Ready 2 Rumble 2

by Nintendo

Product Features

• 11 boxers
• high AI
• awesome graphics
• cool sound effects
• two-player action

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005BJ9H
• Item Weight: 8 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: May 29, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #36,017 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 is the first GBA fighting game, and that's a lot of weight to carry on one's muscular and well-rounded shoulders. But Midway's baby has already been a hit on several systems; it's merged boxing with hilarity and featured wild characters such as Afro Thunder, Mama Tua, and more--all outfitted with power moves and special taunts.

The GBA version looks good. It features loads of color, and everything from the taunts to Michael Buffer's famous "Lets get ready to rumble" tagline is intact. Unfortunately, the gameplay isn't. Ready to Rumble 2 for the GBA is a 2-D fighting game, not a 3-D title like the earlier versions. You can move forward and backward, block, and punch. Move while punching and deliver an uppercut or a short jab. There's almost no sense of damage as you hit these poorly animated foes, and this takes all the personality out of the game.

There are 11 characters total, some favorites from the original games and two new unlockable ones, including Michael Buffer as Rumble Man (yawn) and... Michael Jackson? There are four modes of play: arcade style, championship, training, and survival (where you've got to fight each opponent until you go down flat). You can create your own boxer if you like, and participate in a few training rituals, such as using rumble pads, lifting weights, and hitting the speed bag.

What Ready to Rumble 2 amounts to is a perfectly good, and great-looking, Game Boy Color game, but it doesn't do justice to boxing. It isn't nearly as good as Ready to Rumble on other platforms, and it just doesn't fit in with the other, mostly fantastic, GBA launch titles. --Andrew S. Bub

Pros:

• A wide range of combatants
• You can build and train your own bruiser
• Lots of minigames to play

Cons:

• Flat, unimaginative combat
• Uninspired and dull gameplay

Product Description

Midway's arcade-style boxing game is making its way to the GBA. We had the opportunity to see how the game translates from the Dreamcast and the PS2 to the GBA.

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Read review, May 2, 2001

By 

Ron Cheng (New City, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ready 2 Rumble 2 (Video Game)

The Game Boy Advance version of Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 is set up very similarly to the Dreamcast and PS2 versions of the game. There are three gameplay modes: arcade, championship, and survival. The arcade mode lets you pick any of the game's 11 boxers and fight through a series of matches. The championship mode has you pick only one boxer and train him from a small-time fighter to world champion. This mode is set up exactly like the one in the PS2 and Dreamcast versions of the game--you'll be able to train your boxer between matches to raise his fighting stats. The training sessions are set up like minigames--some have you inputting different D-pad commands with precise timing, and some have you simply pounding buttons as fast as you can before a timer expires. Finally, the survival mode lets you pick any one boxer and fight a series of fights using the same health bar to see how many fighters you can take down before you finally fall.

The game has most of the characters from the PS2 and Dreamcast versions but is missing a few important names. Popular boxers such as Afro Thunder and Lulu Valentine return for the GBA version, but fan favorites Boris Knockimov and Butcher Brown are surprisingly absent from this version. However, the game does have a fighter named Rumble Man, who looks and sounds amazingly like Michael Buffer, the voice of the Ready 2 Rumble series.

While the basics of the gameplay haven't changed since the Dreamcast and PS2 versions of the game, the control scheme had to be adjusted a bit. The GBA's face buttons represent the left and right hands of your boxers, and the type of punch will now depend on what direction you press the D-pad when you throw the punch. The shoulder buttons are now the block buttons, and hitting them simultaneously will activate your rumble power if your rumble meter is full. Unfortunately, the game is very slow at this point, and there is a huge delay between when you input a command and when that command is carried out in the game. Also, the game uses a stamina meter like the one in the Dreamcast and PS2 versions of the game. After each punch, the meter will deplete, and your speed will decrease. Since the meter is simply too slow at this point, there's no way to string together combos, as throwing one punch after another is simply impossible. Additionally, the game's AI is way too hard--it would often finish us before we could get a punch in. Hopefully Midway is already hard at work addressing these issues, and there's a good chance that all the gameplay quirks will be ironed out before the final game ships.

Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 has a very different look on the Game Boy Advance. The game appears to use polygonal models for the boxers, which move on a static ring with a slightly animated background. The boxers don't animate particularly well--the animation is often choppy and unrealistic and, at this point, makes the game very hard to play. The game's only perspective looks at the ring from a sideways perspective. As the boxers move across the ring, the perspective will actually zoom in and will occasionally rotate to provide a better vantage point on the action. Unfortunately, this rotation effect is extremely poorly done and actually pauses the action for a moment while the camera readjusts itself. The sound of the menus and of Buffer screaming his patented line sound good enough, but the in-game sound effects are a little on the weak side.

At this point, the GBA version of Ready 2 Rumble doesn't really live up to the series' standard. With fairly poor gameplay mechanics, overly powerful AI, and some serious graphical problems, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 is one of the weaker GBA games we've seen. Still, the game has at least two months of development time to address all the issues we found in the early build. We hope that Midway will be able to refine the game before it ships alongside the US launch of the GBA.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dont buy it, July 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Ready 2 Rumble 2 (Video Game)

This games graphics are fantastic but it lacks good gameplay. The gameplay is probably the worst ive ever played on a GBA. This game just doesnt fit in with the other great realeases for GBA. The controls are not responsive and the gameplay is sloppy. But training a boxer is pretty fun, and they have some creative characters. Try renting this game. I got tired of it after the first 20 minutes.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars R2R is Fun, July 18, 2001

By 

"[e-mail]" (Cinncinnati, Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ready 2 Rumble 2 (Video Game)

[....] The game is a bit boring at first but once you learn the combo's and stuff it becomes very very fun. So dont be fooled you'll have a blast!