Rumble Roses XX review

On the plus side, there's a whole lingerie drawer-ful of match types, ranging from a typical one-on-one fight to more exotic fare. There are online two-on-two tag team bouts, lopsided two-on-one fights, and even "Queen" matches in which the loser has to do something degrading like withstand tickling,dance the limbo, or imitate a cat washing its face. There's even a stripped down version of a typical fighting game,which focuses much less on wrestling and much more on pummeling your shapely opponent's life bar to zero within 30 seconds or so.

Our one complaint about the game modes is that it's all about the multiplayer; the traditional, single-player story mode is missing entirely. Sure, you can still start off scrapping with scrubs and end up chick-fighting the champion, but there's no plot tying it together. You just rack up fifteen or so wins at the venue or venues of your choosing, and eventually a title match turns up. It's more free-form, yes, but it lacks a sense of progression, and actually makes us miss the outlandish plotlines of the original Rumble Roses game. Then again, more story would mean more listening to more truly awful voice-over work, so maybe this lack of a story mode a blessing in disguise.

It's much more difficult to complain about the graphics, which fall just short of perfect. You may notice little things: the arena level's too-bright lighting blurs out some details, for instance. But that's like complaining about the steering wheel cover of a Ferrari. This is still an amazing-looking hot rod that just radiates sex appeal.