Legends of Boxing - New Fighter Career

As I mentioned in my prior post, I'm going to start a new fighter for the game Legends of Boxing.  I'm using the Career Campaign Add-on plus some randomizers from the web to create my fighter.

First, I Googled a random name generator and grabbed a random name for my fighter.  Meet Neal Burns.  I found another site that gives random heights and weights and determined Neal is 5'9" and 161 pounds.  Looks like Mr. Burns is a Super Middleweight.  Since 10% of the population is left handed, I rolled two ten sided dice to determine a percentage and Neal is right-handed.  Finally, I found a site that randomly generates a city and found out Neal is from Boise, ID.  None of this stuff is actually important for the game, but I figured it would be fun.

Now to the meat of my fighter - his stats.  Neal is a Physical fighter.  Fighters are rated in 12 categories with most of the ratings being from 1 to 10.  Each fighter is given a control rating vs both types of fighters.  Neal's control rating vs other physical fighters is 6 and vs tactical fighters is 5.  His defense rating is 2 (uh oh), power is 5, durability of 7, chin is 2 (double ouch), cut of 6, will of 9, and with 6 TKO points.  He's got a -3 finisher rating, a dirty foul rating, and 23 endurance.

Finally, there are four modes of fighting: Elusive, Outside, Inside, and Pressure.  Neal never uses the elusive mode.  He spends the majority of his time fighting Outside or Pressuring his opponent.  He occasionally fights inside.  His primary punch is the straight and his secondary punch is an uppercut.  I decided to start Neal out at the age of 18.

His first fight was against Benjamin West of Colorado Springs, CO.  The regional matches are scheduled for four rounds.  Benjamin is a tactical fighter with pretty good defense and decent power. His endurance is a bit low which could come into play even in a four round bout.

Round 1: Neal is feeling excited over his first professional fight and immediately pressures Benjamin who is fighting Outside.  Neal immediately lands a hard Cross, followed by a scoring straight.  Both fighters trade punches for a bit then West lands a jab.  Some more even exchanges followed by a hook by West, then a hook by Burns and finally another hook by West at the bell.  A close round that is scored 8-7 which all three judges give the round to Neal 10-9!

Round 2:  Both fighters maintain their modes from the first round. This round doesn't go nearly so well for our new boxer although things look like they're going to be good as the usually clean fighting West is warned for a minor foul.  This is followed by a period of blocked and missed punches before Burns lands a scoring straight.  Some more blocks and misses and West lands a devastating straight followed by a scoring cross.  Burns recovers a bit and there's an even flurry of strong scoring blows from both fighters.  West manages to regain control at the end of the round scoring a Cross and a nice hook.  West wins the round 9 points to 3 and all 3 judges agree.  West 10-9 on all cards.

Round 3:  Once again, both fighters maintain their starting modes.  This pivotal round gets started with Burns landing a nice uppercut, followed by a cross by West, and finally a combination by Burns.  Both fighters juke and move a bit before Burns lands a straight.  After an even exchange in which both fighter score, Burns lands a nice cross.  Most of the final minute both fighters just Juke and move.  Burns wins this round 7-2 and two of the three judges see it that way.  Somehow Judge #2 scores the round for West.

Round 4:  Neal continues to pressure and West is fighting elusively.  Going into the round, West is starting to feel the effects of fatigue.  Burns comes right out and scores a straight, then West does a good job of making Burns miss on an uppercut, followed by Burns scoring a nice straight.  After an even exchange, Neal lands a hook followed by a strong straight at which point the ref stops the right with Burns winning by TKO at 1:56 of the 4th round.

Very cool.  Expect to see further recaps as Neal Burns attempts to climb the ranks of the Supper Middleweights.

Legends of Boxing Review

I came across this game yesterday and was immediately brought back to my Junior High years back in the early 80's.  My dad had a game called Title Bout which was a boxing simulation game.  I'd seen it in the game closet, but I'd never seen my dad play it.  Well, one day, I was "sick" and stayed home from school.  I asked my dad if I could play Title Bout and he said that's fine as long as I didn't expect him to play with me.

I devoured the rules and set out to replay a match of Muhammed Ali vs Sonny Liston.  The rules were poorly written, but they seemed to capture the feel of boxing.  I think I ran three matches over the course of that day.  I played a bit more, but my Junior High attention span quickly gravitated to something else.

Well, yesterday when I heard of Legends of Boxing, I figured I had to give it a shot especially when I heard the price!  The game is completely free.  There's a 10 page rule "book", four pages of various charts, a scoresheet, and a few optional downloads.  The game can be played with either dice or a downloadable FAC deck.

There is an optional download called the Fighter Ratings Workbook that has over 1450 fighter ratings plus automates the scoresheet process.  It also allows you to print fighter cards.  I haven't even delved into that yet because one of the other downloads caught my interest - the Career Campaign Add-on.

With this Add-on, you can create your own fighter and take him through a career.  Rules are given for generating your fighter's stats and there are rules for creating the opponents for your fighter.  Your fighter starts off fighting regionally and if successful, will move up to fight nationally.  If your fighter competes favorably on the national level, he will then fight internationally.  Check back later and you can follow my fighter's progress though the ranks.

Overall, this game is a great deal of fun and seems to capture the feel of boxing.  A quick check of the boxers rated in the Fighter Ratings Workbooks looks like the fighters are pretty well done.  The game focuses more on simulating matches than strategic decision making.  That said the game is very fun.  You could run a heavyweight tournament to see who is the best heavyweight of all time.  Or you can replay some of you favorite fights.  It's absolutely free to download and I highly recommend this game to anyone interested in boxing games.

Legends of Boxing can be downloaded at http://legendsofboxing.tabletop-sports.com/lob_home.htm