Greatest Heavyweights

Greatest Heavyweights, Sega Genesis, Acme Interactive, Inc., 1993

I visited my cousin in Houston a few weekends ago, and the conversation turned toward his busted Sega Genesis. 

"Mine still works," I said. " Do you still have Greatest Heavyweights?"

"Yeah. You want to take it?"

The existence of this review is one big spoiler to the previous question's answer

I did take Greatest Heavyweights, a game I put dozens of hours into in the mid-90's, whiling away late nights at my cousin's parent's house. Would this old boxing gem hold up, or be just as busted as my cousin's old Genesis?

Greatest Heavyweights features eight of the greatest heavyweight boxers from the 20th Century: Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Rocky Marciano Larry Holmes, Jack Dempsey, Floyd Patterson, Joe Louis, and Evander Holyfield. You can either pick one of these guys, and duke it out with one of the other seven in an exhibition match, fight one of the game's fake characters (or use one of them instead of the real guys), engage in a multi-fight tournament, or go in for the best option the game offers: career mode with a boxer of your own creation.

The best option in this game is even better than recreating the greatest boxing match of all time.

"Create a Boxer" allows you to choose from numerous sizes of fighter, then allows you to select their skin color, hair color and style, facial structure, etc. There aren't a ton of options, but you can make your character green, which I always do. Now let me tell you the story of the greatest heavyweight champion of all time, Ace McFeely.

Sorry, MacGyver.

After entering career mode and creating McFeely, the game gives me the rank of 30th in the world, and faces me off against the 29th ranked boxer. The 29th ranked guy is hapless and I quickly knock him out. After winning a fight, the game allows me to pick three training activities out of an offered eight. Let me switch from "I" to "you." Anyway, you don't actually partake of any of these training activities as a gamer, but selecting them does increase your stats, "Power," "Speed," and "Stamina." You can choose the training activities based upon which stats you want to power up more. Of course I always want to immediately power up "Power."

Give the man a steak!

"Career Mode" consists of smashing through the top 30 fighters until you fight fictional champ, "Mike Dixon," and take his championship belt. To become powerful enough to take down Dixon, you've got to do a great job of leveling up between each fight. If you're having too easy of a time, and want to get to the top sooner, you can choose to fight a higher ranked boxer than the guy in front of you, though the game doesn't allow you to just jump straight to Dixon...you'd get destroyed if it did.

Destroyed just like poor Donny Ghost

Once I trashed all the boxers up to Dixon, I trashed him too, and received an invitation to then fight the eight "Greatest Heavyweights," thankfully one at a time. Wait, I'm sorry, let me switch back to "you."
Beat all eight greatest heavyweights, and you're the undisputed champ.

Nope, no bias here!

As cool as all this is, it wouldn't mean much if Greatest Heavyweight's boxing engine sucked. It doesn't, though. It's great. Your computer-controlled foes all fight in a given style--some aggressively, some defensively, some not protecting their head well. Once you figure out your foe's style, you can better box against them. You'll find that much of your opposition can't handle a body jab/head jab combo. Of course, you'll have to get the timing right, or you'll get pummeled.

Like poor Mr. Ali here

By the time you get to the top, your higher ranked foes, particularly the Greatest Heavyweights, will be rattling off some pretty spectacular combos of their own...and low jab/high jab isn't quite as magic an elixir anymore. However, if you've been paying attention in the earlier fights, the later, more difficult ones should be a piece of cake. Just press buttons, though, and you'll end up on the mat. You've got to strategize. That's easy for me to say, though. I've been playing this game for a long time.

Just ask Ali. Also, the victory beat, and all of the music in this game is great. Minimal, but great.

Your punch choices are the old favorites, jab, hook, and uppercut, which you can unleash with either hand. I highly recommend a six-button controller--otherwise, you've got to hit a couple buttons together to throw an uppercut, instead of just pushing one. There's also a button to block, though where's the fun in that?

1,839 punches thrown. Sounds about right.

I love this game. Once you get very good at it, there might be no further challenge, but that will take enough time to make the game feel like a worthwhile experience. Seeing all of these great fighters in one game is a treat. Hearing them is too, as true to a Sega Sports game, there's a lot of cool voice work, generally in the form of taunts. Getting taunted by Ali is always a thrill. Taunting him is even better.

Just a personal note: while Joe Frazier (R.I.P.) is my favorite boxer of all-time, personally, and it's the only reason I am ribbing him so much, I think Muhammad Ali (R.I.P.) is the greatest heavyweight boxer to ever live. He said it himself, and he wasn't lying.

The graphics are 16-bit solid, with all of the boxer animations convincing and fun. Few things are more exhilarating than landing a combo that knocks the spit out of your foe. Boy what a great sound effect, too. The hits in this game still feel visceral more than 25 years later.

Trust me, you do no NOT want to get hit by Ace "The Greatest" McFeely

Speaking of age, I should warn, not all of the boxer taunts found here are PC for 2020. Then again, how PC is a sport where you're trying to knock your competition unconscious? Greatest Heavyweights' overflowing 90's machismo is one of its greatest assets. This kind of swagger died when Sega stopped making sports games.

Graphics: 8.5/10.0
Sound: 9.0/10.0
Gameplay: 8.5/10.0
Lasting Value: 8.0/10.0
Overall (Not an Average): 8.5/10.0