Format: Sega CD
Genre: Full Motion Video
Developer: Digital Pictures
Publisher: Sega

One knows a video game is on the wrong track, full-stop, when any discussion about the title's graphics becomes an analysis instead of cinematography; indeed, this is one of those dreadful full motion video games which plagued the first part of the nineties. That said, the black and white aesthetic, characterizations, and acting styles are clearly homage to, let's say, the 1930s, and they even managed to get the choreographer from the "Rocky" films to do the directing, along with famed ring announcer Michael Buffer to introduce the boxers.

The best part about Prize Fighter is its audio: the actor's voices, the sound of the bell, and scuffle of the boxers' feet are totally immersive, coming out of the speakers with crystal clarity! The music used during certain pre-and-post match interludes fit the scenes really well, as does the memorable title theme song.

The intrinsic problem with full motion video games is that there are actually two elements layered together: the sprites or polygons, which the player controls, and the video, which the player does not. There is no way, even from a theoretical perspective, to get the two to match up-- only approximations can be made. In Prize Fighter, this manifests in no even remote visual rhyme or reason as to what constitutes a hit or not, since the fist sprites aren't actually making contact with literal hit boxes, as would be the case in a conventional video game.

In a very remote, abstract sense, Prize Fighter is a neat idea: it is very well directed and choreographed! Even this reviewer, the ultimate sceptic, was sweating bullets during his first fight, so disturbing is it viewing a boxing match, with a hostile antagonist, from the first-person! But that quickly gave way to first amusement, then abject frustration, as the inherent conceptual flaws in full motion video games led to this disc getting KO'ed right back into its case.