First Impressions: The Thrill of the Fight (OQ2/MQ2)

The Thrill of the Fight

Systems: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest 2 / Meta Quest

Release Date:  July 1, 2016

Publisher: Sealost Interactive LLC

Developer: Sealost Interactive LLC

The Thrill of the Fight is a virtual reality boxing game that is criminally under-priced.  Granted, I have not played any other virtual boxing game so everything I have to say here will be from the context that this is the only virtual reality boxing game I have played; also keep in mind that the most recently developed boxing game I have played before this was Super Punch-Out!!, developed by Nintendo R&D3 and Locomotive Corporation back in 1994.  So it has been some time since I have played any kind of boxing game.  This is where I am coming from.

There were a couple of factors that led me to buy The Thrill of the Fight.  The first was the game's humble-brag description: it is a "... down-to-earth VR boxing game focused on authenticity."  The closest I have ever been to people actively boxing was back in 2004 while taking a fencing course as we were using a gym that was also being used that week by a boxing class.  The second important factor was that the game is regularly sold for $9.99, but was on sale for $6.99, so I thought that if I lost $7.00 on a subpar boxing VR game, then it wouldn't be the end of the world.  I would still be annoyed and upset at having spent any money on something that I did not have fun playing, but I could live through the error.  Plus the game has a current rating of 4.8 stars from 8,920 ratings and 5,274 reviews felt like a good indication that I was getting a pretty decent game.

But I did have fun.  I booted up The Thrill of the Fight, weighed in [which is just so that game can approximate your height so you are not fighting someone two feet shorter/taller than you (although now I may see what I can do about that. . .)], and decided that I did not want to do any of the warm-up activities like speedball or punching bag, I wanted to jump right in so I went up against you sparring buddy, who we will call Chuck.  Chuck is essentially a portly fellow who will punch back but was designed to make you feel like Chuck is a bit of a chubby chump who you should in no way lose to.

The following two fighters I went up against I played on normal difficulty feeling that anything less would require me to turn in my machismo card and be laughed at by the overly critical voices in my head.  Also after my single round against Chuck, I legitimately felt that I could take on whatever kind of normal difficulty the game was going to throw at me.

All of the following was really just a preamble to say that after sparring with Chuck, and going up against the first two fighters Alexi, and Ugly Joe, and managing to win each fight, I came away with a couple of takeaways from the game.  The first is that you should probably set the Roomscale Guardian so that it is at least an arms length away from any walls, windows, or pianos because I found myself punching my virtual opponents with surprising gusto.  These were not just slaps or gentle cheek caresses, but full-on jabs (I have an office job where I sit at a desk all day unless I'm getting up for coffee or the bathroom, so they were accountant-level jabs).  But if your guardian boundary is a few inches from your real wall, like mine usually is, there is a very real chance that you could right-hook into a wall, shattering both the Oculus controller and your own knuckles.

After the first fight with Alexi I was actually pretty surprised by how much sweating I had done (I do wipe down the silicone cover on the Oculus, so you don't have to worry about whoever is reading this and who might end up using it in the near future... Dr. Potts).  I had to readjust the head strap a few times because the headset was becoming a little loose, possibly because of the sweat.  I also found that I was switching my stance a few times, favoring one shoulder over the other, depending on which arm was currently tiring out over the other.  

The last takeaway was that I am not necessarily out of shape, just that the muscles needed to virtually box someone with the required jab-speed to hit an opponent in the face between their gloves are not in very high rotation.  So the next day, my arms and shoulders were sore.  And by sore, I mean that they were sore for the next two days as well.  Yeah, after playing three rounds of Thrill of the Fight, I had to not play it for three consecutive days because my arms were telling me that I would be unable to even topple Chuck in one round.

I am not claiming that The Thrill of the Fight is a substitute for a legitimate workout. I am positive that I could probably injure myself because I have no idea if I am throwing a punch correctly or not, or at least in a way that I won't end up injuring myself.  I just had a lot of fun virtually punching virtual opponents in a way that left me sore for three days.

There were a couple of things that did give me pause though.  The first is that in each of the matches, you are surrounded by a small crowd of people that seem to use one of three models with slight variations in skin color and hair color.  But all of the men in the audience are essentially the same and all of the women are the same.  All of the men cheer at the same time and alternate with the women, who also cheer at the same time.  If you are looking for realistic audiences, then you will be severely underwhelmed.  The second thing and this could just be because the lighting wasn't quite right in our living room, but it felt like some of my punches didn't land or passed through my opponent.  Maybe the angle was just off?  This will require some additional looking into under varied lighting circumstances because it obviously is not my amateur boxing ability that could be in question.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian