Iron Fist Boxing 3rd Strike

Throughout the history of boxing there have been many fighters who have possessed the swagger, displayed the confidence, and boasted the appearance of a true champion.

All the showboating in the world can’t help you if you happen to have a glass jaw and the punching power of a 12-year-old girl - as many of these pitiful pretenders have discovered, to their ruin.

Iron Fist Boxing 3rd Strike shares a lot in common with these unfortunate also-rans. It looks fantastic and has some brilliant gameplay flourishes, but falls flat on the canvas soon after the initial punches are thrown.

Like a young rookie in top physical condition, the game is visually stunning. Character models burst with detail, animations are smooth, and little touches such as spraying blood and grotesquely painful facial expressions help round off a superb visual package.

It’s one of the first games to truly make use of the added muscle of iPhone 3GS and third generation iPod touch devices. Even when running on the older handsets it still looks positively gorgeous.

The game starts to show its inexperience, though, when it comes to the combination touch and tilt control scheme. While punches and blocks are easily handled, the recovery controls are nothing short of ruinous.

Punches are executed by tapping areas of the screen. To launch a fist at your opponent’s head, you tap the either the top-left or top-right portion of the screen. Attacks to your foe’s abdomen are performed by touching the bottom left or right hand side of the display.

More powerful attacks are executed by tilting your handset left or right and then tapping as normal. These blows deal more damage but take longer to perform.

Finally, there are special attacks that are unique to each character. These require gestures that require a charging time. Another proviso is that your stamina bar - eaten away whenever you attack, recharging over time - has to be full to execute one of these attacks.

Of course, boxing isn’t just about raining a succession of blows on your opponent until they submit - they hit back. You can block or dodge punches by holding a button located in the bottom-left corner and tilting your handset in the desired direction.

Other abilities such as a Matrix-style slow-motion mode and a Mortal Kombat-esque finisher which is possible only after filling a star meter help add depth to the proceedings. Amazingly, there’s still not enough variety to prevent the action from becoming repetitive, and things get even worse when you hit the floor.

Recovering from a knockout is a matter of tilting your device to get your boxer vertical again. While seemingly simple, it's frustratingly broken. Tilting never seems to work effectively, and when you consider you’ve got to get your boxer upright in less than ten seconds it’s a near-impossible task.

It’s a shame such a glaring flaw exists because it undoes all of the hard work elsewhere. Career mode allows you to unlock additional characters (a whopping 32 in total) as well as new costumes. Mini-games such as Punch Bag, Punchometer, and Speed Bag are as shallow as a puddle, though they offer the potential for high score competitions with friends.

Indeed, getting acquaintances on board is another area in which Iron Fist Boxing excels by offering both online and Bluetooth multiplayer modes. The trouble is such fights are painfully short because the loser is usually the first one to hit the deck thanks to the sheer impossibility of recovering from a knockout.