What if Mike Tyson's Punch-Out biblically knew Doom? The result might look something like Boxing Fever, an intriguing new pugilistic GBA title from Majesco and young developer Digital Fiction.

The first thing I noticed after turning on Boxing Fever was the intro...it looks like hand-drawn, TV-quality animation. The second thing that sent an uppercut to my brain was that the in-game graphics look almost as good as that intro. The matches are played from a first-person perspective; all you see of your character are two boxing gloves, floating around in the air. (Whilst punching, you can see little streams of exhaust trailing out of the gloves, as if they contained rockets...a cool touch.)

The opponent sprite, which is apparently hand-drawn art of very high quality, takes up almost the whole screen. Tiny, the massive canadian boxer, is actually so large that your view only goes up to his chest! All of the fighters are very, very well animated, and it's a delight to see them jab, block, and dodge all over the screen. The "camera" is quite mobile, and due to the first-person perspective, the other guy (or gal!) can be all over the screen. It's a very distinct change from the NES classic Punch-Out, in which you played from a quasi-first-person view but never saw the perspective change or anything due to your movements. Rounding out the amazing visuals are the highly detailed crowd and backgrounds, and the humorous but very realistic special effects. After all, if you're seeing the game through the eyes of your boxer, it makes sense that everything blacks out when you take a hard lick, and that you have double-vision while recovering from a near-knock-out.

I'm hoping the game plays as well as it looks, and so far the prospects seem good. I am by no means a connoisseur of boxing, but the action certainly seems realistic enough. Mindlessly smashing buttons will quickly get you knocked the %*&$ out on all but the easiest difficulty levels, and your life appears to be linked to stamina, i.e. throwing punches continuously is not a good idea. I dunno, I still have to read the manual and learn some intricacies, but there seems to be a very solid gameplay engine underneath Boxing Fever's shiny hood. Watch for the final verdict in the near future.