gluv65 said:
Thanks for the impressions, I'll be picking this bad boy up in the states next week.
Ok, had another session. First note of business though - I set up my fighter with 23 points for technique, almost nothing for heart and chin, and 10,7 and 6 for strength, speed and stamina. I think the 23 points for technique were a bit much - Trejo mentioned something like 'I see were going for 'experimental' here'.
I found out quickly in my second match though in the first set of fights that adding some chin and heart are worth it. Basically you'll want to have at least everything at 10 as soon as possible, and take it from there. After 10, it starts taking more points to upgrade your fighter (first 2 ability points for 1 rating point, then 3, etc.). So I used my ability points to set everything at 10 at least.
This of course invited doing some more practice. This time I went for target practice first, which is the type of sparring you do with someone who has punch gloves for you to bash into, as you've seen in a tonne of boxing flicks. It's actually very good, and should be one of the first things you do to test whether or not you're being tracked right and you understand how to control your fighter. I found out for instance that the way I was hitting my left hook, I was reaching out of the camera range (because I also lean forward a little), which basically broke it. So this exercise quickly got me understanding the limits of my field of view (remember, my 'wing-span' is 2m, and I'm standing at less than 1.6m from the TV with my calves pressed into our couch - I actually placed the camera a little upwards and back behind the TV this time so I could actualy reach out my arms completely which just about fits
exactly into the field of view).
So once I got that figured, it was actually pretty easy to do this exercise. For as far as I played it, it asks for uppercuts, forward jabs, and hooks. You don't have to hit them hard, and it doesn't really matter with which arm you for instance manage to hit the glove (the forward jabs are easily reachable with both arms for me). It feels good. So far I'm really digging the exercises. If you get these type of hits down, you can win a fight at least in theory.
It's good to be aware of at least these types of hits, though if you want to win a fight you also need to work the body, which not much of the exercises pay attention to so far. It is a fairly easy excercise, so good for earning some ability points too. The first exercise which I tried again also (the punching bag), remains a tough one, though I still enjoy it a lot and the physics on them are cool - I just wish you could play it without a fail-state.
I then (after losing my fight again) proceeded to do the other exercises as well. Endurance asks me to fight one opponent after the other, and is hard to keep up with long enough to score points (at least I couldn't do it after two or three times, but I did at least pass a bunch of rounds after the first attempt). You have to stick close to your fighter you lose, so you're going to track your fighter if he moves away from you. Finally, I went to basic sparring, which is actually good and a place that you should spend some time in - you need to at least be able to take this guy down on default settings, and then you can basically measure your efficiency by how many calories you burnt. For instance, after a few tries I got him down from 29 to 14 calories.
After last fight, for I'm not sure what anymore (but it tells you - I think it's actually for not doing the finishing move on him when he was reeling, which gave me the 'Saint' achievement), I also earned a first 'dirty' move, a hammer fist. Trejo explains how it works, and it's pretty good - however, since you're awarded more for fighting clean, it does make you only want to use it if you're getting desperate (at least for me). Now for the second fight, the setup was different - you start with an 80$ counter, and the faster you beat him, the more of that cash is left for you to take. However, crucially, you also earn cash for hard hits and such - for instance, a hard hit gives you $5. So you usually take enough away from a fight to at least heal yourself and do some more training. On the other hand, each battle you lose takes away rating points and after three losses I was back to zero (so again, exercise early, exercise often).
So when you're preparing for this fight, what's the key thing here is that you time your shots, and spend your energy wisely. Look for a good opportunity and land one or two hits. When he's reeling a little you can get a few more hits in, but your energy for hitting runs out fast enough so you'll want to go back into cover and position. When he's defending his face and or is close to you, go for body blows and if he goes out of cover when he's still close, time for an upper-cut. Most of this stuff makes a lot of sense, though I would have expected perhaps some more training on boxing technique. And I think the earlier you make yourself comfortable with walking and moving (dodging left and right) around, the better.
Also, when you sustain injuries, you have to heal them or pay the price in terms of shorter stamina in the next fight.
Right now this game is not easy. This is not a 'casual' game, unless maybe you're a casual boxer. But so far I'm enjoying it a lot and can heartily recommend it if a game that forces you to really box AND train (training is the only way to improve your stats, after all), it's worth it.
So I managed to win my second fight, and this game me another award that gives me a money boost for winning against players ranked higher, and a silver trophy. This was for beating someone who is ranked more than 50%, so that either means that there's an advantage to losing a bunch of times first (kills your ranking to zero), or perhaps I've picked my second fight unwisely.
I'm going to bed now happily exhausted, and so far the game seems to be what I hoped it would be. Will keep you guys posted if I make more progress this weekend. And if someone wants to try this online, let me know.
