In this ongoing look at significant moments in the history of video game design, we have already taken a look at Bungie’s Halo, Bioware’s MDK2, Bethesda’s Morrowind and several others. The goal of this series is to go beyond simple gaming magazines and iPhone app reviews, and take a closer look at what defines memorability and quality in game design. In this seventh part of the series we will examine some more of those classic moments where video game designers undoubtedly got it right and delivered a memorable, enduring and progressive gaming experience.

Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out (MTPO) (NES) – One of the only boxing games offered on the original Nintendo Entertainment System, MTPO was also by far the best. A variety of unforgettable characters, limited but memorable music and simple yet incredibly rewarding gameplay are but a few of the characteristics that make this game one of the all-time greats. However, as is requisite of this series, we must single out an aspect of MTPO to focus on and thusly compliment. For this purpose, we can quite easily and confidently point to the game’s incredibly smooth difficulty ramping and incredibly challenging – yet fair – final character battles.

MTPO starts out with a joke of an opponent, the aptly named Glass Joe. He exists purely as a tutorial tool. In this opening fight players learn how the buttons work and get a handle on the games control scheme. Just four fights later the players will be pitted against King Hippo, an opponent that could give player’s hours of fits if they were unable to figure out his particular exploit. However, the battle with King Hippo is a necessary one for the progression of the player. King Hippo is one of the game’s easiest characters to defeat, but only once his patter is identified. Up until this point in the game, players could defeat their opponents merely by keeping a steady stream of offense flowing and dodging at least some of the incoming attacks. Hippo alerted the players that, from this point on, they would have to keep their brains turned on and be on the lookout for exploitable patterns.

By the time the player battled their way to the final encounter with Mike Tyson himself, they were at least partially prepared for the championship bout. While the challenge of defeating Mike Tyson is dwarfed by the challenges that modern videogames present to today’s savvy players, in its time it was considered one of the stiffer boss battles in all of gaming. Tyson’s lightning fast punches could floor our hero, Little Mac, in a single blow. Many gamers were so committed to defeating Tyson, that they memorized the code that allows you to skip right to the final battle – 007-373-5963. Though some gamers were never able to topple the mighty Tyson, those that did were able to do so largely because of the skills they had developed in working their way up the ladder and mastering the pattern identifying and exploiting techniques required to defeat the games lesser combatants.

MTPO is such a fan favorite that it continues to be distributed by Nintendo to this day. Available through the Wii’s virtual console, and as a hidden game in the popular Nintendo title Animal Crossing, the game – now featuring Mr. Dream as the titular character – continues to entertain and impress gamers of all generations, and serves another example is classically executed game design.

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