My palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, nervous, but on the surface, I looks calm and ready...
The immortal words of Eminem sum up nicely how it feels to dive fist first into Knockout League, a rambunctious boxing/fitness game from Vive Studios and Grab Games (of John Wick Chronicles fame). And when I say fitness, I’m not kidding. After a few rounds with my coach, a sassy droll eyed caricature of every boxing movie trope mixed into one, my forehead is damp and I’m starting to breathe harder. If you want realism, look elsewhere, but if you want to immerse yourself in a full-on fighting ring fantasy, sign right up.
The gameplay here is arcade style, facing off against different opponents, unlocking new ones as you progress through different bouts. Before I rushed into that I took the tutorials, where Coach Doug Johnson, taught me different fighting moves, from blocks to uppercuts and right hooks. “Let’s see what you got young blood!” he hollered, in a gravelly growl that somehow doesn't get old.
As you get more experienced, you can raise your level of difficulty, and also count on more calories burned as well. Yes, this is a VR game with a calorie counter, one that uses your height (calculated by the headset) combined with your weight input and the speed of your arm movements to give an estimate of calories burned. The result is a raucous riot through a ridiculous world, where a sucker punch to a pirate can leave you victorious. And sweaty.
The VR Health Institute estimates that playing Knockout League burns 8-10 calories a minute. At some point, this calorie counting mechanism will get more sophisticated — adding in the option for gender selection, for example, as men and women tend to burn calories at different rates due to muscle mass. Working out in virtual reality is something I’ve been testing out for a while — you can read my one month review of the VirZOOM bike here — and I love the whole ‘no pain while you game’ approach to exercise as anything that can turn a chore into an addiction is something to pay attention to. That said, this isn't always done right, and form factor of headsets does always mean you have an extra amount of sweat to deal with — hygiene wise, invest in some washable covers for your VR headset.
Where some VR fitness games fall short is when they’re obviously about working out, but here it feels like the play element is first and foremost. The UI feels incredibly intuitive on the Vive and while my reaction times could use work as I was bopped in the head a bunch before I learned to speed up my reflexes, I never felt confused or dizzy. Different opponents fight with different moves, so one second you’re bobbing and weaving and next, you’re blocking and crouching. Two boxing gloves are superimposed over your controllers, and while you may feel like you want to pull the trigger, that does not affect the gameplay at all.
Grab Games creative director Hans Vancol said that the game was not originally designed as a fitness tool, but when the team saw how players were getting real workouts from this, they decided to ramp up those features, tailoring different characters to provide different types of workouts.
He said they had to be cognizant not to over complicate the characters, so people didn't feel to wiped out and not want to play them anymore. “We’re starting with the game first mentality, and then fitness is secondary,” he said. If you want a more exhausting game, Scurvy the saber wielding pirate is a good place to start, as it requires around 40% of your moves to involve squats and leaning to the side — just think of your butt and obliques after a few rounds! “By the time you’re done you’ve spent a lot of energy,” said Vancol.
One thing that helps with the fatigue is the music tempo, something the developers focused on when mapping out the different levels. “We looked at movies like Rocky [and] the types of music they were using when it was high-intensity action and when they had training montages,” creative director Harold Vancol said. “We want to keep the pace of the music appropriate to the activity. The music will change based on where you are in the fight and how well you’re doing — we feel that we got music that amps you up and keeps you on your toes.”
This attention to detail is one of the many reasons why this is such a fun game to play. For example, when I got punched multiple times in a row, my vision started to blur, the world around me fuzzing and fading as it would in real life (I assume). When I finally knocked my opponent down to the floor, their energy bar depleted, I had to raise my arms way above my head for a count of five to receive cheers — and hopefully, a full-on win. I felt a little self-conscious doing this — remember, I was in a room full of people — but the cheers helped level put that embarrassment. I had destroyed him after all (on easy mode).
There’s also a number of side games to play — while pounding pirates and tea-drinking Octopus is clearly the main element, these have a fun training aspect to them, letting you hone your skills and get some Just Dance style arm swinging going. These include pummelling a speed bag, trying to get your fists synchronized, which is harder than it sounds. To make sure this felt natural the developers said they had a bag in their office and made all the engineers train on it so they’d get a real sense of how it should feel. Then there’s Reflex Alley, a Fruit Ninja-esque game where you duck, block or slice (OK, slam) assorted items that are thrown at you.
The game came out of early access mode on Feb 13, and according to Joel Breton, Vive’s VP of global VR content, the pre-Valentine’s day launch was a happy accident; not a suggestion that the lonely might want to take out their pain this way.
Knockout League has the distinction of being a new game and one that a number of people have already played, as it's been in early access mode for around a year now. It's available on every VR platform simultaneously, basically, Oculus, Steam Viveport and PSVR. Breton said Vive is moving away from exclusive platform-centric content, and this year a number of old games should port over as well a making room for some exciting new releases. “We won’t force content into a platform that won't work so we’ll look at each platform and see what makes sense.” In terms of future plans, he said that it's not impossible that a Vive Tracker boxing glove bundle might be released — an easier way to incorporate the tracker than having consumers calibrate it individually.
Things to consider: This is a room scale game without strictly being rooms scale. While you are standing and move slightly during gameplay there’s no running around or locomotion as there is in games like Arizona Sunshine or Robo Recall — the main physical action is your hands pumping and your body leaning side to side. On the plus side, that means no dizziness and no motion sickness, and a longer gameplay time. It’s extremely satisfying when you knock out your opponent — especially if you dodge their swing and rain blows on their face, but this could get a little repetitive after a while — hence the developers saying they’ll update with new downloadable content, with possibly new characters etc. in the future.
Boxing and Virtual reality gaming is an obvious fit in so many ways— handheld controls, head tracking etc., that Knockout League isn't the only boxing VR game in the space. Floyd Mayweather Jr. demoed his own VR boxing game at CES 2018 this year and plans to roll it out into Mayweather boxing gyms this year. This looks to be a more hyper-realistic version that Knockout League, with less fighting octopi and more battling against recognizable boxer avatars. Plus the occasional catchphrase, “I’m the champ.”
For the Grab team, the surrealness is part of the joy of the gameplay. “You get an experience you can't get elsewhere, you can’t go to a boxing gum and fight an octopus,” says Vancol. “That’s an advantage VR will always have, to create experiences close to real life but to do things you won't find in real life.”
But whether you opt for the arcade buzz or the bigger boxing thrill the VR world is big enough to accommodate both — so bring it on.
Get it for $29.99 on Steam and other platforms.
