Ah, the good old days. Before the internet was constantly providing deluges of information whether you wanted them or not. Before the launch of a game could coincide with the point where people were fed up with the backlash, and the backlash to the backlash, and just beginning on the backlash to the backlash to the backlash. Before all of that, there was a real chance for the delight of discovery. Going off just a few tiny, tantalising screenshots in a magazine, or a bit of artwork and a blurb on a cassette box, you could buy a game and be blown away when it turned out to do so much more than you had imagined.
Or you could go to WH Smith, spend your hard-earned £3.99 on something new, and then discover that it was a game you had already played years ago, masquerading under a different title.
That happened to enough players of Pro Boxing Simulator for Code Masters to need to go through apologies, refunds and a re-issue which make the game’s origins more transparent. Their devious practice, though, helped it to become, for at least a week, the best-selling game in the country. It’s also certainly… interesting to note that the publisher responsible for this ruse is one of the very few British companies of the time that’s still successfully in games even today.
There is a lot of irony in the original name of the game at the centre of the deception – By Fair Means or Foul. It’s obvious which bold choice Code Masters made on that question. The name also hints rather strongly that the game may be an unlikely fit for the serious, accurate tone suggested by its alternative name Pro Boxing Simulator, a name given to turn it into part of an ongoing popular Code Masters series.
The hint is correct. By Fair Means or Foul is a comic take on boxing in which you take on opponents like Mild Martin and Deadly Dan. Black, white, purple, without that being their defining feature, its characters serve as a reminder to the Punchout!s and Frank Bruno’s Boxings of the world that you can create ridiculous fighters without resorting to racial stereotypes. Your character takes them on from a distant side-on view, the better to show more of the crowd and big speech bubbles shouting things like “Get him again!”. And to see where the referee is. This is important because the game allows some less than fair moves like headbutts and groin kicks, and as long as the referee isn’t looking at that moment it’s fair game.
The fighting plays out in a slightly blocky and slow way, but the daft interjections help turn it into an entertaining bit of fluff. As By Fair Means or Foul, openly advertising its silliness, it’s a throwaway bargain basement success. As Pro Boxing Simulator, foul wrapped in a facade of fair, hoping no referee is looking? That’s another matter. For players in the decades since, many things have got worse, but some things were best left in the old days.
