Wrestle Reviews
Rumble Roses
Release
2005
Format
Playstation 2
Background
Man how could you not feel kind of dirty when you took this game on the counter in your local video game store? If you like hot chicks wrestling in mud, then this my friends is the wrestling game for you. Now you can try and explain all the game play reasons as to why you wanted this game, but both you and I know that the main reason you wanted this game was for the hot chicks!
Truth be told Rumble Roses actually has a pretty impressive team behind its scantily clad appearance. It was a joint venture of Konami and Yukes. Yukes who still makes the WWE games to this day. Rumble Roses actually uses the game engine from WWE Smackdown: Here Comes The Pain. So if knowing this makes you feel less sleazy for playing this game, then I am happy to help.
Presentation
Rumble Roses features some of the most impressive character models for a wrestling game. I think I will go as far to say that these are some of the best character models in any game on the Playstation 2; that really is how good they look. Now in case you have not figured it out, Rumble Roses is a wrestling game that has an all female roster of wrestlers.
The arenas in the game look incredible as Yukes did not have the handcuffs of the WWE license hanging over them with this game, and they could get really creative and give us some very unique and cool looking arenas. The only thing I am not a fan of in terms of the visuals is the mud wrestling part of the game. Now don’tt get me wrong, mud wrestling is cool, but in the game the mud effects (am I really talking about mud effects?) is nowhere near the quality of the rest of the game.
The sound track is pretty rocking and it does get you pumped up for the matches, but the voice acting is just terrible. But the really good news is that this is one of those games where the voice acting is so bad that it is actually rather quite funny.
Game Play
If you have played any of the early Playstation 2 era Smackdown games then you will get to grips with the game play here very quickly. This actually is even faster and more arcady than the Smackdown games. The main thing added here was the “humiliation” moves that you could do to your opponent. The downside to the game is that there is only one on one matches which also include mud wrestling and title matches. No tag team matches or any other kind of specialty matches are on offer here. The story mode is just ridiculous and it sees this crazy nurse stealing the DNA from the other wrestler to make super soldiers. It’s terribly written and terribly acted, but it’s still pretty fun.
Rumble Roses has one really cool game play feature that I honestly think it does not get the credit it deserves, and that is the Heel and Face dynamic. Now for you non wrestling fans a Heel is what you would call a bad guy wrestler and a Face is a good guy wrestler. So for example in pro wrestling wrestlers like John Cena, Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan are classic examples of a Face. Whereas Ric Flair, Triple H and Ted Dibiase are all great Heel characters. This game has a meter that lets you try and be 100 percent Heel or 100 percent Face. The cool thing is that each ladies persona changes depending if they are a Heel or a Face. This is very well done and as well as their persona and look changes to different moves as well.
The roster is great it has eleven wrestlers, and each one has there alternate Heel persona that is treated as a different character. So in total you have twenty-two different characters. Each one has a pretty cool and insane back story for their reasons to be in the game. I think that Yukes really did a great job of not just making the characters look sexy, but also give them interesting, funny and in some cases just plain odd characters as well.
Final Thoughts
People may look at this game as some kind of excuse to just play as half naked women rolling around in the mud, but the truth is that this is a really fun game. It may lack the game modes of the Smackdown series and I am sure many people (myself included) bought it just for the hot chicks, but there is a fun wrestling game at the core of this game.
For additional reviews by Jason Delacey: Click Here
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