Ah, the guilty pleasures in life. Finishing a pint of Ben & Jerry’s by yourself. Watching Gia or Tomb Raider for Angelina Jolie’s, um, acting talents. Sleeping in until noon on weekends. No one wants to admit to indulging in guilty plesaures, but love actually doing so…so long as no one else is watching. That’s what makes them a guilty pleasure: we know we love doing them, but would be embarrassed to actually admit to someone that we did them. It’s not something we would offer in answer to the question, “So, what did you do this weekend?” for fear of bitter, laughing, taunting reprisal.

As it turns out, guilty pleasures extend into the video game industry as well. There’s something enticing about unabashedly playing a game with little to no redeeming social value, that you somehow still find entertaining. I’m not talking about games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (which, though gratuitous in parts, actually has decent production values, plot, and gameplay). I’m talking about the games that you pick up from Blockbuster, bring to the counter, and feel all shifty-eyed as you wait for the attendant to ring you up because you both know that you just picked up a terrible game. I’m talking about games like Sexy Beach 2, where you feel odd for actually calling it a game. When it comes to guilty pleasure video games in the mainstream, few games are as fitting as one of Konami’s releases, Rumble Roses.

Where to begin with this game…let’s see…if you were to put a bunch of horny teenagers together to brainstorm a killer game, it might come out a lot like Rumble Roses. How else would you describe a game whose only raison d’être is to get scantily clad virtual vixens to writhe around in various grappling positions? This is not exactly a game you’d feel proud to have played through. When I first started playing it, I was a little mesmerized — this game is really visually pretty. It ought to be, as that’s its selling point. The camera angles, moves, costumes, and, of course, the women all make for a very pretty, shiny package. Plus, they’ve covered pretty much every adolescent fantasy you can think of here: hot teacher, cowgirl, lady cop, dominatrix, hot nurse, and several more. However, after the newness wore off (which took about an hour, I’d say), I was pleasantly surprised to find that the gameplay itself was also both compelling and interesting too.

I haven’t played many wrestling games in my life. In fact, the last wrestling game I’ve played that comes to mind is Pro Wrestling for the NES. (If you haven’t played Star Man, Fighter Hiyabusa, Kin Corn Karn, or The Amazon, you’re missing out on some classics of gaming history.) Hence, though there has been a continuous evolution and production of wrestling titles through the years, I haven’t been paying attention. I could watch scantily clad virtual guys writhing around in various grappling positions, but that’s not usually my idea of a good time.

So, when I say that I find the wrestling controls of this game are actually compelling, I’m not basing it on years and years of research into existing wrestling game mechanics. Yet, that’s the strange thing about this game. The veneer of strangely tantalizing visuals gives way to gameplay that is quite rewarding. The engine behind this game is actually quite good, though probably not on par with the top wrestling games of late. (I hear this is because it’s based around the engine for Smackdown!, but I have no comparison.) The moves seem like they do some damage, and I found myself uttering an “Ohh!” aloud on occasion as one of the characters pulled off a nasty maneuver. (This is ironic, considering how little damage I think actually occurs in real pro wrestling.) Well, maybe not the figure 4 leg lock; that doesn’t look very painful in the game. What the hell is that supposed to do? The “killer” and “lethal” moves do look quite devastating. But, what’s with the “humiliation” move? It’s a little weird that you build up “humiliation points” to execute a humiliation move, but what do you expect from an exploitative wrestling game? This is a pretty strange twist, but if you’re buying this game, you’re probably not buying it for the technical wrestling. The gameplay is pretty simplistic overall, so while you may grasp a working familiarity quickly and a pretty full familiarity after a few hours, you won’t find much to get out of gameplay after that.

Despite the interesting gameplay mechanics, what quickly becomes apparent is that the structure of the game is terrible. There’s an exhibition mode, which allows you to wrestle one or two player in a regular bout or title match. There are two sides to each character, one good, one bad. In a regular bout, you can set a series of vows, which basically state whether you’re a face (good person wrestler) or heel (bad person wrestler); as you go one way or the other, you character can switch between these two sides, complete with different moves and outfits. Hence, while there are only ten wrestlers in this game, it feels more like twenty. As something that could only arguably be considered a bonus, if you win a title match in exhibition mode, you unlock “gallery mode” for whatever lucky lady managed to snag the crown. This is basically where you see this virtual woman bouncing around in warmup routines in a locker room, while you can change camera angles. Creepy.

There’s also a laughably bad story mode. If you’ve done one story line for a character, you’re going to find the remainder quite familiar to the point of redundant redundancy. The same matches, same locales, same final bosses will make each succeeding character’s story mode you attempt even less interesting than the previous. Plus, there are the terrible plot lines, bad dialogue, and absolutely horrid voice acting with which to contend, which makes the game painful to suffer through after a few hours. At some point while playing through story mode, you’re going to say to yourself, “I am so *sick* of watching these ladies wrestle in mud.” Think about that for a moment.

It’s the structure that really annoyed me about this game in the end. They got in the hook with the pretty, polished visuals. They kept my attention with interesting gameplay mechanics. They lost me on longevity, though, because after a point, there was no real reason to keep playing this game. It’s just the same thing, over and over, with no real sense of completion. There was very little reason for me to want to finish off story mode, or to unlock all the (ugh) gallery modes.

So, that’s how I spent my weekend: indulging in a rather ephemeral, pointless video game. I didn’t better myself, help others, or otherwise contribute to the greater good. I don’t regret the waste of a weekend, but I’m obviously not proud of it either. When asked, “You’ve spent a weekend playing that game. Haven’t you had enough of it?” I might reply, “No, not yet.” For though I don’t think I’d find it interesting to keep playing the game repeatedly, I could see myself playing it again at some point…but I’d feel guilty about it. That’s the point, I think. Now if I just had a pint of Ben & Jerry’s to go with it.

Rumble Roses at GameFAQs
Gamespot Review
Rumble Roses Official Site