GamerNode: Columns - Da Skool of Hard Knocks - Tyson STYLE!

Da Skool of Hard Knocks - Tyson STYLE!

It was not until much later in my life that I had come to the realization that I had played Mike Tyson's Punch out before I ever owned or rented the game.  I must have been only four or five when I first played the game at the local arcade.  The game caught my eye because of the unusual green wireframe character on the screen that represented Little Mac, or in this case, "The Challenger."  Me and my young mind, however, translated the images based on the formula: ugly is bad and not so ugly is good.  I suppose it was the color, but there was something about that wireframe challenger that instantly spoke "bad guy" to me.  Once I found a chair to stand on, I popped in a quarter and pounded those punch buttons like there was no tomorrow. 

With every open hand smackdown on the punch buttons I was certain I was moving closer to victory.  The green monster was getting hit more and more and I, the more human-looking boxer, barely had taken a scratch.  Left, Right, High, Low, I was throwing everything at the evil wire man and then, with one final flurry of blood-vessel-breaking smacks, the green wire monster went down...and did not get up.  I thought for certain I had won, but now the machine was asking me for more money, which I did not have.  How could an arcade machine ask you for more money if you didn't die?  It seemed to make no sense.  Thankfully my older cousin was there to explain the situation.  This is the same cousin who would also eventually inform me that Santa Claus is not real, so I'm sure she took some twisted pleasure in enlightening me and my five-year-old ignorance.  "Um George, you do know you're actually the green guy on the bottom...?"  My eyes widened as reality sent a sudden jolt through my body. It was as if someone had just kicked me in the head with the "You idiot" boot.  OUCH!

Mike Tyson's Punch Out: First game to give you "NINJA HANDS"

Mike Tyson's Punch Out was the first good boxing game I ever played, with characters like Glass Joe, King Hippo, and of course, Little Mac.  I may be going out on a limb, but I think I can say with a fair amount of confidence that this game is timeless.  This game was fun when I bought it and was fun again in college some ten years later.  Once you get good at this game, your hands become quick and precise as they dance across the gamepad.  At its most frustrating, this is a game where a player can get stuck losing to the same boxer for an extended time.  I may have first played the game when I was ten, but it was not until ten years later that I could actually claim to have beaten "Iron Mike."  Despite the game's gradual rise in difficulty, reaching its height with the previously mentioned "Iron Mike," there is something quite addictive to throwing the one-two to the same opponents over and over (or in my case getting laughed at by all the opponents I lost to).

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