Home Page / psx / R / Ready 2 Rumble Boxing / Review Listing / Review

NFL Blitz was a no-rules game of extreme pro football imported by Midway from the arcades to the PlayStation in fall 1998, and it was a huge hit. Blitz provided a refreshing, fun alternative to the simulation-style football offerings of EA Sports and 989 Sports. Midway is trying to duplicate the smash success of Blitz with its new arcade boxing game, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing.

Ready 2 Rumble packs a decent punch, with its crisp graphics, smooth movement in the ring, and commentary by legendary ring announcer Michael Buffer. But much like a heavyweight without killer instinct, Ready to Rumble lacks a knockout punch and isn’t ready for a title shot against the undisputed heavyweight champion of the PlayStation world, Knockout Kings 2000.

OK, time for introductions. There are two modes of play in Ready 2 Rumble: Arcade and Championship. In Arcade mode, players simply choose one of 13 fighters available at the outset. Fighters all are fictitious and have different physical attributes and appearances. There are no weight classes, so it’s possible to match 120-pound Afro Thunder against 358-pound Salua. Hey, this is an arcade game, remember? Players then head to the ring and duke it out.

In the championship mode, players name their gym and then select one of three available fighters at the start. Fighters are ranked in strength, stamina, dexterity and experience, with all categories starting at 0 percent. Fighters then can train, or enter a title fight, prize fight or exhibition. Training allows fighters to increase their strength, stamina and dexterity as they climb the rankings ladder. Training costs money, which is won in prize fights or title fights.

So far it all sounds good. But once the fighters enter the ring, the gameplay lacks the sting of a well-placed jab. First of all, most fights are way too short, rarely lasting more than two 60-second rounds. Fighters can be eliminated after a certain number of total knockdowns for the entire fight, not just individual rounds. The default is three, which is too few knockdowns allowed in an arcade-style game in which fists fly more than Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. The result is that every fight starts feeling the same. Players can run from the computer opponent for only so long and must stand and deliver. So the player who lands the most punches in the nearly constant flurries, not the one who devises the most clever strategy, usually is the winner. Landing those flurries becomes fairly easy once players discover their “money” punches against each opponent. I simply crushed an opponent in one round once I learned that my opponent could not or would not do anything to stop my overhand right in the first 10 seconds of the fight. So I flailed away on the overhand right and won easily. The computer fighter should adjust better to the tactics of its opponent.

Each player also has a specialty punch, which lends a Tekken-like feel to the game. Both human and CPU boxers also can enter “Rumble” mode. Each time a player inflicts a certain amount of damage to an opponent, progressive letters of the word “Rumble” appear. Once the word is spelled out in full, the boxer gets special rumble powers which allow him to unleash a series of moves of intense speed and power that are tough to block.

The Rumble mode is a fun touch. But it’s way too easy for the player defending against it to simply bob and weave or run away from trouble, taking no punches before the Rumble powers evaporate within about five seconds or so. And that flawed ease of defensive movement is the ultimate paradox of Ready 2 Rumble because the boxer movement is superbly modeled in this game. Fighters move with fluidity and grace with none of the sluggishness that still exists in Knockout Kings 2000. Boxers also can be controlled with the left analog stick. Memo to the Knockout Kings development team at EA Sports: Copy the movement model from Ready 2 Rumble, and Knockout Kings 2001 will be an absolutely incredible game.

The icon and shoulder buttons are completely mappable, which is a nice touch. But the ability to customize the controller still can’t overcome the flawed basic control structure of this game. The triangle button throws high right-hand punches, the circle low right-hand punches, the X low left-hand punches and the square high left-hand punches. The type of punch is determined by how the player moves the left joystick or D-pad. This control setup feels very awkward. It just feels odd to use the joystick to determine the type of punch and the button to determine the location. Most PlayStation games, such as football and basketball titles, use the joystick to determine location and the buttons to determine the kind of play or action. Knockout Kings 2000 uses the buttons to determine the kind of punch or combination and the joystick determines the location of the punch. It’s much a more intuitive system. Ready 2 Rumble uses the opposite system, and it’s confusing.

While the gameplay and control options are somewhat suspect in Ready 2 Rumble, Midway and developer Point of View handle the window dressing quite nicely. This game sounds and looks good. Boxers have excellent definition and shading, with rippling muscles, accurate facial hair and fun, cartoonish-looking face wraps. The rings and crowds also look crisp, with proper shading and definition. The only weakness in the boxers’ appearance is their look after taking a pounding: The afflicted boxer’s face turns beet red, looking like he spent way too much time under a sunlamp. No swelling or individual cuts are present like in the superb face wraps in Knockout Kings 2000. But knockdowns look much better than in Knockout Kings 2000, in which boxers unrealistically flip or are knocked in the air parallel with the ring before landing flat on their back. In Ready 2 Rumble, boxers who have taken a beating will stagger back and forth, sometimes trying to flail a last punch or two, before dropping to the canvas and taking a count from the referee. Great touch. The camera angles also are strong, especially the first-person angles. It almost looks like your head is the boxer’s head, as the human player only sees his boxer’s forearms and gloves move back and forth from the computer player’s head. It’s a really, really fun angle with which to play.

The sound also is outstanding, starting with Buffer. He says much more than his trademark “Let’s get ready to rumble!” line. He also introduces fighters before every bout with his trademark intonations and inflections. Fighters also talk trash during the introductions, including the soft-spoken Salua saying, “I’m sorry, but I must thrash you now.” That’s my favorite. Cornermen also utter various funny sayings, such as the Irishman saying in a rich brogue, “Use your jab, lad,” or the trainer screaming, “Duh, are you listening to me?” when his fighter is getting nailed. Fans sometimes chant, soccer-style, in some championship-mode bouts. That’s strange for a boxing match, unless Frank Bruno is fighting. But the chanting doesn’t detract from this game. Boxers also grunt realistically when hit, and the sound of punches landing and being blocked is believable.

Ready 2 Rumble is a decent game that provides an alternative to Knockout Kings 2000. But unfortunately for gamers, it’s not enough of an alternative. Blitz’s combination of trash talk, different rules, fast gameplay and over-the-top player antics really distinguished it from the Madden and Gameday football sims, which offer mediocre arcade modes, at best. Ready 2 Rumble offers fast gameplay, but it’s too fast for a sport ruled by players’ health just as much as a clock. The fights are just too short in this game. Ready 2 Rumble isn’t really any more fun than the arcade mode offered in Knockout Kings 2000. And Knockout Kings 2000 also has a true simulation mode and offers real fighters in both arcade and sim modes. Unlike football, the fighting-game mode is very crowded on the PlayStation. And Ready 2 Rumble really doesn’t stand out as something special.