Realsports Boxing

Back in 1988 Atari was in trouble, the Atari 5200 and Atari 7800 had largely flopped. Their home computers were losing steam, and even the arcade division was doing poorly. So, they had a bright idea, and that bright idea was "Lets bring back the Atari 2600." The TurboGrafx 16 was already doing well in Japan, and everyone knew the Sega Genesis was on the horizon. For some reason Atari still thought a rerelease of the 2600 was the future of their company. Not only did they put out a new batch of consoles, they also put out a brand new crop of games for them. This was one of them.

This Boxing title for the Atari 2600 is your basic simple slugfest. nothing more, nothing less. This is one of the third wave of Atari games, so the graphics are a little better than your standard Atari stick figures. The eight people who rushed out to buy this game all agreed that it was graphically superior to the old Activision "Boxing" title, but that it wasn't nearly as fun. All eight purchasers threw their Atari systems out the window upon being shown the already year old Nintendo title "Mike Tyson's Punch Out. Rumor has it that all remaining copies of this game were brought out to the desert a few miles from the pile of GM EV1 carcasses where they were haphazardly thrown on top of the millions of copies of Ishtar on VHS and E.T. for the Atari 2600.

You've got incredible heart and a live right lead. Show 'em your staying power! Punch Iron Fists around the ring for the total seven rounds. Or rain blows on Macho Man 'til you've got him up against the ropes. A flurry of payoff punches puts away Jabbin' Jack. And Lefty O'Leary goes down with a body blow inside and low. It's a capacity crowd tonight - and you've got top billing! Take the Boxing title on a decision or go for the knock out. Duke it out!

This game is valued at around $3 USD. Games with boxes and manuals are worth more. I beg you not to buy this. This game and the rerelease of the Atari 2600 was a monumental failure. The only good things to come out of the Atari 2600 rerelease were Midnight Magic and Solaris. This one is neither, so there is no reason to dig Atari up out of its grave and pee all over it by playing this game. Spend your $3 on a copy of Mike Tyson's Punch Out instead, you will actually play that.