Rumble Roses XX


The latest offering from Konami is a sequel to the original Rumble Roses game for the PS2, which featured an all female wrestling team going out to see who was the best of them, this has expanded the experience with 30 new characters and loads of skimpy outfits and a photo shoot mode.

Graphics 9/10

One flaw with the graphics, the crowds, i wanted to see more of them rather than the blurred scant few that are there, but this is only a minor flaw, the girls look amazing, there are no clipping errors that i've noticed and finally the movies that punctuate the game look really smooth there is no graphical slowdown (unless your doing a 4 way battle royal and 2 people hit their H move at the same time.)
another strong point is that the outfits are acutally 3D they arent just painted on which has been a flaw in many games.

Sounds 6/10

The music is a little samey at times but is generally well done although a little variation would be nice rather than the set track for each stage, a jukebox of some kind might have been better, (although you can change them with the songs on you 360's hard drive), another flaw is in game banter, there isnt any unless you expressly taunt your opponent, the mid-wrestle banter is very restricted and often consists solely of the girls cries.


Gameplay 9/10

Easy to pick up easy to play, using the smackdown controlls makes it fairly familiar to anyone whose played that game, there are 3 basic moves, x - to smack, y - to trip and b - to pin, you can variate these moves with the left thumbsticks position, also when the special move meter fills up you can perform a variety of moves, the killer move, the lethal move and the humiliation move (the latter only availlable when your oponent has been humiliated by being tonked around the ring infront of their fans), its entirely possible to win fights on easy mode just by button mashing, whereas on the harder difficulties you need to work out move sequences and how to counter attacks, (hard to get the hang of but easy to do when you have), it doesnt suffer from DOA's occasionally frustrating controlls or the necesity to hit 7 buttons in order in 1 second to combo.

It could have benifitted with more features and gameplay options but whats there is sufficient, there are pretty standard game modes, tag team, battle royal and of course one on one, the 3 unusual ones are the Queens match, where the loser has to perform a task given by the victor (i.e act like a kitten, get tickled etc...), street fight, come to think of it its not that unusual its like the old street fighter games where you just pound your opponent into submission, and H-Fight in which you can only win by usuing a humiliation move on your opponent.

Live play is solid, fun and lag free, in photo shoot mode you can share your pictures online.

Overall 8/10

If your looking for a easy to use flashy and attractive wrestling game look here, if your looking for the next DOA look elsewhere.