Don King is certainly a colorful character. He comes across as a flamboyant charlatan, selling his brand of boxing and impressive stable of fighters to America while simultaneously sidestepping controversy and sometimes the law. This is all done in stride, with his flashy smile and signature coif ever-present and his propaganda machine always set to “on.” He’s a walking dichotomy of the good and bad in sports. In a lot of ways, Don King’s Prizefighter is a reflection of the man himself.

The game oozes high production values, with the highlight being a deep and interesting story mode that encompasses not only boxing, but the fight game itself. Videos and cut scenes with some “C” list celebrities, journalists, promoters, agents, other boxing personalities, even Don King himself, as well as interactions via your PDA, tell the story in a documentary-like fashion.

You make decisions regarding your training and your promotion that impact your stats and media profile, which force you to balance improving your skills and image in order to earn the big money and face the top competition. However, beyond the story mode, there is no career mode. There’s only one linear story arc, and it requires you to be a heavyweight fighter. Once you finish your career, you’re left with exhibition fights, online play, or playing the same story over again with a new fighter.

The fighting action shows glimpses of a fun, but ultimately the lack of fluid and responsive controls fails to prevent the game from becoming a button-mashing fest. You can hit on the move (either stepping in or stepping around), and punch out of a defensive posture. You can breakdown an opponent’s guard by bludgeoning it while he’s covering up, or by maximizing the innovative adrenaline meter to give yourself about 10 seconds of maximum abilities. Flash knockdowns happen, and they happen at a seemingly realistic clip, so you see a better representation of a one-punch knockout than in other boxing games.

The problem is that there’s just no rhythm or “feel” to the boxing. Even at full health and stamina, your fighter plods around the ring. At times, there’s an inexplicable delay between what you want your fighter to do and what happens on the screen. When this happens, it feels almost like the fighting is turn-based. Also, seemingly innocuous hook punches will make your fighter slump to the side and do nothing for a couple of seconds. Being stunned by a punch adds realism to the fighting action, but this effect is too dramatic.