It has every feature to make it the must-have boxing game for next-generation consoles. It has great graphics, promising gameplay and wacky characters to keep it entertaining.

Unfortunately "Black & Bruised" got knocked out tripping over the ropes and never even made it to the first round.

At first appearance, this game is dazzling. It's completely cell-shaded (a cartoonish appearance) and is very fluid in animation. With 14 varying boxers, an additional five unlockable characters and respectful ringside locations for each, this game had promise.

Little details in the graphics department made it enjoyable to watch, including different dazed rings to match each character's personality. Holly D Vixen, a sexy mechanic, has wrenches circling her noggin' while Tiny, a 6-foot-9 lumberjack, has axes. During matches, players' faces bruise and swell, and during the player selection the characters' facial expressions are always changing - nice touches for fresh presentation.

Gameplay, however, falls very, very short of hitting the mark.

There are four punch buttons, a block button and a button to punch or block low. The tutorial mode teaches everything a person needs to know to play the game, including how to execute combos. Unfortunately, there isn't much to learn and a combo is just pressing buttons. Order doesn't matter.

So basically, this game doesn't come down to skill - it's the person with the fastest thumb who wins. And that plain sucks.

In an attempt to spruce up gameplay (keyword: attempt), Majesco included a power meter, which actually does its job adequately. Building it up allows players to snag randomized power-ups ranging from straightforward damage power-ups to some wacky inverse items that hurt foes as you gain strength.

But with redundant one-line characters, the game grows old in a matter of minutes. Characters annoyingly repeat the same things. And for some reason, they're not funny. What the heck went wrong?

The truth of the matter is "Black & Bruised" has too many factors missing to make it a worthy game.

It desperately needs finishing moves to make the end of matches interesting, it blatantly needs more oomph in speech variation to bring the characters' personalities to life and definitely needs more depth in play mechanics to keep matches addictive rather than the boring and straightforward title it turned out to be.

If you have a thing for Saturday morning cartoons though, you might appreciate this game for what it is. Pretty to watch, but ridiculously monotonous to play.