Ready 2 Rumble
- January 01, 2000 00:00 AM PST
The boxing sensation that swept many Dreamcast gamers into a whirling battle of arcade-style brawling excitement is coming to Nintendo 64. But does Midway's Ready 2 Rumble shine as strongly on half the horsepower?
- GamePro Score
- User Score
- Write your review!
Ready 2 Bumble
It's good, clean and flashy fun on the Dreamcast (well, okay it's not exactly clean), but Ready 2 Rumble has lost a lot of its flash in the transition to N64. If you don't have a Dreamcast (or a friend who has one) or you haven't watched TV in the last three months, you might not know about R2RB. Basically it's sixteen cartoony fighters duking it out with special combos and enough taunts to make an old lady cry. Spell RUMBLE at the bottom of your screen and you can let a flurry of punches loose on an opponent. There's a championship mode where you can train a boxer and try to win the title, but this game is about gathering up a few friends and talking lots of smack while you beat the pulp out of each other.
And while the fun is nearly intact (except that Dreamcast character Jimmy Blood has been replaced by the much less interesting J.R. Flurry), most everything else in the graphics, sounds and gameplay has been changed either a little bit, or enough to make you wince.
Blocky vs. Blockier
First thing you'll notice is that the boxer models are very blocky. They've lost a lot of their detail, which really dampens the whole game. If you haven't played the DC version, it might not bother you, but it's too obvious to not mention. The arenas fare much better (they are almost entirely blacked out in the PSX version), but who has time to look around when you are trying to pummel your opponent into submission before he does the same to you? The animations are sluggish as well, but when you become a giant polygon, it hurts your agility.
Sound has never been the strongpoint of this game. Michael Buffer lends his legendary lungs to the game (which is where they got the title, duh!), but it doesn't really add much to it. The most fun comes from hearing the boxers' taunts, but that'll even wear out after a while.
N64 controllers usually handicap a sports title if you've played it on other systems. R2RB doesn't really follow this trend. The game is a button mashers paradise, and even though those little yellow buttons aren't that comfortable to bang on, overall it delivers what you need -- except for the occasional missed punch due to the analog stick, which gives you a sidestep rather than a roundhouse punch. You might want to stick with the D-pad.
"I Can't Go On!"
Like the PSX version, the N64 Ready 2 Rumble is inferior to the Dreamcast version, maybe more so than it should be. But what's most important is that the raucous gameplay is still there . If you don't have a Dreamcast and don't plan on getting one (shame on you), then definitely jump into the ring with this game. Otherwise you'll be missing out on a brawlin' good time.
