Mike Tyson's PUNCHOUT!!
(Nintendo, 1988)
When I was young kid growing up in the 1980's Mike Tyson was the man. Back then he was a soft spoken but unstoppable force that was knocking out guys left and right plus back then he was even undefeated with a huge 30 something and 0 record (then he lost to Buster Douglas from that crappy Sega game but I'm jumping ahead of myself here). I was also a big fan of Nintendo's arcade game Punchout where you would fight 6 increasingly difficult cartoonish boxers to try and win the world championship. Now imagine hearing the news that Nintendo was making a Punchout game for the Nintendo Entertainment System starring Mike Tyson! Me and my brother nearly crapped our pants and we got it as soon as it came out and were not disappointed..... well, kinda.
In the game you actually don't play as Tyson himself but a 3ft tall midget named Little Mac. Although the idea of playing a little guy fighting giant full size boxers doesn't sound too appealing, one thing that made Punchout so much fun was the game's excellent and easy to use controls that anyone could master. I thought it was lame that you couldn't pause the game but you can at least get the chance to perform a powerful jumping super blow once you hit the Start button but only if you strike the opponent a certain way (usually by counter attacks). If you are expecting just to throw a bunch of punches and button mash away too like in lamer boxing video games you'll just become tired here. In this mode you'll turn completely pink and won't be able to throw a punch and your opponent will beat you to a pulp unless you dodge the hits to get back to normal again.