Another company jumping onto the videogames industry T&A bandwagon? This generation of home consoles has seen companies crushed, giants grow and gamers getting older. I’m sure there are many of you, as the industry market research generally assents, that are in the same boat as myself – having been bought up on the NES, SNES, Mega Drive and Master System and now reached somewhere in the early-to-mid-20’s without receiving the square-eyes they all warned us about. So the likes of BMX XXX, Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude and Playboy: The Mansion are all aimed squarely at us and that big bag of testosterone we carry about, while the slightly more innocent girls from Dead Or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball seem to be keeping what little clothing they have on for that eager teen just falling short of the big red “18”. So exactly where does Rumble Roses fit in?

            Girls running, jumping, punching, kicking and rolling around in mud. That’s generally the gist of Konami’s newest B-list franchise. There is the basic Exhibition Mode, which allows one-off matches of the normal Ring, Mad Mud or Title Challenge based variety and a Story Mode, with ten buxom beauties (although the song-stress Aisha looks rather blokey compared to the other ladies at the best of times) selectable from the start. The Story Mode is actually rather ludicrous. Genetic mutations, cyborgs, vengeful singers and insane nurses maybe all good and well in an expansive Star Wars-esque universe… but in a wrestling ring? The mind boggles as to exactly how Konami thought they could get away with tacking such blatant “it’ll look good…” memory-fillers onto the disc, until you actually watch an episode of WWE.

            The Exhibition Mode, although the secondary “quick play” option in most games, is actually quite well tuned. Each of the original ten selectable characters has a good/evil rating, known as Face or Heel. Through selecting “Vows” your character’s alter ego can be unlocked. Vows generally consist of using a Killer Move, not using weapons, not leaving the ring and such, and successfully winning a match whilst keeping your vows will alter your Face or Heel appropriately, unlocking your characters alter ego when entering the opposing field.

            The fighting involved in the game is certainly not an overlooked feature as it appears the Xtreme Beach Volleyball was in Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball. An arcade style wrestler is what Rumble Roses strives for and it never falls short of the mark. Basic punches and kicks are launched by using the analogue stick in conjunction with the Square button, while Triangle executes your grab moves. Reversals may at first seem a complicated procedure, having to time either both R1 and Square to reverse basic attacks or R1 and Triangle for reversing grapples, but within an hours play they become second nature. Bashing your opponent repeatedly will build up your Lethal Charge Meter. Each character and their alter ego have three distinctive finishing moves, a Killer Move, Lethal Move and Humiliation Move. The Humiliation move is performed by literally wiping the floor with your opponent until they have difficulty getting up without you pulling them off the ground, whilst your Killer and Lethal Moves can be performed by filling your Lethal Charge Meter for one bar or more.

            Running on the PlayStation2 can’t help too much when trying to draw realistic, sexy girls that are always going to be compared to the now infamous Dead Or Alive girls, residing on the hugely more powerful Xbox system. The cut-scenes featuring the girls are still credible, although limited, whilst the main in-game graphics are quite remarkable. The animation is fluid and very carefully drawn, with only minor cross-pollination of polygons. The big letdown however, as seems the norm on the PlayStation2 of late, is the background characters. Those surrounding the ring look little more than early Nintendo64 work and although they are many, they still detract from the beauty directly in front of your eyes. The Mad Mud wrestling can be disappointing also, as the sand is as solid as a rock, and there is far better evidence of liquid effects on the NintendoDS - even with just a handful of launch titles.

            Although the game’s depth is clearly revolving around a rather flimsy Story Mode, unlocking all the characters alter egos and costumes is a genuinely compelling exercise – finding out what the gimp looks like without her mask is just as rewarding as nailing that head-shot from 200 meters across a courtyard. Konami have certainly pushed the PlayStation2 to it’s limit and here more than ever it begins to show the reportedly rushed development of the hardware when compared to efforts on both the GameCube and Xbox, however we should all know by now that a game isn’t made by its graphics, and an effort from Konami to actually make a game to go along with the T&A gameplay has resulted in a pleasingly bitchy scrapper.

Kev J.                                                                                                                  Reviews Score Table Interpretation.

18/02/05

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