Rumble Roses

"Every Rose has her thorns, and she's ready to use em!"

Yes, wrestling, everyone's famous past time. What could be better than a bunch of oiled down men on steroids grappling each other in odd positions all around a story line that makes soap operas look like quality entertainment? Women doing the exact same thing! With Rumble Roses, Konami brings us hot girls in barely nothing wrestling in suggestive ways. Just think of it as Dead or Alive without the story.

Story
But a game wouldn't be a game without a story, right? I can sum up the story in one sentence: Some gals want to win, some gals want to find someone and some gals revolve around a robot. That's it. For such a 3D game the script is barely 2D. "But wrestling isn't supposed to have a good story!" you might say. That's pretty sad because this is a video game and I would have liked to seen this beauties actually fight for something more than what they do. The only decently story line is Reiko's. But I'm guessing, the only reason for a story in this game was to have nice camera angle shots of a Chick A's butt while Chick B talks.

Gameplay
Grapple. Grapple like your life depends on it. That's about all the fighting system runs on. You grapple, you counter and such is the way to win. However, there a load of different grapples, you can mix in some actually punches and kicks to make things interesting. Of course grapples just gives them another place to put more suggestive shots. A very fun thing is the "super" moves. You have a basic Killer Move, then a better "Lethal Move" then the top of the cake "Humiliation Move." They all look great, each character has her own special way of doing each and, besides the Killer Move, there is a bit of planning and strategy in using them. Getting out of a sexy grapple, however, is annoying unless you like button mashing.

Graphics
The main reason I'm guessing you want to buy this game. The graphics are great. The woman all look very hot, very sexy and drive home the fact you can still be sexy and not be naked. Yes, you cannot make these gals nude, but they bring home sexiness very well with what they wear. The bounce and wiggle in all the right places. Sadly, the background didn't get as much attention. The rings look recycled and leave little to look at it and make choosing an arena rather pointless. And maybe some people liked the cheap Metal Gear Solid 3 ads but I found it rather shameless. Another con for the graphics is the mud match. Now, it should be any guy's dream to see two almost naked woman battling in the mud, right? Not in this game, the "mud" looks more like light tan water, a soap if you will. When the woman fall on them it acts like paint, slowly melting off as time goes by. Personally, I think the mud match is horribly ugly for such a beautiful game.

Sound
Nope, this doesn't win either. The opening songs are good, nice jingles to match the hot ladies strutting into the ring. If you're a Konami fan you may be able to pick up the songs from Dance Dance Revolution. Yes, the music itself is ok there but when fighting the music just fails. Repetitive, dull and gets drowned out by the moaning of fighting women. Oh yes, the woman have horrible voice acting. We have Makoto with the terrible Japanese accent, Reiko with NO Japanese accent and Aigle butchering the English language, plus Aisha sounding like the stereotypical black woman. Yes, these are just the few that piss me off the most. Yes, the script is terrible and not even Nicole Kidman could make it sound any better but some of the actresses they picked don't even seem like they can act at all.

Replay Factor
Very small. You can defeat one girl's story line in about a half an hour so you could very easily finish the game in a week. The only replay I see here is to show your friends and play an actually human person.

Scores
Story – 5
Gameplay – 9
Graphics – 8
Sound – 6
Replay Factor – 5
Overall – 6

Closing Thoughts
I'm not a fan of wrestling games but I do like this game. It's a good game for what it's worth. However, it leaves you begging for a sequel to fix the little problems and more to make this game a true gem. But, if you like hot girls grabbing each other in odd positions in barely nothing then this is a game for you.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/06/05