Developer: Point Of View Publisher: Midway

Release Date: 2000 (Various) Platforms: PlayStation, N64, Dreamcast, PS2, Game Boy Advance

When you think about it, the boxing genre has the most hot-or-cold track record. Series such as Punch Out! and Fight Night (previously Knockout Kings) currently represent the upper echelon of efforts. The few barely capable titles (Facebreaker, Victorious Boxer) represent the very thin crust between the awful and the exceptional. The titles that qualify as awful need not be mentioned here. You know who they are.

*AHEM* Don King *

And then of course there is Ready 2 Rumble. It’s been just under ten years since the last release. I had actually written this series off until I heard of the new chapter Ready 2 Rumble: Revolution appearing on the Wii in March. So I felt it fitting to take a look back at what Midway had given us the last time around.

The beauty of R2R was that while it didn’t have the most sophisticated controls ever created, the setup gave the first time button mashers as much pleasure as the veteran gamer. And although the mashers could hold their own, being flattened by experienced players would more times than not give reason to get better – quick. Fortunately the learning curve wasn’t too steep. And for some people there may have not been too much strategy involved, but for those who have a sense of the timing that boxing requires, there was plenty.

The button layout is pretty basic. Two high strike and two low strike buttons and two block/dodge buttons. How long you hold the button decides how hard the hit is and pressing forward, up and down have you throw a hook, jab, body shot, a straight hit or parry an oncoming blow. A ‘Rumble’ special attack (of which there are three levels) can be performed by pressing both high attacks when in rumble mode (press and hold both block buttons). Easy stuff.

The big draw of the series was the ease of movement and a realistic take on the cartoonish character design. And those characters would develop bruising and swelling as the match carried on, which at the time was unheard of. My friends and I would pummel the ever living shit out of each other just to see how fucked up we could make the characters look. After a while it’s like fighting the kid from that old 1985 movie ‘Mask’. Awesome. It got even better when you unlocked the special celebrity characters like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Shaq, Michael Jackson and a blown up version of the series’ announcer Michael Buffer.  Bill vs. Hillary matches are as great as you would think.

The single and multiplayer modes were done pretty damn well. Arcade was par for the course. Championship mode gave you your own gym to train in until you were finally (hopefully?) ready for that all important Title match. Multiplayer modes included a team battle between two players and up to eight characters each and tournament mode could have up to eight players which was very cool at the time.

The music and sound seemed way cooler ten years ago, but it still has a lighthearted Hip-Hop way about it and the voice casting was better than average and much different than other fighters at the time, especially the 6′2” Canadian fighter Freek-E-Deek. You’ll see what I mean.

I suppose I could go a bit more in-depth about this, but I’m pretty sure you get the idea. It doesn’t matter which console you play it on, you’ll have a blast with this on any of them.

Stay away from the GBA version though. That one is ASS.

So pick this up if you can. It’s still pretty easy to find on any system. Bring a few friends over also. Beer doesn’t hurt either.

Overall – Then:8 out of 10. Now: 7.5 out of 10

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