This follow-up to the original, acclaimed Rocky takes a slightly different tack to that game, with many of the fights on the streets or in dirty gyms as it follows the stories of some of the fighters from the movies. Features 40 fighters and around 25 arenas to fight in Rocky Legends displays a reasonable amount of variety and a large tie-in with all five movies.

The Career Mode is the main mode in Rocky Legends. Four characters from the movies can be chosen, with Rocky Balboa, Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, and Ivan Drago all available from the outset. Each character's career plays slightly differently, with different cut-scenes telling their story from their beginnings to the top of their game. The attempt to inject a story in between the fighting works well, and largely adheres to the movies, and with four different careers the mode is quite a solid one.

In between each fight in the career mode is the opportunity for training. Nine training mini-games are included in Legends, each working on different attributes. Sessions including chin-ups, skipping, punch mitts, and working on the heavy bag allow players to upgrade the skills of their fighter, as well as providing a neat diversion between fights. A two-player mode for training is also available, making these mini-games something quite competitive.

As well as the main Career mode there are various other modes to fight in, including a stand-alone tournament, multiplayer fights and a tough Survival mode. Players also get the opportunity in most of these modes to play as one of the other minor fighters in the game. It would have been good to see some sort of custom fighter feature utilised though, as the largely anonymous roster of fighters offers little appeal outside the story. This, sadly, affects the appeal of these other modes as well. It really is the Rocky story that is tying the game together, with the fighting not quite strong enough to stand on its own, so modes outside the Career mode are not so engaging.

The fighting itself sticks to the style developed in the first Rocky game, with the face buttons controlling the basic shots. Blocks and uppercuts are activated with the shoulder buttons, with body position able to be adjusted slightly with the left analogue stick for better positioning. Unfortunately blocking and moving at the same time is not possible. Moving is also hindered by not having an easy quick dodge ability, which some of the opponents in fights appear to have. This makes circling an opponent especially tricky, sometimes resulting in leaving one side exposed while moving.

The control system is fairly easy to pick up, although not that intuitive. The positioning of shots, or slowly wearing your opponent down is not so important as completing combos. Various button combinations form dozens of possible combos of up to six hits, with the complete command list looking quite impressive. For boxing fans this unfortunately positions the game closer to Tekken than a real boxing game, but it is no less fun for this.

After each bout players earn money depending on their performance in the fight. This money can then be used to unlock one of the many unlockable bonuses available in Rocky Legends. These include extra arenas, boxers, modes and even trailers from all five Rocky films. The range of things to be unlocked is quite good, although the trailers from the movies left us wanting more of the movies able to be bought.

Visually, Rocky Legends adheres pretty closely to the movies, with accurate representations of the main boxers looking quite good. The various arenas also look the part although the sparseness of some, such as the MGM Grand, and the half-hearted crowd do put a dampener on this slightly. During a bout the boxers move well, and display fairly good collision detection. There is also a good amount of body and facial degradation during the course of a fight, showing the damage taken by each boxer. This is displayed even better in the various slow-motion replays in each fight, making victory a little bit more sweeter.

The sound in the game is generally fairly good as well. Music and themes from the movies add authenticity, and also a reminder how great some of the soundtracks actually were. The bouts are generally silent apart from the boxing sound effects though, with the crowd only occasionally becoming vocal and a total lack of commentator. This does become a little disconcerting, as does the total lack of sound when first entering an arena, despite the crowd looking like they are cheering. Unfortunately the voices do not match the likenesses of the characters, with other actors filling in for the real thing.

As a boxing game, Rocky Legends does not fare so well, with little grounding in real boxing and occasionally lagging control spoiling what could have been a great fighter. Unfortunately the presence of footage from the films just serves to accentuate this. The multiplayer game makes up a lot for this, with some quite exciting matches possible. This though just makes the absence of an online mode even more disappointing.