This long winded little article of mine should be mostly work safe, but the game it’s based isn’t kid safe, work safe, or in some cases, adult safe. Just warnin’ ya.

For those of you who know me, and know the types of games I like to play, the title statement should come as a surprise. 99.9 percent of the time, you can find me playing a more kid friendly, cheerful happy E rated game like Mario, Kirby, or Animal Crossing. Old classics like Pac-Man or quirky silly games like Katamari Damacy. I think the only other M rated game I have in my collection is one of the Midway Arcade Treasures games, only because it’s got some of the arcade Mortal Kombat games on it. So I guess I’d better explain why in the world would I play such a contrasting game like Rumble Roses XX.

First off, I have a couple of friends who enjoy watching wrestling on TV. You know, that WWE stuff. Or is it WWF? I’m not sure. They like to watch it and talk about the wrestlers sometimes, and every now and then I think they even play some of the video games. They’re not fanatics by any means, but I think they do enjoy it somewhat. Now, TV wrestling isn’t really my cup of tea, but since my friends enjoy it, sometimes I like to try and learn about the things they like to do, even if I don’t like it as much. Why? Because they’re my friends! I don’t think I need any more reason than that. My friends are a real blessing and I love them (Yes, I’m not afraid to say the “L” word about my family and friends), and I like to learn about the things they enjoy sometimes.

So I figured that I could maybe learn more about wrestling if I tried one of the video games. I’ve never played a wrestling video game before.  So why did I choose Rumble Roses XX over, say, one of the official WWE games from THQ? I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense to play one of those if I wanted to learn more about wrestling? At least then I’d see some of the real wrestlers like what’s on TV, right? Well, there’s two reasons why I got Rumble Roses XX instead. One, it was insanely cheap. I found it brand new for only ten bucks. That’s a pretty darn good deal, especially for an Xbox 360 game. If I’m going to try out a new kind of game that I may not like, I don’t want to pay too much money for it. The other reason why I picked Rumble Roses is because I like silly games, and when you look deep down at it, Rumble Roses XX is silly. Well, parts of it are silly anyways. Well, I thought it was silly.

So here’s some brief general impressions about Rumble Roses XX. It’s basically an all female wrestling game. And that’s it, really. I guess Konami tried to play up the sex appeal whenever they could, but I pretty much looked past all that. I guess going to E3 all those years kind of desensitized me to that sort of thing. Bear with me folks, I’m trying to be as mature about this as I can. But I was in a silly mood when writing this so expect some goofiness from here on out, too. You know how I am.Controls weren’t too hard to figure out, even if I didn’t know what I was doing half the time. One button makes you hit the other opponent and smack them around. I’m not sure what good that does, though. Another button makes you grapple the other opponent and throw them down on the ground. Then if you push the same button, you can perform moves on the other player to wear down their energy. I’m not sure if each character had different special moves because they all looked the same to me. Just different painful ways to bend their arms and legs in ways they’re not supposed to go. In this way, the game seemed pretty violent. In fact, the violence in the game bothered me more than the over-sexed up characters. Cartoony violence doesn’t bother me, I don’t mind it when a skinny coyote falls off a cliff, or if a fat purple cat named Eek gets the snot beat out of him. Even when I play a more violent game like Soul Calibur, it doesn’t bother me as much because even though you use weapons, when you hit someone you don’t chop off limbs or draw blood, it just shows flashes of light and it just looks like the characters are made out of butter as the swords hit them. But in Rumble Roses XX, the moves they perform on each other really look like they hurt! I think that I’d have a hard time watching real TV wrestling if they do that because I would have a hard time seeing real people getting hurt like that. Yeah, I know, I’m a big baby. Anyway, another button in Rumble Roses XX makes you pin down the other wrestler, and if you can pin them down for more than 3 secnds, you win. You can also win if you perform an aforementioned painful move on them and they can’t escape and give up. There are other buttons that let you counter-grapple and use super special moves and stuff, but that’s pretty much the gist of the game right there. You can also leave the ring if you want, but I’m not sure why you’d want to do that, unless you can take a break and go get a snack at the concession stand or something.

From what I can tell, though, it seems that Konami focused as much attention on the characters as much as the gameplay. You can pick from a wide variety of wacky female wrestlers. They’re so weird, in fact, that you’d think Konami would have given them elaborate backstories and everything. But not in Rumble Roses XX. But that’s OK, some games don’t need big long stories. I think the storyline for Rumble Roses XX is: “Once upon a time, a bunch of weird ladies decided to wrestle each other, and so they did. The end.” But anyway, since Konami focused so much attention on the characters, I figured I’d talk a little about them, too.

Reiko Hinamoto
I think she’s the main character in the game. She’s on the front of the box anyway. And as most main characters in video games go, she’s kind of boring. The only cool thing I can think about her is that she kind of reminds me of the Ridge Racer lady after eating a can of spinach or something. Each of the characters has an elaborate stage entrance. I sometimes wonder if Konami spent more time on the stage entrances than the actual game. I wonder if real TV wrestling has elaborate stage entrances like what’s in Rumble Roses. I should ask my friends about that. Anyway, Reiko’s stage entrance is also boring. She just throws off a cloak and runs toward the ring, doing boxing moves and stuff while a boring techno song plays in the background. When you win a bunch of matches, you get popularity points. And when you have enough, you can pick the “Superstar” version of that wrestler. I think they’re different, but all it looks like is they have fancier clothes. At least that’s the case with Reiko’s Superstar form. Superstar stage entrances are different, too. Superstar Reiko gets a bunch of friends to dance with her as she saunters to the ring. Oh yeah, there is another cool thing about Reiko. In Metal Gear Solid 3‘s online mode, you can pick her to play as, and I thought that was funny. And she wears camouflage pants, which is silly. Hey, at least she’s wearing pants here. But really the only reason why I played Metal Gear Solid 3 was for the Ape Escape mini game.

Rowdy Reiko
Playing Rumble Roses XX did help me learn one thing about real TV wrestling. In the game, you can unlock ‘evil’ or ‘good’ versions of the wrestlers, which I thought was kind of weird. So I asked my friends about that. They said that in TV wrestling, depending on how popular a wrestler is, they can have good or bad personas, called “Face” or “Heel.” Well that’s also the case in Rumble Roses XX. Each character has a “Face” and “Heel” persona. Reiko’s “Heel” persona is equally as boring as her “Face” one. Now she’s a biker girl, which is boring. And they gave her blond hair this time, which looks weird. And she has an ugly snake tattoo going up her leg. Her Superstar form just has less leather on her than before.

Dixie Clements
There’s only two cool thinga about this character. One, she wears cow print clothes, which is funny. MOOOOOOO! Yeah, I know, I’m easily amused. The other cool thing about Dixie is she’s from Texas. Or as the dumb announcer in the game says “Tex-Ass.” You’d better not talk about Texas like that, dumb announcer lady! Everyone knows stuff from Texas is cool. I mean, come on, didn’t you see that episode of SpongeBob? And besides, I’m from Texas, what more proof do you need? Anyway, in Dixie’s stage entrance, she wears a cowboy hat and does a little dance. Then when she gets into the ring, she pulls out two pistols and shoots them all over the place like Yosemite Sam. You know how in the cartoons when Yosemite Sam shoots both pistols downward and it propels him up? It would’ve been cool if Dixie did that. I hope she doesn’t shoot anyone in the audience with those pistols! You know if she used those pistols in the match, it would make winning a whole lot easier. Oh yeah, and in her Superstar form she just wears fancier clothes and waves around a giant American flag with one hand in her stage entrance. I don’t know how she can carry that thing with only one hand, though.

Sgt. Clements
At first I was like, “Hey cool, her alternate form is a police officer.” Video game police officers are usually pretty cool (Mappy, Waffle, etc.) and real life police officers are even cooler. But then I remembered what kind of game this was, and that this was her ‘evil’ form, so you know what that means. A crooked cop. So “BOO!” on that. Blech! And in her Superstar form, she uses handcuffs as part of her suspenders. OW! Wouldn’t that hurt? Cold metal directly on skin like that? Hurts my eyes just thinking about it. I would never think to do that with handcuffs, I guess Konami has a better imagination than I do.

Benikage
She automatically gets cool points because she’s a ninja, and video game ninjas are cool. Yeah, a ninja wrestler, doesn’t make much sense, does it? But what does in this game? Her stage entrance is cool because she does all sorts of ninja flips and other cool stuff that ninjas are supposed to do. And then she stands on a giant frog!!! I liked that part! Ninjas and frogs have some sort of connection in Japanese myth, but I forgot what it was. But aside from rhinos and buffalos, frogs are one of my favorite animals. One time I learned that there’s a kind of frog you can get in pet stores called a Pac-Man frog, and I wanted one because I’m such a big Pac-Man fan. I would name it Clyde, after the ghost monster. But then I learned that you have to feed Pac-Man frogs baby mice, and I didn’t like that so I decided not to get a Pac-Man frog after all. Kind of ironic that Pac-Man frogs eats baby mice called “Pinkys.” So anyway, I really liked that giant frog and he’s one of my favorite characters in Rumble Roses XX. Pretty sad when your favorite characters in a game are stage props. But the ninja lady has a cool mask in her Superstar form.

Yasha
The ninja lady’s alternate form is actually her ‘good’ form. She looks about the same except her outfit is silver instead of black and her hair is also silver, which looks cool. But in her Superstar form she wears a scary mask! Yikes!

Makoto Aihara
She wears a karate outfit, which is kind of cool. And she has a big giant bow in her hair, which made me think of Ms. Pac-Man for some reason. And I guess anything that reminds me of Pac-Man can’t be all bad. But the coolest thing is her stage entrance. She just bows and waves shyly, which is boring, but then as she walks to the ring, a person in a giant costume like what you see at amusement parks follows and dances behind her. It looks like a Tamagotchi critter. When I first saw that I laughed like a lunatic! I decided right then and there that the Tamagotchi costumed person would be my favorite Rumble Roses XX character. Too bad you can’t play as that thing in the game. Oh yeah, Makoto’s Superstar form just wears weird clothes and she sings karaoke in her stage entrance. But no Tamagotchi guy.

Black Belt Demon
Makoto’s evil form wears a black karate outfit instead, which looks cool. And her Superstar form just has more ornate clothes. But still no Tamagotchi costumed thing. Not even an evil one.

Miss Spencer
I guess with this character, Konami was going for the “hot for teacher” stereotype thing. I have a LOT of respect for real life teachers and they have one of the hardest jobs in the world, but I never had a crush on any of my teachers as a kid. I dunno, it’s hard for me to have a crush on anyone who makes me do homework. Anyway, Miss Spencer’s stage entrance doesn’t even start on stage. It’s in a classroom. An empty classroom. And Miss Spencer is sitting at her desk. And then her chalkboard behind her gets chaser lights and she gets up on her desk and starts dancing. If I tried to dance on a desk, I’d fall off. And her chalkboard had a graph with “Personal Finance” written on it, in case you were wondering. And after all that nonsense, she just appears in the ring. She actually wears more clothes than most of the other wrestlers, except she doesn’t in her Superstar form. I think it would’ve been cool if Miss Spencer was in charge of the tutorial mode, since she is a teacher and all.

Mistress
This is Miss Spencer’s evil form. I don’t know how you go from teacher to dominatrix, but I don’t think I want to know. Reminds me of Soul Calibur‘s Ivy. Blech! She has a patch over one eye and her Superstar form has white clothes instead of black. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Aisha
You know, this character looked so boring that I didn’t even bother looking up info on her. I think Konami was trying to make her be like Britney Spears or something. Her evil form was called Sista A. Sorry folks, I just didn’t feel like looking up info on all the characters.

Candy Cane
You know, maybe this character is supposed to be like Britney Spears instead. The only cool things about her is that her name is funny and she has red pigtails. In her stage entrance, she’s in a rock band. I don’t know what the name is. Candy Cane and uh, the Jolly Jingles. Hey I was going with a Christmas theme there. OK, I’m not a very good rock band name thinker upper. Anyway, she sings a song and then takes one of the guitars and smashes it around. even hitting the cameraman. Why do rock stars smash their guitars around? That’s expensive! Anyway, one time I was fighting Candy Cane in the ring and she brought her guitar with her. I could’ve picked it up I think, but I didn’t want to touch her guitar. She looked mean enough as it was, I didn’t want to maker her madder by touching her stuff. She wears a schoolgirl outfit in both her regular and Superstar form, but I don’t think either would fit any school dress code regulation. Unless she goes to the same weirdo school that Miss Spencer teaches at.

Becky
Candy Cane’s ‘good’ form is a cheerleader. So does that mean that when she’s in the ring, she cheers for herself? Her Superstar form reminds me of that one part at the end of Toy Story 2 with the Barbie with makeup all over one side of her face.

Aigle
Here’s another character that was kind of boring so I didn’t spend a lot of time looking up info on her. I think she’s a nomad from another country like Mongolia or Elbonia or something. Her stage entrance is really weird. She dances around, holding these things in each hand that I’m not sure what they are. Looks like a cross between pig intestines and nylons with jumper cables on each end. And then she warps to out in the middle of nowhere, and there’s this hut, and she’s sitting on the ground playing some kind of square violin-guitar thing. And then she’s in the ring. I think there’s some sort of gas leak around that ring. She just wears weirder clothes in her Superstar form.

Killer Khan
Aigle’s evil form looks like a geisha and her Superstar form looks totally different: a kind of sheepskin bikini thing. Again, I support my gas leak theory.

Anesthesia
Oh brother, now we have the “Naughty Nurse” stereotype. I’m surprised there’s not a character in a french maid outfit. She dances in front of an X-Ray in her stage entrance, but you don’t see her bones. You know what’s funny is that I work at a place that sells supplies to hospital gift shops and nurses, so you can tell I’ve been working too hard when I saw this character and thought to myself, “I wonder what kind of hospital supplies she’d buy from us?” Her Superstar nurse outfit just looks ridiculous.

Dr. Anesthesia
Her evil form looks like a doctor ready to operate. Yikes! And she looks like a giant blue shapely Smurf in her Superstar form. Yeah I don’t get it either.

Evil Rose
Now this character is really scary! She wears a red, form fitting leather bodysuit made up to make her look like a devil or something. But that outfit just looks so uncomfortable. Makes my syes hurt. How can she move around in that? She does a Houdini act in her stage entrance, escaping some locks and dancing around bars of a cage like a pole dancer. Then she bends the bars of the cage, so either she’s really strong or the bars are made of licorice. She didn’t even need to bend the cage bars anyway, they were wide enough for her to slide through. And then she crawls to the ring like some kind of beast. And she’s all green in her Superstar form, and looks like Godzilla’s girlfriend.

Noble Rose
Evil Rose’s good form is totally different from her bad one. I wouldn’t have ever thought the two were the same. She has pink hair, which is cool. Video game characters with pink hair look neat to me. And she also has a sword, in both her regular and Superstar forms, but she just waves it around in the stage entrance as if to say, “Doo, doo doo! Look at me! I have a sword! Da da daaaaa!” And she doesn’t use her sword in the ring either. And that’s I know!

Super Ulala
You can also create your own characters in Rumble Roses XX. But they can only be females so I couldn’t make a Pac-Man or Kirby wrestler. So I made a character based on another one of my favorite video game characters that’s also a girl: Ulala from Space Channel 5. Except here she looked a little more buff so I called her Super Ulala. Created character stage entrances are cool because they come out of a giant action figure blistered box package, and I thought that was funny. But Super Ulala wasn’t so super in the ring because that ninja lady beat her up real quick. They should’ve let you be characters from other classic Konami games. Simon Belmont vs. Frogger! Goemon vs. Vic Viper! That would be cool.

Rumbly Conclusions
And that’s all I care to write about Rumble Roses XX. I don’t really like the game very much, but I’m glad I tried it. Though you can make valid arguments for each, the whole point of this article wasn’t about sexism or violence in video games, but instead, the importance of trying out new things. Don’t get stuck in a rut and only play one type of game. Branch out and expand your horizons every now and then and try something new. And it doesn’t have to be just video games, this advice can carry over into real life, too.

OK, OK, I’ll come clean. The real point of this article was to make silly remarks about a game I know next to nothing about. But hey, at least I tried to be somewhat thought provoking.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to let my little brothers play Rumble Roses XX, and even if I did, you can bet I’d be closely supervising! And I won’t make a habit of playing games with scantily clad women in them either. So I’m not going to go out and get Dead or Alive Volleyball or anything. I played the first one at a friend’s house anyway and it was awful.

I’m sure the head guy at GamerDad is thinking to himself: “Note to self, never EVER let Cary review a wrestling game!”

What else have I been playing lately? Well I’ve been playing Metroid Prime 3 a lot but since I’m not used to shooters it’s kind of hard. My favorite part in Metroid Prime 3 is when Samus took off her helmet to throw up. I bet it was probably because she had too much Phozon in her, but I like to think she threw up because I made her roll around in ball form too much. I’m also playing Eternal Sonata. I wanted the Polka or Beat faceplate but I got Allegretto instead. Oh well. I like the parts in the game where they talk about Chopin’s real life and show pictures of where he lived. And I just got Namco Museum DS. Yay!

I’m not sure what to blog about next, so I’ll take any requests if you got ’em! Later on I’ll do a tribute to the Katamari Damacy games because I’m looking forward to the new Xbox 360 Beautiful Katamari game, and I’ll do a tour of the new Namco Museums once both the DS and Wii versions are out. But for the next couple of weeks, I think I’m just going to focus on writing GamerDad game reviews.

All right, it’s audience participation time! Who is your favorite Rumble Roses character? Don’t have one? That’s OK, neither do I. Unless you can count the giant frog and the Tamagotchi thing. Well, do you like wrestling on TV? Do you have a favorite TV wrestler? I think I let my friends pick out favorites for me, but I forgot who they were. Have you ever tried a new kind of game that you’ve never played before and liked it? I have. I never liked card battle games but I tried the SNK vs. Capcom Card Fighters Clash Neo Geo Pocket game and LOVED it. So sometimes it’s good to try new things.

And that’s all for now! Later! –Cary

Tags: Misc