Because the way the videogame industry is set up, companies offer tantalizing demonstrations of their videogames months or even years before its scheduled release. Personally, I have been looking forward to the release of Prizefighter ever since it’s announcement back in January. I had been playing Fight Night Round 3 for over 2 years now and was ready for a new boxing game.  Prizefighter as it turned out, was not the answer. While it did have a great story mode, the sluggish controls, recycled characters, extremely weak sound effects and a brutally punishing/cheap AI serve to make Prizefighter one of the first letdowns of 2008. FaceBreaker on the other hand, had a cartoony charm of its own which I couldn’t resist. It’s unique characters coupled with a more wacky take on the boxing genre might have made for a fun party game, had the gameplay been a little better. In many ways, Facebreaker is the opposite of Prizefighter. While Prizefighter encourages slow calculated punches (apparently your boxers cant throw a punch without passing out from exhaustion), FaceBreaker requires furious button mashing . In the end, I traded both games back in and got my Fight Night Round 3 back, you’re better off doing the same.

Nintendo vs. Sega, Sony vs. Microsoft, Gears of War vs Resistance, the videogame industry is never short on rivalries. Videogame forums are filled with posts of people explaining the differences between the current generation systems and making arguments as to the superior of the two. Read the rest of this entry »