Contender

"Potential," said Pittsburgh Penguins coach Kevin Constantine, "is synonymous with getting your ass kicked."

That colorful analogy is an apt one to describe Contender, Sony's new PlayStation boxing release. While the game's nicer features do indeed give it potential, it's probably not enough to stave off a TKO from its main rival-EA Sports' Knockout Kings.

Fittingly, Contender places the player in the role of a young boxer at the bottom of the local ranks. As fighters battle their way up the ranks, they progress to the National and World circuits, with the ultimate goal of becoming the World Champ.

The game sports some fairly nice if cartoony graphics, and player control is smooth and responsive. Seven different camera views include a first-person perspective as well as numerous third-person angles.

But Contender's main flaw is the way it treats the sweet science. While the manual implores players to value strategy over all-out offense-and, indeed, frantic button-mashers will quickly find themselves flat on the canvas-the computer opponents fight with gimmicky styles a la Mike Tyson's Punch Out.

While memorizing the attack patterns of the artificial boxers may bring back reminiscences of the eight-bit classic, the personalities that made Glass Joe and Bald Bull memorable are missing here. Add in the Street Fighter-like special punches and the result is a very schizophrenic take on boxing.

There is a head-to-head mode, but the fact that the four selectable fighters available are identical suggests the career mode is clearly the focus. Players can load boxers from the career mode for use in versus play, but since those fighters only start out with-yep, that's right-potential, they'll probably want to build up their attributes before putting them in the ring against their buddies.

Unfortunately, that's probably more trouble than it's worth. The world's top boxers have always combined style and substance, but Contender doesn't have enough of either to fight its way to the top.