
TONY HAWK'S
UNDERGROUND 2,
Activision/Neversoft
Entertainment
