Have you ever wanted to punch a digital Sylvester Stallone in the face? Well, now you can, thanks to developer Survios’ latest PlayStation title.
Creed: Rise to Glory is a VR boxing game set in the world of Rocky, seeing you pull on the gloves of Apollo Creed’s son Adonis “Hollywood” Creed.
The story pretty much follows the movie ‘Creed’ from a few years ago but as you would expect it only focuses on the fighting and training, not the family drama side of things from the movie, and just like the film after a few fights you start being trained by the legend that is Rocky Balboa.
Up to this point, there has only been one VR boxing game on the PSVR, the fun Knockout League which is great in its own right but Creed is just better than it on so many levels. First of all, it has the Rocky licence which allows it to use some of the classic scores from the Rocky movie, and if you are a fan of the movies like me the music really drives you forward when you’re up against it in a match.
You are trained by Rocky himself who is fully licenced and Stallone has lent his likeness to the project so it really does look like him standing there in front of you giving you advice and training you. It has montages, yes in the classic rocky fashion you will go the distance in fights but because the game is physically demanding there is a system in place where you go into a montage mode and the first to score a critical hit moves it onto the next round until you advance you to the final round.
The fighters are big and imposing and the PSVR does a great job of making it feel like they are right in your face, unlike Knockout league you are not routed to the spot and you can move around the ring by holding down the move buttons and swinging your arms back and forth and movement is key in the fights as you will be dodging and weaving looking for openings to land that knockout blow.
As you move through opponents you will start to fight in larger venues, the crowds are well animated and the game does a good job at making you feel the scale of the venue you are fighting in.
There is PVP in the game, unfortunately, due to me having a pre-release copy there was no one looking for fights when I tried so sadly I could not test this, the prospect of facing off against another person in real time sounds like a lot of fun.
There is also a quick match option where you can choose an opponent and fight if you don’t want to play the story and the PSVR edition gets an exclusive in the way of you being able to select a young rocky as the character you fight as rather than creed.
There is also a wide range of mini-games that you can access at any time that actually serve as a great way for you to work out, shadow boxing is a great form of exercise and many of the mini-games are basically just that as you will be punching bags, hitting specific targets or dodging swings from rocky with the punch mitts it’s a great way to get your heart rate going and you will definitely work up a sweat while playing the game.
There are difficulty options if you find the story mode a bit to easy but that will mainly come down to your own fitness levels but if like me you are a bit unfit the default difficulty it sets you will provide a fun if a tiring challenge.
It likely comes as no surprise to anyone that the game requires PS Move to play as you need to have a controller in each hand to throw punches, the game seems to use the accelerometers within the controller to detect how hard you are throwing your punches as it can tell the difference between a simple jab and a hard thrown punch.
While playing I never had any issues with tracking but you do tend to move around a fair bit while playing so it’s important to have a good amount of space around you to play this title and I’d recommend playing with a fan on because you will get hot fast with the VR on your head.
I really enjoyed playing this title and the developers have done a great job at making it feel like it’s set in the world of Rocky, the controls work well, the game is a great workout and it’s just a lot of fun to play.