Rocky Legends

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===================================Rocky Legends=====================================
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Rocky Legends
Game Type ........ : Sports, Action, Boxing, 
Origin ........... : PAL      
Release Date ..... : September 28, 2004
Platform ......... : PS2   
Media  ........... : DVD  
Filename ......... : Rocky Legends.iso
RARs ............. : NO 2.18GB   
Developer......... : Venom Games, Ubisoft
Oficial Preview and Screens Presentet By GameSpot:
http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/sports/rockylegends...tml?q=rocky
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Legends is not an especially noteworthy boxing game, but for serious fans of the 
Rocky films, the game does have its worthwhile moments.
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A little under two years ago, Ubisoft published Rocky, a boxing game based on the 
famous film franchise that starred Sylvester Stallone as a Philadelphian boxer who 
rose up from the streets to become the unlikeliest of champions. While it certainly 
would have made for another good underdog story had this seemingly ill-fitting, 
film-licensed game turned out to be a champion among boxing titles, it sadly wasn't, 
thanks to a few blatant gameplay exploits and some rather shoddy graphics, which 
dragged the game down. In 2004, Ubisoft is giving the Rocky license another go with 
Rocky: Legends for the PS2 and Xbox. Legends manages to do pretty much what a sequel 
should do, correcting a lot of the first title's flaws and adding a number of new 
features. Unfortunately, Legends is still not an especially noteworthy boxing game, 
but for serious fans of the Rocky films, the game does have its worthwhile moments. 
Rocky: Legends is an arcade boxer through and through. If you're expecting anything 
like Fight Night 2004, taper your expectations immediately, because this game offers 
nowhere near that game's level of depth. As far as the mechanics go, the four face 
buttons on the controller are used for your basic right and left high jabs and low 
jabs. By pressing up or down on the analog stick while pressing one of the face 
buttons, you'll perform a hook punch. And depending on what version of the game 
you're playing, by holding down the R1 button or the right trigger button while 
pressing one of the face buttons, you'll perform an uppercut. You can also use 
the L1 or left trigger buttons in conjunction with the left analog stick to perform 
blocks and dodges to counter your opponent's punches. The game's combo system is 
simplistic, in that it simply relies on orderings of button presses, and not much 
else. If you can memorize the proper button-tap sequences, Rocky: Legends quickly 
becomes a breeze on the default difficulty. That is not to say that this game is a 
simple button masher, as you will have to 
keep your punch and combo variety up throughout a match to be successful, but once 
you get the actual combos down, causing large amounts of damage quickly becomes a 
basic exercise. 

Rocky: Legends isn't too far off from the previous game in terms of gameplay 
mechanics, but a big difference comes in the way of artificial intelligence. In the 
original Rocky, it was possible to win every single match by taking advantage of 
the dopey opponent boxers and some unfortunate glitches, which allowed you to simply 
jab your way to victory. The good news is that these really blatant exploits are gone. 
Each computer-controlled boxer behaves somewhat differently depending on his skills 
and personality, but nearly all of them manage to act at least fairly intelligently 
during a match. They back off at the right times and attempt to circle around you to 
work the proper angles, and they adapt to your style of boxing as rounds progress, 
forcing you to change up your methodology as you play. The issue with animation 
glitches seems to be almost totally gone, although, in a couple of matches we did 
notice that we were able to get opponents into a few jab-based punch loops, and we 
got in a good five or six shots simply because our opponent couldn't recover quickly 
enough. It doesn't happen.
often and it can't be abused as much as it could be before, because eventually the 
CPU will find a way to get out of it. So, ultimately, this issue is not a deal 
breaker. 

Legends features a significantly higher number of playable boxers than its 
predecessor, each and every one of which was either featured, or at least mentioned 
in one of the Rocky films. Everybody from Ivan Drago to Tommy Gunn is here, and 
they're fully playable (though many of them must be unlocked). There are a few modes 
of play in Legends, including a quick exhibition match, a championship tournament 
mode, a basic survival mode, and a career mode, which is definitely the most 
interesting mode in the game. The first Rocky game only let you play as the Italian 
Stallion himself, and it spanned all five of the Rocky movies. In this mode you can 
pick from four of the main feature boxers in the game, including Rocky himself, 
Carl Weathers' Apollo Creed, Dolph Lundgren's Ivan Drago, and Mr. T's Clubber Lang. 

Each storyline gives you some brief insight into how each fighter got his start. 
You'll get to see Clubber work his way from incarceration to championship contender 
and you'll learn of Ivan Drago's military beginnings. The cool thing about the 
storylines for the non-Rocky characters is that the endings provide sort of an 
alternate history to each movie in which the boxers were featured. What would 
happen if Clubber Lang beat Rocky once and for all? Well, now you'll know. However, 
the unfortunate downside to the career mode is that there isn't a whole lot of story 
outside of a few cutscenes that show up from time to time. You still get a decent 
sense of plot from these scenes, but the stories would have been a lot more effective 
had they been expounded upon a bit more. 

The other neat thing about the career mode is that it progresses a lot more like a 
realistic boxing ladder, with boxer rankings ranging from the champion level to the 
25th ranked. You obviously start at the bottom, and from there, you can pick your 
opponents from within a few ladder ranks above you. You're also given a certain 
number of months to train for a fight. Training comes in the form of minigames, 
which you can play to upgrade your boxer's attributes. Want to increase your boxer's 
speed? There's a speedbag minigame to do it. Want to increase his stamina? There's a 
jump rope game for that. There's even the chicken-chasing exercise from Rocky II to 
take part in. The minigames typically involve rhythm game mechanics or some 
timing-based button mashing, and all of them are simple, yet fun little distractions. 
Better still, all of them can be played in a separate mode outside of the career mode. 

If there's any serious criticism to be mounted against Rocky Legends' gameplay and 
game modes, it's that the game just doesn't necessarily hold up well over time. 
Once you've played through all four career modes, unlocked the assorted boxers, 
arenas, and other random doodads, and played through the various minigames a few 
times (all this can be done in a day or two worth of play), there's not much here 
worth coming back to, as playing against the computer over and over again just gets 
dull soon enough. Legends does stand up better from a multiplayer angle, but the 
game lacks any online component, so unless you're able to get friends to come over 
and play, you're kind of out of luck. 

The original Rocky's graphics left quite a lot to be desired, and while Legends' 
graphics are an improvement, they aren't that much better. On the plus side, 
Legends does feature some pretty impressive damage modeling. Repeated blows to the 
face and body will reveal progressive bruising and bloodying that, while perhaps a 
bit over the top, still look pretty cool. You'll also see some nice particle effects 
flying off of opponents, especially when you knock them down, as the game will go 
into slow-motion during this point and you will get some nice angles on the crippling 
blows. The animation in the game is mostly decent, if a bit stiff at times. Character 
models are a little better than in the previous game, with a little more detail and 
polish all around. However, they still look disproportionately built, with larger 
than normal heads and slightly smallish bodies. It's unclear whether this is a 
stylistic choice or just poor modeling, but either way, it looks weird. 

Though not unexpected, Legends disappointingly does not feature any of the original 
actors from the films voicing their characters. No one would necessarily expect the 
developers to go out and get Sly Stallone, and hey, Burgess Meredith has been dead 
for years, but seriously, was Mr. T really too busy? What's Dolph Lundgren doing 
right now to prevent him from spending a few hours in a recording booth? Fortunately, 
the voice actors who fill in for the originals are largely competent, with only a 
couple of bad spots here and there. Most of the original Rocky music is in the 
game--except for the notable omission of "Eye of the Tiger." Furthermore, the game 
makes nice use of its music, especially during fights. If you get worn down, or wear 
an opponent down to a low health level, the dramatic score will fade in, adding an 
air of importance to the fight. Unfortunately, the in-game sound effects are not 
nearly as impressive. Some of the punch effects sound downright cheap, and the crowd 
effects tend to loop to an extremely obvious degree. 

There's no doubt that Rocky: Legends is a better game than its predecessor, but it's 
still a tough game to recommend to anyone but the biggest fans of the Rocky film 
franchise. The boxing mechanics, while occasionally enjoyable, become practically 
automatic after a couple of trips through the career mode. And while the career mode 
itself is cool, it could have benefited from more in the way of story. Plus, when you 
factor in the still generally unimpressive graphics and sound and lack of online, it 
all adds up to a game that's decent, but unremarkable. At any rate, if you're big on 
Rocky or you are desperate for a new arcade boxing game, Legends is worth a rental. 

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